What is best? I have an 11’ by 17’ island layout. LEDs? Halogen? Fluorescent? Incandescent? What Wattage? What color?
You say you have an 11’x17’ island. Is it a solid island with removeable access holes or does it have an open center for access? If it is the latter, how wide is the actual benchwork?
Some folks are experimenting with LED’s and hopefully they will chime in. My experience with halogens, they are much too hot. If you want to spotlight a scene, track lighting would limit your number if incondescents, though I have seen article where they are trying compact fluorescent and seem happy. Tube fluorescents are cool and I have seen recommendations for both specific bulbs and some for mixing types of bulbs to get the most natural light. I think some of that depends on other available light (windows), layout colors (primarily desert SW or green trees) room color and personal taste. 4’ fixtures can be spaced a little. As for wattage, some will depend on color of light used and the color of the surrounding room.
When placing your lighting, try to place it so that your foreground scenery and passing trains don’t cast a shadow on your backdrop. I have seen a couple of videos where the train casts a shadow on the sky behind it, so I plan to keep mine pretty much over the center of the shelf.
Good luck,
Richard
It is solid. There are no holes. It is Canadian Rockies, so wooded and hilly. The room itself is 80s style wood panels. There are three windows on one side of the room. I don’t have a backdrop as off right now and the layout isn’t up against any walls.
That’s like saying: “I have a two car garage, what car should I buy?”
The type of lighting you use is up to you. Each type has pluses and minuses. And different lighting makes everything appear/look differently. Your own eyes interpret colors from different lighting differently than every one else’s eyes do.
Best thing is to experiment first and see what YOU like. Don’t take for gospel what others tell you is ‘best’.
The color of your ceiling and backdrop will also influence the way things appear under different lighting types and conditions. Your scenery itself will have an influence (i.e. lots of green for forests or white for snow or browns/tans/greys for rocks).
If you can try to be flexible and use fixtures that can take incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. You may find a mix of the two work.
Do you want light that can be dimmed to simulate twilight/dawn/dusk?
Will the lights be hooked up to a programmable dimmer and a fast clock?
How much power do you have available to your layout room? Have you provided for extra breakers on your main circuit breaker box for the lighting? A 20A breaker can handle up to 2400W (but to be safe you may want to only use 80% or 1900W) That would be 19 100W incandescent bulbs or 31 60W incandescent bulbs. You can get more by going with CFL’s…but not everyone likes the light they give off.
Lights are rated in degrees K as for their color. You may want to research this link regarding the color temperature of different lights. See what suits you.
You’re going to get a lot of answers, all over the place on your question. Perhaps you may want to come back and revisit when you can more closely define what you’re
I like fluorescents with Full Spectrum bulbs (5500-6000K). Mine are 48" twins, 30" above the layout. The best thing is they are about $5.00 a twin pack from HD, Lowes etc. They do not fade the layout and really make the whites stay white in photos
ratled
Alright. Thank you. You shed some light on this for me (no pun intended).[8D]
I offer a repeat of my comments on a recent thread about lighting:
"As noted by others, there are a number of variables to consider. But for what it’s worth, let me describe what I have recently done in preparation for my layout.
My ceiling is 9’ high, 5’ above the planned layout height of 4’. The room wall and ceiling color (on drywall) is a very, very light off-white; therefore, of high reflectance. In order to facilitate doing detail work, I aimed for about 100 foot-candles on the layout. But I wanted the option for lower light levels at times, requiring either dimming or split-switching. (If you are so inclined, you can find simple guides online to help you calculate how to achieve certain light levels. You can obtain-also online-the lighting characteristics of various light fixtures using various lamps. Manufacturers also can help you by performing calculations if you contact their reps-online or in person-and tell them your requirements.)
To make a long story a little shorter, I found that 2-tube high-output fluorescent fixtures with highly reflective housings would work if they were hung about 3’ above the layout. But split switching the individual fixtures and especially dimming them in addition to providing good-looking housings (I don’t want to have to build a valance or use industrial fixtures) proved very costly.
The solution I chose is comprised of 75W halogen floods in recessed highly-reflective cans (you could do a similar installation with track lighting) spaced 2’ on center and controlled by a dimmer. (Depending on how many lights you have, you might need more than one circuit and more than one dimmer). Calculations indicated that this will produce close to 100 foot-candles on the layout. The lights are installed, and although I have not measured the actual foot-candles, the lighting appears to be more than adequate and quit
nothing against ratled but don’t trust pictures on the web. They often don’t show you what the lighting looks like in person. Cameras and the human eyes see things very differently.
Another factor is CRI (color rendering index) which rates how to close to actual color the lighting produces.
Some full spectrum lights (Philips T-12 fluorescents) have 92% CRI, while their T-8 bulbs have only 86%.
Both are 5000 K bulbs. The T-8s use only 32 watts per 4 foot tube, while the T-12s consume 40 watts.
But the T-8s produce more lumens with the lower wattage, but the fixtures are more expensive. About 2950 lumens vs about 2200.
Doing some actual mockup comparisons with the various possibilities (don’t forget cfls) would probably best answer your question.
Having done this, I’m likely going with 4 ft 5000k 86 CRI single tube T8s. (My eyes can’t see the difference between 86 and 92 percent CRI.)
Chuck
I prefer Floursecent tubes in daylight color. They bring out natural colors, Cover a large area, and are very cheap to run.
Yeah, I have to agree here with Hamltnblue.
Rich
I use daylight CFLs.
Nick