I’m looking install lighting in several buildings, that would be hooked up to the power for the layout. What would you suggest I look at purchasing? My club runs DCC, What would be better… LEDs or bulbs?
Are these for your home layout or a club layout? Either way, you should choose a standard for structure lighting across the layout and stick with it. For example, I have 12 volt DC bus lines running around the the layout, with separate buses for structures and streetlight power. I have some Miniatronics signs which also run on 12 volts. Miller Engineering animated signs run on 4.5 volts, but with a 220 ohm resister in series, I can hook them up to my 12 volt line as well.
I model the Transition Era and I prefer the warm yellow glow of incandescents to the brighter white of LEDs. Yes, say I’m old fashioned and over-the-hill, but I really prefer them. I use 16 volt bulbs and run them at 12 volts, so they are not full brightness, they have more of a yellow color, and they last a lot longer. Likewise, my Walthers Cornerstone streetlamps are 16 volt incandescents and I run those at 12 volts, too.
I have incandescent bulbs on the majority of my layout, if I was starting over I would go with LEDs. I have about 200 Grain of Wheat bulbs that require a high current power supply, my load is almost 10 amps at 9½ volts. 200 LEDs would draw about 2½ amps operating from a 5 volt supply using resistors to drop the LED current to about 10ma per LED.
I went with GOW bulbs in the 70s on my second layout (1970s) and rather than convert my buildings to LEDs I stuck with GOWs when I started my current layout (1990).
EDIT:
I agree with Mr Beasley, I still prefer the GOW bulbs for the same reasons. I went with 12 volt bulbs and run them at 9½ volts for the same reasons as Mr Beasley runs his at reduced voltage, they look more realistic than LEDs but there’s the high current thing always looking over my shoulder too.
Hi Jimmy:
Bulbs look better. LEDs last longer.
I’m primarily an LED user but getting the right tone of white can be a challenge. I have a couple of older structures where I used 1.2 mm, 1.5 volt bulbs and I am very pleased with the colour running them at about 1.2 volts. They were done before current 0603 and 0402 SMD LEDs were commonly available. Here is one:
I think the glow is perfect but I do not look forward to the eventual need to replace the 1.5 v bulbs.
Decent warm white LEDs are available but they don’t quite have the warm yellow tones of incandescent bulbs. However, that really doesn’t matter a lot unless you are staring straight into them. The light that they cast is perfectly acceptable. If you are doing interior lighting where the LED won’t be viewed directly I think using LEDs is a no brainer. If the LED will be seen directly you can tint the colour with products like Tamiya’s Clear Orange and Clear Yellow. You can also use warmer interior colours so that the reflected light is softer.
Power consumption has already been discussed but I will reinforce the point. LEDs with proper resistors draw a lot less power. The 1.2 mm bulbs draw about 15 milliamps whereas an LED with a 1000 ohm resistor at 12 volts will draw only 9 or 10 ma. However a 1.8mm or larger bulb will draw somewhere between 25 and 40 ma. That difference adds up a lot when you start talking about layouts with several hundred individual lights.
To save costs, I would definitely recommend soldering your own leads and resistors vs buying them pre-wired. The pre-wired LEDs are great for individual situations like when you are making your own goose neck exterior lights. Soldering leads to an 0402 LED is tedious. For 3mm (and even 0603 LEDs with practise) wiring your own is cheap. Not too long ago I bought 500 warm white 3mm LEDs (with decent colour by the way) fo
Jimmy,
For general interior building lighting (especially BIG structures like a roundhouse!) I’d suggest the LED strip lights that you can cut to length and are already grouped and resistored to accept a 12v DC supply,
previously discussed here:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/225078.aspx
For outside lighting you can buy any number of appropriate LED fixtures from one of the ebay sellers. I’ve had good luck with wehonest and they recently added a neat looking green reflector lamp that looks good:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/152025081738?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Have Fun!
Ed
Ed and Jimmy:
The Chinese sellers are certainly offering improved and more realistic lighting than they were a year or two ago.
I hadn’t seen the goose neck wall lights before. Thanks for pointing them out Ed. They are a bit large for some installations but they would look good over loading docks and industrial yards etc. I am disappointed that the shade is not parallel to the ground like they would be for general illumination. Certainly for billboard lighting they would look fine. I think I’ll buy a set to see if they can be adjusted.
Dave
Hi, Dave
I agree that the chinese sellers are a bit of a gamble but for the most part you can get something useful for only a little (comparitive) investment.
I watch for new listings and when the green shade lamps came up I was immediately interested after shelling out $38. for the kit from ngineering which was a waste of money since those parts are SO small I’m not going to even attempt assembly.
I recently bought some brass shades, the former Campbell ones, brass tubing, SMD leds and magnet wire but they sit waiting for me to get in the mood to assemble them.
I bought several lots of the green shade fixtures from Wehonest and when they arrive I’ll report back on their looks and functionality. I agree with you on the angle, they look like they are angled for illuminating signs.
I’m hoping I’ll be able to slightly bend the neck, maybe with Kadee trip pin pliers?
They may be large but they’re a LOT smaller than the Walthers ones [:|]
Ed
Hi Ed
I just ordered some too, and I also want to see if I can re-shape the neck to get a more prototypical area light. We’ll have to compare notes.
Dave
LEDs are tje way to do. The teeny surface mount ones can truly fit in an HO scale lampshade, unlike even the smalles bulbs. Get the proper color, and use a large enough resistors (you may have to experiment) and they can look every bit as good as a bulb. The 1K resistor usually recommended for a DCC headlight is pretty much right out the window with the small LEDs, especially when they are in direct view - the LED won;t blow up, it’s still a perfectly safe current level (assuming a 12V power supply), but the LED will be way too bright. 4.7K may not be too much (yes, nearly 5x as much).
–Randy
I’m currently adding a residential street scene to my layout, using a group of City Classics “Company Houses.” The kits are all identical, but I’ve done some bashing to make each building a bit unique. Inside, I installed basic floors and walls so that I could have lit and unlit rooms. I also lined the lit rooms with cardstock, cut to shape, to eliminate glow-through from the bulbs. The interior bulbs are ceiling-mounted for a more realistic light distribution, and to keep the viewer from directly seeing the bulbs.
I used LEDs for the porch lights. You can clearly see the difference between those and the incandescent lights inside.
Gaaa! Those LEDs are bright. I had to use a 10K resistor to get the level I wanted, and they still may be too much. Yes, ten K.
I find it hard to use LEDs for lighting (especially to any direct viewable bulbs) because the incandescent bulbs look so much more realistic. I like them so much I’ve had a pack of a hundred 2.5mm 12 volt 40ma bulbs sitting in the Chicago USPS Sorting Center since March 17th , today being March 29th .
The smaller 12 volt 40ma bulbs are difficult to find, I probably should have ordered two packages. Lets see now, a 12 volt 40ma bulb draws 30ma at 9½ volts. That’s .030 x 100 = another 3 amps added to my 9½ volt power supply . . . . but to me it’s worth it.
I’m also using more and more LED lighting where I can’t tell the difference. I recently cutover to LEDs in my passenger cars for power conservation, with the cars moving I can’t tell they are LEDs. I have switched to LED headlights in my locomotives, warm white for steam and bright white for diesel. The SP used the older screw in bulbs in their steam and much brighter bulbs in their diesels.
Those look like cool white instead of warm white, thus the major color difference. You can dake it out with orange tamaiya paint. Also, while most people would always want the high efficiency or high brightness LEDs - for model lighting we do NOT want those kind of LEDs.
–Randy
Dave, and anyone else interested…
My package from Wehonest arrived yesterday with the 25 gooseneck lamps enclosed.
Overall, they are a good value at around $1. US/ea. but, as you might expect, they require a bit of clean-up and tweaking.
They CAN be gently formed into more of a perpendicular angle but the paint will chip which is not really an issue since the paint should be touched-up anyway.
Right out of the package you can see that these lamps need a bit of TLC to clean them up. A few needed a swipe of mineral spirits to clean the paint off the LED.
I plan to add a dab of canopy cement under the SMD to better align it and hold it in place.
Above is the first one that I tried to re-shape using Kadee trip pin pliers. This kinks the brass tube! The better way, I found, is to grip the U part of the tube in the nylon jaws of a Panavice then gently bend the wall end of the tube by hand.
Here’s a size comparison to the Walthers product. again, with a bit of adjusting and clean up these lamps are not too bad for the comparitive cost.
Regards, Ed
Ed:
I’m glad you like them. Personally I’m a little disappointed by the size. I was hoping for something much smaller. I have a number of the Walthers ones which I think would look great on an O scale layout but ridiculous on HO, IMHO. As your picture shows, these are almost as big.
I’ll send Wehonest an e-mail after I get my order and confirm my feelings on the size. I’ll ask them if they can make a smaller version. I will also do a search to see if they are doing something similar in N scale. EDIT: I found nothing similar in N scale on eBay.
Guess I’m going to have to get out my Ngineering lamp kits.
Dave
Hmm, those don;t look too bad for the price, especially with no hanging down light bulb. If you wanted a bit of a housing on top of the canopy, it shouldn;t be too had to form that with some putty or modeling clay and then painting the whole thing. But yeah, they are still too big. A bit nicer than the Walthjers ones, but at just over 2 scale feet diameter in HO - yeah, those are O scale lights. Not sure how you’d make a true HO scale version that works - maybe use an SMD LED with magnet wire leads, and actually form the leads into the gooseneck by coating them with some sort of cement or epoxy. You would probably need some sort of mold to hold it in and then inject the epoxy (or even low-temp metal, as long as it wasn’t too hot that it would melt the enamel from the wire).
Hmm, maybe if I was trying to build a contest winning model. I think for practical consideration I would have to pick those or the Walthers ones. I am not confident I could actually manage one of those Ngineering kits - the parts in there are even smaller than the park bench wood kit I put together, which I did manage with tweezers and a magnifier. For me anyway, the slightly oversized lights aren;t too horrible, as long as they are kept away from figures for a size reference. Makes me curious to see what’s on some of the buildings on the club layout, since many are lit up. I know there are SMD LEDs in them, but I don’t know where the fixtures themselves came from or if they are out of scale like the Walthers ones - if they are it’s not horribly noticeable.
–Randy
I have the very same kind of light strips as in the picture above. I am working on my first installation. I cut off an 8 light strip and wired it just like in the picture. The last two lights in the strip failed to turn on when I did my first test. I thought maybe they were defective so I cut another 8 light strip and the same thing happened. I can probably get by with just a 6 light strip, but I’m curious as to why only 6 of the 8 lights came on. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Yes, if you look at the traces you can see where you are supposed to cut it apart. Every 3 LEDs. Each set of 3 is wired in series, with a single limiting resistor per three. You can trace the lines, I can even see them in your picture. You have to use them in groups of 3 LEDs.
–Randy
I just noticed that Woodland Scenics is getting in the fray with their “Just Plug” system.
No real improvement here, and no reliable mounting stem, either! And they seem to have the same angle for shining the light onto the wall (sign) rather than down to the ground.
I have no way to compare size of the WS lamps and at $6. ea. I’m in no hurry to get my credit card out anytime soon.
Actually, I have a few bags of the old Campbell brass shades that I was trying to make wall lamps using grain-of-rice lamps a few years ago. Maybe I’ll revisit that project with SMDs and magnet wire.
Sorry to hijack your thread, Jimmy [:O]
Ed
So bottom line is I can do 6 or 9 but not 8.
Yes. Multiples of 3. Or you can cut out a single LED and use your own resistor. Have to find the specs on the LEDs to figure out what resistor you would need for a given voltage. Groups of 3, they are already set up to operate on 12V DC. Those lines across the strip which probably have a little scissor icon are where you cut to maintain proper grouping.
–Randy