I’ve continued on my illumination kick for another week. I just scratch-built my first wooden light poles (pictured below) using Miniatronics 1.5V-30mA, 1.2mm OD bulbs, HO lampshades, and brass tubing. Both are being used to light up the diesel fueling facility on my servicing track:
(Click to enlarge)
In the past two weeks I’ve (gone nuts and) added interior lighting to both my interlocking towers, small depot (see pic in signature), and grocery store, and now have added exterior lighting to my layout. It’s been fun to learn about and experiment with wiring and electricity. All in all, I’m generally pleased with the results.
For anyone interested, I hope to be able to post a tutorial about building the light poles at some point - whenever I can put it together in a logical sequence.
Tom - I am working on lights as well. No pics at this point but might have some tomorrow. I bought 500 LEDS last month. 3mm and 5mm Bright White so I am using them on all my exterior and interior lighting needs. I also used brass for the pole and soldered one leg of the LED to the pole and the other down thru the rod. It looks like I used the same brass hood as you did. I had to cut the tip of it off and make a hole just large enough to slide over the LED body. I just ordered 30 more of the brass hoods. Walthers has them on sale.
Your pics are great. The little fellas sure are putting out some light. I’ll try to get some pics up today.
Terry [8D]
OK Tom - Heres some pics of my first Light pole attempt. Not as pretty as yours. Next time I will use less solder on the pole. But over all I think it will work fine. And the price certainly is right compared to the 12.00 - 25.00 to buy store bought ones.
I used 3mm LEDs a little big but like I said I have a butt-load of them. I am in the process of weathering , installing lighting and adding detail to my Machine shop. I have a strip of four Flat top LEDs for interior lighting. They have almost a 360 deg illumination pattern. I alternated two white and two amber LEDs the overall effect is a warmer light. I will post pics when I get it together and juiced up.
Terry
[8D]
Matt - Great video. I would love to have an outdoor layout although I know nothing about outdoor layouts. What scale is that? It doesn’t look big enough for G?
Terry[8D]
Those LED light poles are really good. Time to get off the PC and do some real MRR work! Maybe, I will have something to share by the end of the weekend.
Yea, they are a little big but I like 'em. [:)][tup] Have you had a chance to fire them up yet? FYI: They also make LEDs that are smaller than 3mm. I don’t know right off hand what the choices you have though in colors.
In reality, the lights on my layout are not burning as bright as the second picture implies. Since they are only rated at 1000 hours, I have have them adjusted lower with my power pack. The actual output intensity is probably closer to the third picture than the second.
Simon - Scale wise the 3mm LED is a little big but it throws out a nice neat cone of ight. The pics don’t show it but there is a 5mm LED with a washer on it at the top of the Bldg. It looks huge and scales out to the “bulb from Hell” so I think I will replace it with the less obnoxious 3mm LED. the new flat top 5m LEDs are nice as they have almost a 360 deg pattern makin them good for interior lighting. Hopefully my next one will be a little neater looking like Toms.
Terry
Tom - I have some 1.5 and 2mm LEDs. I don’t know because I haven’t used them yet but I think due to the small size and narow light beam they may not work as good at Illuminating. I saw a video in the DVD Kalmbach sent out of a layout that was designed to run with the overhead lights off. basically night time running. that has stuck in my mind since seeing it. I envision in my new layout blue lights on the ceilling and enought stucture/pole lighting to be able to run with overhead white lights off. so that is what i am aiming at. By using the 3mm LEDs I think I will get enough secondary lighting to make it possible . If you have seen my Video of the bright lite Loco. I put 5mm white LEDs in all my locos for the same reason. Maybe I will try to wire up one of the 2mm LEDs to see what kind of light pattern I get.
Terry[8D]
Jon - Those are great pics. You have a very nice layout.
Dave - If you notice in my pics of the light pole one of the LED leads is actually soldered to the brass pole. I use the brass rod as one of the wires. That way I only have to run one wire down the tube. I have another wire soldered to the brass pole beneath the layout. Thats wire number one. The other wire is actually a 26 g wire soldered to the upper lead of the LED and it runs down thru the brass tube out the bottom giving you wire number two. It is the same with the ovr the door light. Those brackets are the leads from the LED. I can’t take credit for the idea I got it from www.2guyzandsumtrains.com/2g/howto/led/led1.html
I added the brass light reflectors for added realism. The brass shades are on sale at walthers. You can pick up 10 for 3.98. Pt # 475-7211010. You have to enlarge the hole to fit around the 3mm LED. It took me about three minutes of work to do each shade. It really makes a difference I think. If you go with incandesent lights like Tom then you probably don’ t have to modify the shade at all?
Bx Mike - Wow that yellow one looks awesomely nasty[:D] Great job. I ended up gettting six of the 55 chevys all of different colors. They don’t have many 50’s cars.
Never thought to weather them up. That looks great on the layout. DId you use chalk or paint?
Terry[8D]
Scubaterry, I just used craft paints and dullcote on yellow one and jacked the rear on other to look like hotrod, I model late 60’s, so I saw lots of both.
