Thanks, Rich. Sometimes,when the changes are subtle,GIFs can be very effective. I did one awhile back showing a turnout change from #8 to #10. Looking at two individual photo's,it was hard to tell any difference,but with a GIF,it was obvious how much smoother the diverging route was with the #10.
Walt,I think your pictures,along with Alan's,and Mike Lehman's,do a great job of showing the variety of LED options becoming available. With dimming,color changing,remote control,energy savings(if I had used all incandescent in my lighting,I would have had to do some serious rewiring),I think the next few years(months?) will be interesting.
'Course I still like Mobilmans44's solution,if I can just figure out how to make the living and dining rooms above the layout "retractable"...
Mike
mobilman44 If one really had the bucks, they could do a "removable roof" so that natural sunlight/weather could make their layout truly realistic.
If one really had the bucks, they could do a "removable roof" so that natural sunlight/weather could make their layout truly realistic.
Or just find a room with a skylight.
Rich
Alton Junction
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Cool. I figure on using my existing track lights just to highlight any areas that need a bit more light. Two of the bulbs in my existing track light burned out during the past couple of weeks. To be honest I haven't missed them at all with the LED strips up and working, but will pick up one or two of the LED spots that you recommend to see how they work.
Huntington Junction - Freelance based on the B&O and C&O in coal country before the merger... doing it my way. Now working on phase 3. - Walt
For photos and more: http://www.wkhobbies.com/model-railroad/
middleman Rich,I use a program called GIF Maker,that came bundled with my photo editing software,PhotoImpact (no longer available). It's just a matter of dropping the pictures you want into individual frames,setting the time to change from one to the other,and saving the file as a GIF. It's pretty much idiot proof,as evidenced by my doing it... I'm sure there are many programs to do this,probably quite a few of them free. Mike
Rich,I use a program called GIF Maker,that came bundled with my photo editing software,PhotoImpact (no longer available). It's just a matter of dropping the pictures you want into individual frames,setting the time to change from one to the other,and saving the file as a GIF. It's pretty much idiot proof,as evidenced by my doing it...
I'm sure there are many programs to do this,probably quite a few of them free.
No doubt, it is possible to overuse that kind of special software, but to use it to show the Before and After is very effective. Nice work!
Yes you can,Mike! At about half the wattage of the CFLs
Mike,
Can I assume the brighter looking one is with the new LED bulbs?
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Mike, the big question is, how did you do that, alternate photos?
'Was at Home Depot today,and saw these Philips Brand "Daylight" LED spotlights for about 20 bucks each.At 730 lumens,they have the highest output of any of the 65 watt replacement bulbs I've seen. I bought 4 to check them out. My CFLs are "Daylight",620 to 650 lumens,depending on brand,and use 16.5 watts each. The Philips bulbs,while at least 80 lumens brighter,use 8.5 watts,are much cooler,and make a big difference in the amount of light on the layout. Also dimmable and have a 5 yr. guarantee. I am in no way associated with Philips,but they do have the best bulb that I have seen so far. I'm not ready to spend the 500 plus it would take to change out all the CFLs,but I will replace one occasionally,and as the price comes down,all the fluorescents will eventually be gone.
The 2 pictures in the before/after GIF below were made at the exact same camera settings. I bumped the tripod while I was changing bulbs,so the perspective changes a bit...
Most of the layouts and lighting shown, although is great for the people who have installed them and look good,unfortunately,they would not do much for me. I'm gifted with Glacuoma, so I need a lot of lot in working area's,as Wayne Mentioned. As I was told by my Doctors,at the VA Hospital, 70 and sometimes,before,your eyes,will change, a lot. Also in my case,too much light, like the Sun for instance,is a no no.
Cheer's
Frank
Absolutely no offence taken at all, Walt. My layout lighting was done mostly with used fixtures and cool white tubes, but it works well enough for my needs. If I had the money and time, I might spend more effort trying to improve it, but I still have a partial second level to add to it. I think that those areas may benefit from have the light closer to the layout, but there's also the possibility that the underslung fluorescent fixtures illuminating the lower level may be limited in the area they're able to effectively light.
The fluorescents do generate a lot of heat, but the bulk of that is coming from upper management regarding operating costs - it's difficult for me to comprehend why a charge of about 25 cents per hour (on-peak rates) should cause such a flap. Off-peak rates (usually the middle of the night when I'm actually working on the layout or running trains) are less than 15 cents per hour.
Like many things in our hobby, there are multiple ways to tackle the same issues, with each person choosing that which best suits their situation. I do look forward to seeing more of your layout as it develops.
Wayne
I didn't mean any offense Wayne, just good debate and discussion.
Once this section of my layout is positioned correctly it will be very well lit up- trust me the area is far brighter than it was with the fluorescent tube lights that I removed. The pictures just don't show it- again goes back to camera settings. I just looked over Mike's pics with the various lights on and fixed camera settings. Not going to go that far myself since I already did my series on color. But the bottom line is that photography is tricky. I dabble in it from time to time but I don't expect any of my RR photos to go further than on-line forums either.
To the main point- LED technology is improving by leaps and bounds and rapidly getting cheaper as new innovations are made. The generation of adjustable LED strips just before this new version that I installed had less than 1/2 the power (and luminescence) rating. While it would have been very hard to get enough light down just a year or so ago it is reaching a point where LED lighting is a real option. And given another year or two it may actually become both affordable and preferred compared to alternatives. So worth watching and considering especially for guys like me who are just getting started on a new layout.
By the way what you see is just my phase 1. As it now stands the full plan will take up a 13x14 area and it looks like I will need to triple the lighting to cover it all. But I figure by the time I get to it the cost will be half what it is now.
middleman Rich: I use track lighting,and I'm pretty happy with it. Easy to install,whether the ceiling is finished or not,and easy to move the light where you want it. Currently I use "Daylight" CFL spotlights,but as soon as the LED Daylight bulbs are reasonably priced,I'll swap 'em out. Mike
Rich:
I use track lighting,and I'm pretty happy with it. Easy to install,whether the ceiling is finished or not,and easy to move the light where you want it. Currently I use "Daylight" CFL spotlights,but as soon as the LED Daylight bulbs are reasonably priced,I'll swap 'em out.
I agree with the quantity and quality crowd. In early testing I started with just LEDs. Was able to get the color to look right but my goodness it was going to take a whole lot of LED strips to get the light quantity I wanted. The CFLs by themselves were good on quantity but failed on quality. 6500K CFLs to fix the quality problem are just too darned expensive to be practical. That is how I ended up with both LEDs and CFLs. The CFLs do the heavy lifting for quantity while the LEDs add just enough blue to make the quality good.
Another aspect that bothered me and I don't see it mentioned here yet is uniformity. With an around the walls with backdrop down a peninsula arrangement natural looking single point source shadows aren't practical. So, rather than tolerate unnatural shadows I decided to have no shadows. That meant there had to be a lot of CFLs so I could space them close which I did. With so many sockets it permitted me to use lower wattage bulbs and still maintain light quantity. The LED strips are naturally very uniform so they were no issue.
I really didn't set out to have over 200 CFLs and 3900 LEDs but that is how it ended up being by the time I was satisfied with quantity, quality, and uniformity. My electric meter can dang near sling the numbers off the dial.
Alan
Freelancing the LK&O Railroad
OK, snapped some lighting level comparison pics to the best of my ability. These were all taken at 1/60 exposure at f 4.5. In running them through Photoshop, I did not use any color or brightness correction, so they may look a little odd in color balance or too bright.
Night, blue LED ropes only
LED only, White light strips, plus blue LED ropes Fluorescents and Blue LEDs [the few remaining] Halogen spots and Blue LEDS LEDs plus Halogen spots Flourescents, Halogens and Blue LEDs All on Here, the second image of the white LED light strips (with blue LEDs) is probably underrepresenting the light output more than the previous pics tended to over play it. I suspect the human eye gets better than a 1/60 second exposure speed
LED only, White light strips, plus blue LED ropes
Fluorescents and Blue LEDs
[the few remaining] Halogen spots and Blue LEDS
LEDs plus Halogen spots
Flourescents, Halogens and Blue LEDs All on Here, the second image of the white LED light strips (with blue LEDs) is probably underrepresenting the light output more than the previous pics tended to over play it. I suspect the human eye gets better than a 1/60 second exposure speed
Flourescents, Halogens and Blue LEDs
All on Here, the second image of the white LED light strips (with blue LEDs) is probably underrepresenting the light output more than the previous pics tended to over play it. I suspect the human eye gets better than a 1/60 second exposure speed
All on
Here, the second image of the white LED light strips (with blue LEDs) is probably underrepresenting the light output more than the previous pics tended to over play it. I suspect the human eye gets better than a 1/60 second exposure speed
HObbyguy ..."Correct" lighting looks much more natural.....
I'm certainly not disputing that fact, but I used colour balanced lighting on an earlier layout and found that while the colour was quite natural, there wasn't enough of it. More fixtures would have corrected that problem, but the cost at that time, even for a relatively small layout, was prohibitive.
My current layout is a bit larger, but owing to the odd shape of the room, I would probably need at least one third more fluorescent fixtures, or a conversion to the system which you're using. While your photos illustrate the results quite nicely, I would personally want a much higher level of light, and that's both for working on the layout or for operating it.As for photography, my layout is unlikely to appear in photographs anywhere but in on-line forums such as this, and the current lighting is adequate for that task. Most of what I post is only for illustrative purposes anyway, and none of those illustrations (fortunately) relate directly to layout lighting.
I think eyes vary like ears do, some are more sensitive to certain aspects of either light or sound.
I do know that the camera certainly "lies" about light quantity in the way its settings automatically compensate. I haven't tried a manually set series of pics between the different modes of light I have available and should probably do that just to have a better set of comparison pics. I know all the pics I've done here on auto settings are brighter images than they are to my eye.
As for color quality, the more you know about it, the more sensitive you become to it I suspect. Bright was good enough for me for a long time, but quality has become a bigger piece of the puzzle with each upgrade. I know I wouldn't have been nearly as eager to install these light strips if the light quality wasn't pleasing to me. Fortunately, it is
That's another big reason for my recommendation to check the lighting you have planned before making a big commitment with a large installation. This should include both quantity and quality of light in you have planned
doctorwayne it's been my experience that light quantity is more important than light quality, although if you can improve the quality without decreasing the quantity and at a reasonable cost, by all means do so. Your eyes will adapt to the light quality much more readily than they will to too little light, especially as you grow older, and any digital camera will deal with correcting colour balance, especially for photos posted on-line.
it's been my experience that light quantity is more important than light quality, although if you can improve the quality without decreasing the quantity and at a reasonable cost, by all means do so.
Your eyes will adapt to the light quality much more readily than they will to too little light, especially as you grow older, and any digital camera will deal with correcting colour balance, especially for photos posted on-line.
Hmm, not sure I agree completely.
I agree that light quantity is very important in the real world since our eyes can only compensate so far. But automatic cameras are very good at adjust exposure settings (within limits) so its not obvious how much light is actually available by looking at a photo unless you compare the ISO/Fstop/shutter speeds.
Also agree that our eyes (or brains?) are amazingly good at adjusting for color quality. But now that I am able to change it at will the differences are very apparent. "Correct" lighting looks much more natural. Yes a camera will adjust white balance (again within limits) but you can see how much different my good SLR photos look under the different lighting conditions. And if I shut off the LEDs and go back to the fluorescent and incandescent lighting that I had there is absolutely no comparison.
mlehmanI've seen Alan's system in another thread before. Really impressive, the layout is going to be a humdinger.
That's an understatement! Glad we are not into making MRR a contest
It's been my experience that light quantity is more important than light quality, although if you can improve the quality without decreasing the quantity and at a reasonable cost, by all means do so.
Walt,
That came out well
I've seen Alan's system in another thread before. Really impressive, the layout is going to be a humdinger.
Alan that really looks great- very professional and a great space to work with. My project is much more "hobby" level but I've been watching along and we do share some common ground. I think that we are the only ones posting this year that actually transferred the track plan using full-scale XtrackCad printouts.
I find that the color of white LEDs by themselves highlights blues a bit too much and washes out other shades, but would expect that using a combination with CFLs would give good results- best of both worlds. You will know better once you get working on scenery.
Once I get the layout back against the walls then everything I have built so far should be well lit. I plan to supplement lighting as needed using CFLs in my center track lighting fixture that runs across the center of the room (same setup from Home Depot that you describe Joe). Then "tune" the color of the LED's to get optimum effect. No more incandescent bulbs or fluorescent tubes for me.
richhotrain I have a series of 2-light fluorescent shop light fixtures above my layout in an unfinished basement. Assuming that the basement remains unfinished, any suggestions for replacing these lights with something different, something better, perhaps a more natural light. I am growing tired of the fluorescent look. Rich
I have a series of 2-light fluorescent shop light fixtures above my layout in an unfinished basement.
Assuming that the basement remains unfinished, any suggestions for replacing these lights with something different, something better, perhaps a more natural light.
I am growing tired of the fluorescent look.
When my basement was unfinished I used track lighting. I used this flexible piece that went along the layout which was screwed into the wooden rafters. This piece had contacts that you would slide the lights wherever you wanted them. I can't recall the manufacturer, but I bought it at home depot.
Joe C
CFLs + LEDs work pretty good. I used 6500K LEDs in conjunction with 5000K CFLs. The results look very natural sun-like to me.
Both my upper and lower deck have the same arrangement. The low heat output allowed me to put lighting inside the 3-1/2" upper deck to light the lower deck.
Full details here: http://www.lkorailroad.com/category/layout-lighting/
Walt, those are very nice photos and a great looking layout.
Show us more as you progress.
Work on my layout has taken back seat for the past few weeks while hanging the backdrop and installing new lighting, and I still don't have it pushed back up against the walls. But I do have all the lights installed and now reporting back on results.
This was my solution to the popcorn ceiling- 24 vdc LED strips installed in aluminum channels made for the purpose. The channels weigh very little and clips hold them in place. No problem mounting the clips to the drywall ceiling with the screws that were supplied. The LED strip comes in a "movie reel" and can be cut to length. Low voltage means I don't have 120 vac running all over the place. And even though rated at only 76 watts total they put out plenty of light. I do have a few odd shadows at the top of the sky at the end caused by the drop in the ceiling, but that is probably unavoidable.
The system that I selected is high-end and comes with a little remote to adjust intensity and color temperature. Pretty cool, and fun to play with because I can get different lighting effects- from sunny to cloudy to dusk, etc. just by playing with the remote. All of the pics were taken with my Canon Rebel in program mode (auto white balance) with no flash and no Photoshop color or exposure adjustments.
Here you can see the LED strips mounted in the channels that I cut to length. The center one is angled 45 deg to direct light into the corner. All the spotlights and flourescents are turned off.
Here are various lighting settings.
Looking at it now this is pretty extreme, but it's actually close to what I got with the camera when using regular incandescent bulbs:
This is more reasonable and with the intensity turned way down looks like dusk:
More or less "normal" day:
And full sun:
Not the cheapest option, but very happy with the results. I'll stick with it and add on to the system as I expand the layout.
rrebell,
Yes, the CFLs are an improvement in terms of heat. Not so sure about color temp, but with that many it'll all even out anyway
Still a lot of juice at almost 1200 watts, though. So there's heat in there, just nothing like these blazin' hot halogens I've mostly sent into exile over here. I had three track circuits of those alone
I have just a half dozen track halogens left. Don;t really needed them, they do work well for highlighting things and taking pics as I can locate them for the best light. The rest of the fixtures have been retired
My main layout space where the pics were taken (the Cascade Branch is next door in a separate room) is just a bit smaller, it's 16x28, but the end by the door is only 12' wide. In the great efficiency race, LEDs are definitely worth considering for anyone making a new installation. With 12 light strips overhead, that amounts to 115 watts, so about a tenth of what you're using. Another place where they really shine is upfront cost, which is about $480 retail -- and this is enough to basically light the entire room. Installation is so simple there's no need for professional help. It mainly about hanging them over the best spots.
I have track lighting, no overlap problems and no heat! I use CFL's for the lights and run them every 15". In fact I started out with 23w bulbs (equivilent to 100w) and had to go to 17w (equivilent to 60w) because it was too bright. I have a 30x15 layout and about 70 bulbs on two circuits. I use plug in ends for the track so as not to violate any building codes as if you used standard incandesint bulbs it would trip the circuit instantly. CFL's generate very little heat too.