I'm in a similar situation. I'm about to start construction on a large N scale layout in a room that is about 21' x 28' in my basement. When I had the drop ceiling installed we used extra heavy suspension wires on 16" centers to support the 2' x 2' ceiling grid. This was to allow me to attach the lighting assemblies described below.
I would suggest that you check the article by David Barrow in Model Railroad Planning - 2005 on pages 78-79, in which he describes his method of using fluorescent strip lights to create diorama lighting on his latest layout. Using his method, if your drop ceiling has sufficient support it should be able to support the striplight fixtures attached to the 1" x 4"'s with a hardboard valance attached to it. In my case, I plan to attach the lighting assembly to the drop ceiling grid members using either sheet metal screws or bolts. The ceiling tiles can then be cut to clear the ends of the screws or bolts where they come through the steel grid member.
Hope this helps,
Bob
Hmmm, lampshade material sounds interesting anfd maybe even possible. Any idea where I could find out more about that?
Pete
Hi guys,
Thanks a lot for well, just a ton of great feedback here! I need to put all of this together and come up with a new plan. My initial thought is to try and see if I can get dimmable, compact florescents with a high kelvin that will work with an eyeball style fixture.
The availability of the LEDS is interesting but there doesn't seem to be much experience with that yet.
Thanks again.
Just to add a little bit about the valance question,instead of heavy hardboard, have you concidered flame retardent fabric or maybe lampshade material?
bill
Just a comment,
Incandescent lights use about 4 times the wattage for a given lumens over regular florescents. The high efficency tubes are about a factor of 5.
So, for a given lumens you get about 1/4 to 1/5 of the heat by going with florescent.
I have 40 4 foot 40 watt tubes in my garage and if I had the equivilent lumens with incandescent I wouldnt be able to use the mig welder or air compressor with the lights on!!
60YOKID wrote:Joe Fugate uses a valance lighting system with low wattage lamps that you may be able to adapt for your layout using a combination of incandescent and florescents. He has many great and interesting ideas and his forum is well worth reading. Here is the url. http://siskiyou-railfan.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.14
Thanks for the kind words and the plug for my web site. I have been experimenting with dimmable compact florescent lights (CFLs) lately as well ... here's a web site with lots of relatively inexpensive options to chose from, including dimmable.
CFL's have the advantage that they run extremely cool, and their wattage requirements for a given number of lumens of output is a fraction of incandescents. And if you like the warmer light of incandescents (as I do), then shoot for something in the 2700 - 3000 kelvin range and the CFL's become a direct replacement for the incandescents.
Joe Fugate Modeling the 1980s SP Siskiyou Line in southern Oregon
One of our local el-cheapo 99-cent stores has screw-in flourescent bulbs marked as "Daylight" that give off a more natural color, but flourescent bulbs cannot be dimmed so if you use them you'll need to wire them in such a way that multiple light switches can be used to get the amount of illumination you desire, such as having every third bulb on a different circuit through a different light switch.
As others have mentioned, incandescent bulbs are going to give off a lot of heat and require heavy wiring to handle the current draw. Depending on the wattage of the bulbs used, you would need a dedicated circuit of 20 to 30 Amps for your lighting.
Two sites that you might want to explore are http://www.superbrightleds.com and http://www.moreleds.com who both sell super-bright LEDs in various colors.
Just a note on light color.
Cool White produces a blueish tint where as Soft White as a yellowish tint. Soft White is what most incandescent blubs are. Compact florescents are also available is Soft White. Just look carefully before buying.
A 15 watt compact florescent blub is equal to a 60W incandescent. You could setup 2 lighting curcuits. 1 with all compact florescents to supply the main lighting. 1 with all incandescents that is controled by a dimmer switch for night OPs.
Hi,
I have a similar area for my railroad, 22 X 28 in an older house with a finished sheetrock ceiling at about 7' 1".
You may want to consider the heat effect of the 35 incandescent lights very closely. A lot will depend on the wattage of the bulbs.
I have 14 4 foot long 2 bulb florescents above the aisles and about 40 15 watt compact florescents under the upper level for lighting the lower level. That adds up to something like 1720 watts of mostly heat.
My basement is insulated with 1" foam and there is a noticable heat rise when all the lights are going, even in the winter in NE Minnesota. Thats not a problems since I just lower the heat in the rest of the house and essentailly have electric heat (lights) doing most of the heating. I live alone and dont have to care what the upstairs temp is when I'm in the basement (the dog hasnt complained about being cold yet). If I did then it would probably get hot down there eventually unless I opened a window once in a while.
There is only a short hot period here in the summer and I'm not in the basement then so I cant really say much for how it would work in summer. I dont have AC and I suspect it would get kind of hot after a couple of hours.
Phil Keppers
Hello,
I am in the early stages of a layout that will occupy a 22 x 26 foot room in my basement. The room has a drop ceiling (7 foot height) with 2 x 2 tiles.
I had played around with the idea of a valance but really had a preference for a hardboard valance which seems to be a tricky proposition with a drop ceiling.
So.... I'm ready to just forgo the valance at this point and am hoping to knock out the lighting so I can get going on benchwork.
Not wanting to lose any more vertical space in the room to track lighting, I'm thinking that I will go with eyeball style incandescants and had a few questions.
Heat - Are 35+ incandescant bulbs in a room with a 7 foot ceiling and an average temp of 65-70 degrees (less the 35 bulbs being active) going to make for an uncomfortably warm room?
Night Operations - I was hoping to implement Christmas tree / rope lights for night operations but that pretty much went away with the valance. I'm wondering what's still possible and was considering having some additional lights installed that would be given blue bulbs (or something like that). The only caveot with these is that there would have to be whole lot less of them.
So, that's where I'm at. Any suggestions sure would be appreciated.
Thib