Has anyone ever used copper tape in place of small gauge wire when wiring buildings? I have some micro strip led I plan on using to light the inside of my deisel shop and I tried wire and didn't like the look. any words of advice on the use of copper tape?
I have used some that was coated so it wasn't prone to shorting, but that said, I've also used N scale track.Dan
I prefer stiff brass wire that I can thread through the trusses of larger buildings, such as a diesel shop. The benefit to me is that I can wrap the fine wire and it easily stays in place and then I can solder it all at once. The copper tape requires more fussing and you have to hold the wire in place until the solder cools.
Since this photo was taken I have replaced the GOW lamps with LEDs and cleaned up the wiring a little but I kept the two brass "busses" running through the trusses. You can see them to the left and right where the black wires are soldered. I made the roof of this building removable so I can access the lighting and the interior easily.
In several other buildings I have used the peel-n-stick LED strips that you can cut to length. I usually provide a strip of styrene to attach these to.
Have Fun! Ed
V. nice interior shot.
Ed
Doll house makers use it all the time. Comes with a self stick backing.
There was a company that advertised it for model railroad use in ads in MR in the 80's. They showed is used for everything from structure lights to powering the track (yeah, I wouldn't do that, unless it's VERY wide copper strips).
In a roundhouse, you are likely to have air, water, and maybe steam pipes running across the trusses to each stall. If you make those out of brass wire - there's your power for the lights. Since they would run down to near floor level at each stall, pick one and extend it below the floor as the attachment source for the power.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I used adhesive-backed copper "tape" to run wire down a Campbell pier to a fishing platform. The copper was underneath the dock zig-zagging up and down around the bents and stringers. Once painted it could not be seen (even 90-degree bends at corners) because it's so thin. I used 1/4"W. Also use this to run many lights under the roof of a passenger "butterfly" platform because it's so easy to solder lots of wires to - anywhere along the length. At the end I ran it down one of the support posts and underneath the base (to a real wire).
Terry
I used some of the copper tape used in stained glass assembly (Hobby Lobby) but I soldered the wires to it first and then put it in the plastic building. This type of tape is made to be soldered so it works very well but I haven't tried to solder to it when mounted to a plastic structure or loco shell. I originally was going to use it to carry current inside a diesel shell since it is so thin it would run along the inside wall and not interfere with clearances, but should be painted over.
-Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
If you are using LEDs you can use conductive paint pens. It's available in automotive stores on the cheap. (Used to fix rear window defrosters that get scratched)
http://www.all-spec.com/products/CW2000.html?gclid=CPiD0_KJgsgCFYKQHwod8iMJWw
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
As others have said, I find copper tape to be a great thing. I use it all the time in by scratch build projects, especially because I work in Z it eliminates clutter inside the structures
In my world, I find it particularly useful for doing interior lighting with SMD LEDs and ends up being much faster to solder. As the picture shows one application type, I've creating lighting in series (4 LEDs in each series, running off 12V supply) to the underside of the walkways and roof over all the doorways of a motel I built. I've also used the tape in the same fashion inside the building to show interior lighting of some rooms. I am not a particular fan of the whole one interior light for a whole building for realism purposes, so this is a handle less hasslesome way of doing that. Wish I could show more pictures, but it appears my imageshack account has expired.
Now, these are really small SMDs, i think I used 0603's in that model, about the size of one piece of unrefined sugar (good thing they are so cheap, just pennies a piece when bught in bulk because they can flip out of the tweezes sometimes, lol).
So what i did here was use 1/4" copper tape, lay my strips, then cut with ruler and sharp knife, the center channel so now I have both +/- feeds or one continuous strip in a loop for doing LED in series. Then I carefully cut slits where my LEDs will go, about 1mm, dab some liquid flux on either side, tin the sides and then with tweezers, bring the LED to the solder points and heat the solder so it flows around each solder pad of the LED (pretinned of course) and the LED just drops nicely into place. Mind you in the beginning when I was learning, I probably roasted 10-20 LEDS because they are so small you only need to touch with the iron literally for one second. Manuals state 3 seconds to solder, but maybe thats on lower temps.
Copper tape is also great as someone else mentioned as its hard to dectect with eye once painted over, and it easily conforms to contours. 90 degree bends too, just joining each piece with a small blob of solder.
I plan to use it almost exclusively under my layout for all my buildings. Its just a 4x4 layout appx, but copper tape (off the top of my head) is around 5amp or more capacity so current limits not an issue there.
I'm currently going back to some of my earlier projects which predate my discovery of copper tape and adding things like light bars to go above store signs.
Anyways, hope this helps!