Does anyone know of a book or a thread that describes options for lighting a layout but does not assume that you are an electrical engineer? My layout is all NMRA standard modules, some of which I take to meets. I would like to light up building interiors, have traffic and street lights, maybe some sound effects, an operating crossing gate, etc. I have no electrical background at all. When I see answers to questions in the forums that start calculating milliamps, etc. my eyes glaze over and I go do a different thread.
I need the very basics covered like how to extend the short little wiring that comes with a building long enough to attach it to a bus. I know that there are different kinds of distribution panels, etc but don't know what to use when. I have DCC and was thinking that I should have a separate buss for the lighting. I have an MRC power pack that I thought I could use as well.
If there is no such book, article or thread, it would be great if we could start one because I know I'm not the only person with these kinds of questions. If anyone wants to give it a shot, that would be great but please keep it at the "for Dummies" level. Thanks.
Tim Fahey
Musconetcong Branch of the Lehigh Valley RR
Good point. I would start by saying that you would be better off adding a completely separate bus or supply for powering your layout accessories and leave the normal track bus for track power only. Adding length to the power feeds for a structure or any other accessory by adding wire and insulating (taping) the joint.
When someone starts talking milliamps and voltage they are talking about the amount of power it takes to make the device work. AC or DC in just the kind of voltage it uses and 12volt or 3volts is the amount of voltage.
Think of voltage as the supply of power (water) and amperage as the size of the hose. If your filling a small bucket, a small hose well work but if your fill a swimming pool it would take all day to fill it up. If you have a larger hose (more voltage) you can fill it faster, now if you have more pressure (higher amps) it goes even faster.
While some will say its over kill, I would further add that you need to find someone local to you that can give you some hands-on type of training or general pointers. I can understand that not everyone has had hands on when it comes to basic wiring and or electronic. Weather it is low voltage AC/DC or high voltage the basics are the same.
Johnnny_reb Once a word is spoken it can not be unspoken!
My Train Page My Photobucket Page My YouTube Channel
Tim,
I know exactly where you are coming from. I'm fairly new to all this, too, and I have had to learn electrical things by reading and trial and error. I've found, unfortunately, that a lot of writers will assume too much, too fast from a novice. While I'm still trying to digest concept "B", they've already jumped past "C", "D", and "E" and are suddenly talking about "F".
Here's a link to a web site started by a forum member a while back:
http://therustyspike.hyperphp.com/BE101/index.html
It's mostly an initial effort but may help you get started.
Also, if you are interested in a tutorial for making some inexpensive exterior light poles, go to the following link:
"How to" make: Inexpensive Exterior Light poles
On the web page there's both a diagram as well as a step-by-step instruction sheet in .jpg format that you can either read online or just copy, paste, and enlarge into a word-processing document.
Hope that helps...
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Johnnny_reb wrote: Think of voltage as the supply of power (water) and amperage as the size of the hose. If your filling a small bucket, a small hose well work but if your fill a swimming pool it would take all day to fill it up. If you have a larger hose (more voltage) you can fill it faster, now if you have more pressure (higher amps) it goes even faster.
I think his eyes just glazed over again. Mine did too..
Jhonny is getting at the "generic" analogy for electricity. Usually the basic electricity terms are related to moving water through a pipe or hose. Though he is a bit mixed up in places.
voltage = water pressure
amps = "flow" (how much you can get in a set amount of time); sometimes explained as the size of the pipe or hose
ohm = no real equivalent in water analogy.
Volts and Amps work together like water pressure moving water out of a hose or a pipe. If you have a 4" pipe (high amps), you can move a lot more water at lower pressure (lower volts) than a small hose (low amps) at the same pressure (voltage).
Ohms are just a measure of how much resistance is in a given circuit - think of high ohms like a clogged pipe (harder to get water through it).
I hope this helps clear things up a bit...
-Dan
Builder of Bowser steam! Railimages Site
NeO6874 is right, but he forgot Watts, which is the total amount of water moved.
I would use a different description of ohms (resistance) like how steep a hill you are trying to move the water up.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Vet wrote: ... like how steep a hill you are trying to move the water up.
... like how steep a hill you are trying to move the water up.
Tim !... TIM !... Are you still with us... I think Tim just left the room.
Thanks for the replies so far. I'm probably not expressing my problem well. On any given module, I'm going to have 15 to 30 "lighting fixtures" of some kind. I know how to set up the buss and connect it from one module to another. I will probably use 12 guage zip wire for this (it may be overkill but that is what I have already for my track buss). I also know how to connect the buss to the power pack. One of my concerns at the moment is how to connect those 15 to 30 lights to the buss. If I had to solder all of those connections individually, I would go nuts. I'm sure that many of you are somehow condensing those sets of feeder wires into fewer connections to the buss through some kind of distribution panel or switch or something. I would love to see some photo examples of how you do that. Also, if you have a panel that has multiple lights connected to it, should the feeder wires from the panel to the buss be a larger guage wire than the individual wires feeding from the bulbs?
One of the great things that I like about this forum, is that there are som many people who are willing to share their knowledge. We all enjoy different phases of the hobby. I hope I'm not coming across as making light of all of you who understand all of this. For me personally, I would rather throw a little money at some type of easy to assemble solution rather than read enough to learn how to build my own circuit boards and power supplies. Thanks again for the responses.
I got the analogy right for once and i didn't even need google!
I'd second Pheobe on the use of terminal strips. I've not used them in a layout, but I have used them in other small time things (science fair, anyone...) and they made disconnecting and reconnecting wires really easy for when I did other "tests" or needed to use a different setup to make something work.
I have a little tip for you when trying to read and understand thoes articles that assume that you know what they are talking about, and you don't. Read the article like a novel. Don't try to digest the meaning of things on the first or second try. Just read it through lightly a couple of times. Read it out loud if you have to. Sometimes that heps me. Then on the third time through, try and see if you can figure out what they are talking about. Sometimes the answers you need first are farther along in the material and when you stop early, you never get there.
And terminal strips are the way to go. There are a couple of different types and all sorts of different sizes.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
The wires coming from the lamps inside structures are usually very small gauge (thin) wires. They're not easy to attach to heavier gauge (thick) wires and the bigger the difference in sizes the harder it is to connect them. Myself, I solder the lamp wires to 2- or 3-position terminal strips screwed to the underside of the plywood and solder the buss wires to the terminal srips. But then, I've been soldering for about 50 years so it doesn't bother me. I realise that many people have an aversion to soldering, and I respect that. So, use terminal strips. You can use barrier terminal strips which have screws in joined pairs with little walls between the pairs to keep the wires from touching. Or you can use what's called "European" terminal strips. They have a horizontal hole to stick the bare end of the wire into and a screw accessed from the top which clamps down on the wire. Those too come in joined pairs. Both have advantages and disadvantages. It will be very hard to find barrier strips that will accomodate #12 wire, and impossible to find European strips for #12 wire. That's overkill and will be hard to work with. I'd go for #16 or even #18 wire for your lighting. When you put the wires under the heads of the screws on barrier strips, make sure to wrap them clockwise or the screw will push the wire out when you tighten it. What I like about the European terminals is that you buy them in strips and you can cut them to whatever length you want with a razor saw and they have mounting holes all the way along the strip. You have to buy the barrier strips in the length you want, i.e. the number of screw pairs you want.
To address the issue of voltage and current, the water analogy is an old one and is probably taught to every electrical student. To keep it very simple, don't worry about what voltage is or what current is. You're just dealing with light bulbs here. Every light bulb is rated to put out its full brightness at a certain voltage. If the voltage is less than the rating, the light output will be reduced and start to turn yellow. That may be an advantage. It also makes the bulb last longer. For instance, I like to operate 12 volt bulbs at 10 volts. The light output is not so intense and the slightly yellowish colour is more realistic from inside a structure. Conversely, operate a bulb at greater than its rated voltage and it's life will be reduced and it might even go poof! on you. Most small lamps are rated at 12 volts and many model railroad lamps are rated at 16 volts because that's what the auxiliary terminals on a power pack put out. The tiniest little lamps are rated at 1.5 volts and you'd better not go over that! Just find out what voltage your bulbs are designed to operate at, and that's the voltage you need from your power supply. If you've got bulbs requiring different voltages, i.e. 12 volt bulbs and 16 volt bulbs, then just get two power supplies, one for 12 volts and one for 16 volts.
As for current, think of it as how much load the lamps are putting on your power supply. Every power supply has a maximum number of amps or milliamps (1/1000 of an amp) that it can deliver before it breaks down and starts smoking (bad for its health!). Just find out how many milliamps each bulb consumes and add them all up. That's how much current your power supply needs to be able to deliver. To be safe, never ask a power supply to deliver more than 80% of its rated load, i.e. if the power supply is rated for one amp, don't put more than an 800 milliamp load on it.
You should really split up your lighting loads among several power supplies. Yes, you can get power supplies designed for communications equipment which can deliver 12 volts (usually 13.5 volts to match a vehicle's voltage) at currents high enough to moonlight as a welding machine, but that's asking for trouble if you ever get a short circuit. I would keep the current requirements on each power supply at around 1 amp or so. Where to get power supplies? Well, you can use "wall warts." That's those little blocks you plug into the wall to power appliances or re-charge your cell phone batteries. Radio Shack sells a good assortment of them having various voltages and currents up to 1.5 amps. You can also get them from any electronics supplier. Plug them into a switched power bar so that you can turn them all off with one switch. Oh, one last thing. Incandescent bulbs could care less if their electricity is alternating current (A.C.) or direct current (D.C.).
I hope this has helped you in some way.
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
Bob,
Your response is about as close to Lighting for Dummies as I've seen. Thanks. I have two questions. Are you saying that with a terminal strip, I can feed in say 6 pairs of wires from 6 lights and have just two output feeders going to the power buss? If yes, I'm thinking that I could use your recommendation with 16 or 18 guage feeder wires. I solder my track connections, so it is not soldering itself that makes me nervous but on my track buss I use 18 guage feeders and used suitcase clamps to attach them to the 12 guage buss. This has worked fine so far. My second question is...do you have a photo or two of a terminal strip in use that you could share with us? Finally, Phoebe Vet, yes I'm still awake and paying attention.
I didn't say that, upnorth said that. He just included a quote from my post in it.
First off, for building and outdoor lighting (street lights, station platform lamps, parking lot and alley illumination) think of a table lamp. The ordinary table lamp has a lamp (technical name for a light bulb,) a switch and some wire to connect the two and connect both to electrical power. Likewise, a typical fixed light source on a layout will have a lamp (or several,) a switch and wires connecting the two and connecting both to a power source. The power source must be appropriate for the lamp(s) - 120VAC house current for the table lamp, some much lower voltage for model lighting.
About the power source: I would NOT power fixed lights from a DCC bus for several reasons:
My personal approach is to power the fixed lights in each town from a separate source - a small, cheap source (yard sale toy train transformer, obsolete wall wart, etc...) The 120V plugs all go to a single power strip with a circuit breaker. That power strip, in turn, plugs into a strip that powers the entire layout - and is switched OFF when the layout is not in operation. Each light circuit on the low voltage side of the local power supply has a switch, so all the lights in town don't come on or go off at once.
"Stretching" wires is done most easily by splicing them to longer wires - and then wrapping the soldered joints with vinyl electrical tape to insulate them against shorts. It is also a good idea to label the wire ends to identify what they connect to.
I'll admit that I've barely scratched the surface of a very large subject. I hope that this has been more helpful than confusing.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
A very good book that covers many of the topics you mention is
"A Beginners Guide to Creative Effects for your Model Railroad." Do a Google and a couple of retailers will pop up.
It's a little pricey, but it goes from very simple projects and subjects, covers basics, and moves on to more complicated things. I highly recommend it.
I've used a lot of terminal strips in the past, but I dislike the fiddling needed to add/change wires. It seems like one wire will always manage to slip out when you're trying to tighten the screw.
I'm actually thinking about designing a simple distribution board that uses the "european" type connectors that clamp down on wires via a small screw on top. I use them on my other electronic boards and they are a bit easier to use.
Phoebe vet: [masked explicative removed] nice wiring, dude. But waaaay too organized ...
Mike Tennent
Nice and organized, the way to make trouble shooting less of a pain.
CofGaMike wrote: Phoebe vet: d*mn nice wiring, dude. But waaaay too organized ... Mike Tennent
Phoebe vet: d*mn nice wiring, dude. But waaaay too organized ...
While it is more obvious in the image posted by upnorth, notice that the boards are hinged so that they can be swung down when you need to work on the wiring.
My board is so large because the DS-64s and BDL-168 will be added in a couple of months.
Hang on I'll be right back, "runs to the store to buy a tape recorder and a video camera". Ok I'm ready. Lights, camera, action.
UpNorth wrote: CofGaMike wrote: Phoebe vet: [masked explicative removed] nice wiring, dude. But waaaay too organized ... Mike TennentNice and organized, the way to make trouble shooting less of a pain.
CofGaMike wrote: Phoebe vet: [masked explicative removed] nice wiring, dude. But waaaay too organized ... Mike Tennent
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
tcf511 wrote: Bob,Your response is about as close to Lighting for Dummies as I've seen. Thanks. I have two questions. Are you saying that with a terminal strip, I can feed in say 6 pairs of wires from 6 lights and have just two output feeders going to the power buss? If yes, I'm thinking that I could use your recommendation with 16 or 18 guage feeder wires. I solder my track connections, so it is not soldering itself that makes me nervous but on my track buss I use 18 guage feeders and used suitcase clamps to attach them to the 12 guage buss. This has worked fine so far. My second question is...do you have a photo or two of a terminal strip in use that you could share with us? Finally, Phoebe Vet, yes I'm still awake and paying attention.
Looks like Phoebe Vet beat me to it with his photo in his post on Sunday at 8:56 pm. He's got both barrier strips and European strips in the photo. Pretty close to what I would have posted, so check out his photo.
As for multiple connections to a terminal strip, yes. This works best with barrier strips. Look at the photo of Phoebe Vet's barrier strips (the black ones top right). You've got joined pairs of screws with the screw on the left joined to the one on the right (if the strip is vertical). What you do is attach all your bulb wires to one side, lets say the left. Let's say you've got 5 bulbs. Attach one wire from each of the bulbs to the first 5 screws on the left. Attach the other wires from the bulbs to the other 5 screws on the left. So you've got one side of each bulb attached to the first 5 screws and the other side of each bulb attached to the second five screws. Now, take a piece of bare solid wire and secure it under the top screw on the right. Bend it into a U-shape so that it will go around the barrier and bend it into another U-shape sho that it will go under the second screw. Tighten the second screw. Do the same for the third, fourth and fifth screw. Cut off the excess wire. Now, do the same thing all over again, starting at the sixth screw and going to the tenth screw. Attach one of your feeder wires to the first screw and the other feeder wire to the tenth screw (actually, you can attach the feeder wires to any screw in the group). Now you've got one pair of feeder or supply wires powering 5 lamps. You can always put two lamp wires under one screw if you've got more lamps than your terminal strips have screws.
Hope that answers your question. If you've got more, ask away. And thanx for the compliment.
I think I get what you mean. At the risk of making my own eyes glaze over, is that 5 parallel connections on the left and more or less connecting them in series on the right in order to just have two feeds? It seems to me I've seen a commercial version of what you are describing somewhere, maybe Radio Shack. In the setup that you describe, if all of the wires from the bulbs on the left were 22 or 24 guage, would you want the two feeder wires on the right to be a lower number, say 16 or 18 to accomodate the combined load? Thanks again.
On my layout I went to Home Depot and bought 7 conductor 18 ga. thermostat wire for lighting. I run three buses, each using 1 pair of the 7 wires. This leaves me with one wire left over. The three buses I run are:
1. Fixed 12VDC bus that powers turnouts, control panels and other things which need 12VDC all of the time.
2. An on'off 12VDC bus. This is for outdoor building lights and streetlights. Basically any light which has a constant brightness.
3. A variable 0-12VDC bus for interior building lighting. Thus I can set the interior lighting to whatever brightness I'd like.
I used Radio SHack European barrier strips about every 4-6' under the layout and then bring the various lights or devices needing power back to the barrier strips. For powering everything, I designed and built my own power supply which is DCC controlled. It provides all three outputs with DCC control for bus 2 & 3. It doesn't require power from the DCC booster.
http://www.thebinks.com/trains/decoder_adapter.html
If you aren't ambitious to build one then you could create the same thing with an old power pack of sufficient output. Just wire the 12V accessory outputs to bus 1, wire the same outputs to bus 2 but place a switch between the power pack and the bus and then wire the power pack track output to bus 3.
Another trick I use for lighting buildings is to insert the lights from below (where possible). I will drill 1/4" holes under the buildings (add as many holes as needed for larger buildings). Then I take a 1/4" dowel pin and drill a 3/32" hole down the center pf the dowel pin. Next I take a grain of wheat bulb and slide the wire through the hole in the dowel pin and place a dab of glue on the bottom of the bulb to hold it to the dowel pin. Lastly, I insert the dowel pin in the hole under the building until it stays in the hole. You can add a dab of white glue (just use a drop) if the hole is too big. Then if I ever need to change the light, I just remove the dowel pin and replace the bulb.
Lastly, do we want to post any pictures of layout lighting to give folks any ideas ?
Engineer Jeff NS Nut Visit my layout at: http://www.thebinks.com/trains/
Phoebe Vet wrote: NeO6874 is right, but he forgot Watts, which is the total amount of water moved.I would use a different description of ohms (resistance) like how steep a hill you are trying to move the water up.
Actually amps would be the total amount of water moved. Watts would be the amount of power expended by the moving water. Another example for resistance is to think of a hose. A smaller hose has more resistance to the flow of water whereas a larger hose will allow more water to flow more easily. Wire size follows the same analogy.