Ok i got this nice roundhouse all built up and now I want to light it up. I have some leds that I would like to use in it. How do I go about doing this? Any pics would help greatly. Thanks in advance.
Mike
alco's forever!!!!! Majoring in HO scale Minorig in O scale:)
What scale? How big is your roundhouse? Is it assembled yet? If we have a bit more detail, it would be easier to help you. I lighted my HO scale Walthers roundhouse, built as a 9 stall with LED's I stole from a strand of Christmas lights I bought after Christmas last year.
The light will be far more realistic in color if you use the Warm White inverted cone LEDs from a Christmas light set. The Cool White is too blue. Warm White is more of an incandescent color.
Roundhouses were lit with bare incandescent bulbs installed in ceiling fixtures, and were usually rather dim. For up close work, portable floodlight fixutres were moved around the floor as required and smaller light fixtures were mounted on lathes, etc. and turned on only when required.
Using only one or two strategically placed warm white LEDs would give more than enough light to represent the actual lighting used in a roundhouse back in the days of steam.
Here's a picture of mine:
This is a craftsman kit and it came with scale lumber for construction of a post and beam interior framework. I used 3 grain-of-wheat bulbs to light it. I drilled a hole in the cross beams and ran the wire through them, down the back of the posts, and throught the roundhouse floor. I painted the interior as per the suggestion in the instructions and this turned out to be a good idea. The cream colored interior walls reflect more light than darker walls.
Hope you have the roof off, if not shelf the idea, Real round houses didn't have a heck of a lot of electrical lighting, hence the reason for all those very large windows, and the common misconception is that trans were worked on in the round house, generally not true they were stored in the round hose over night etc. and worked on in the machine shop or the back shop, they may have done very light maintenance but that was about it so you don't need to light it up like a Christmas tree.
I haven't finished them yet but all I used was mincor engineering grain of rice 12v. bulbs with the brass shades hanging in each bay toward the back. I just glued the wires to the inner frame work with C/A and ran them through a hole on the corner of the building. I saw a round house on a big home basement empire all lit up that looked great, when I looked closer all the builder did was drill a hole over each door and run the wires from a grain of wheat bulb through the hole and hide the wires and run them down the bottom.
Sorry guys I have been away since I posted this. I model ho scale. The roundhouse is heljan I guess. I bought it from trainshow last year and reconstructed it to a shorter stall and added a stone foundation. I am looking to model a more modern time(freelanced line) logging operation and this is the main shop area. So updated lighting is a must for the shop crew. I have some cool white christmas led lights I got last year and was thinking of using them for a long life bulb. They were the plug in the wall type. How should I wire them, in series or in parallel? will I need a resistor? I have made the roundhouse so that the building seperates from the floor very easily and would like to keep it removable in case something gets stuck inside and i need to fish it out. Any ideas on making it removable but still wired for lights?
I used a rectangular sheet of styrene, and wired 5 LED's through holes in the styerene, building a circuit on top of the styrene with duct tape holding the wires. I wired the LED's in parallel with resistors, and brought the input wires down through a tube at the end of the round house underneath the layout and connected to a DC transformer buss which also lights my other buildings. I used the LED's which are round and tend to disperse the light over the area. I mounted the resulting "circuit" below the rafters in the round house. Turned out OK.
Hal
Hey guys. Thanks for the help and ideas. I ended up taking styrene strips and mounted bronze strips with screws to them. Then I soldered feed wires and resistors(1k 1/4 watt resistor) to one side and then the led(from a christmas strand) then the other side of the led to the other strip. I then tied them in parallel. I think it turned out pretty good. Not too much light but just enough. The roundhouse is heljan I think(bought it at a train show built. I modified(shortned the stalls and added a floor in it) it and added the stone foundation).
Here are a couple pics.