Yes, running incandescent bulbs at lower-than-rated voltage will reduce the heat they give off. I've never had a heat problem with my bulbs.
I also use LEDs where appropriate. I use the yellow-glow ones for locomotive headlights. I used a small flat panel LED for a porch light.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
If I had a lot of bulbs and infrastructure to support them already, I might consder bulbs more seriously. However, I don't and there are simply too many advantages to LEDs and drawbacks to lamps that except for certain special circumstances I use nothing but LEDs.
The biggest reason not to put bulbs in structures is heat, which weakens glue, dries out wood, and distorts plastics. As long as you run bulbs, the first thing you have to deal with is dissipate heat. I'd rather spend the time on adding to my lighting and avoiding risk to structures I put a lot of effort into.
How bright? Like in the real world, variety is the rule rather than standardization. In places where all lights wiould look the same, do it, like on street lighting along a street. In most places, like building vs building, you should see substantial differences in brightness. Judiciously placed resistors are a great help with this.
White or yellow? Depends on the effect you desire. Don't forget to include blueish light if you want to simulate flourescents. LEDs toward the yellowish part of the spectrum are good for what they look like, the older tungsten lamp bulbs. LEDs that are basically white would tend to be more modern lighting, an arc lamp or welding.
I make an effort to avoid evenly lighting all complex, larger structures. They rarely are in real life, so wouldn't expect them to be on the layout. Just takes a little thought on wiring in an etxra resistor or 2 here and there. This is again a far simpler and less hardware intensive than with bulbs. Same thing with different floors. Unless there is an obvious reason why all lighting should be the the same, let randomness guide you.
If the rear of the buiklding is visible, consider lighting it. Alleys can be dark so 1:1 people often put a security light back there.
As for connectors, the small gray wirenuts are your friends IMO and make things easy to modify.
Here's an example that captures many of those subtle variations.
Overall, keep it dim...and remember you can enact variations in light output very effectively aboard passenger cars, too.
Many more examples in my Night Scene thread:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/213765.aspx?page=1
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
i've become curious about structure lighting because of what my layout looks like at night with lighted passenger cars when I happen to forget to turn it off.
i've asked about lighting a single structure, what about multiple structures or the relationship between structures? should they all be lit the same(?). I know Mel has a random lighting generator.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Lighting a structure is something I hope to explore eventually. This thread gave me reason to explore further. No question that putting in lights creates more realism when done properly.
I build crude interiors with foam board and cover them with printed wall and floor textures. This separates the interior and gives me an opportunity to light individual rooms. I paint the exterior walls and line those with printed cardstock, too.
Since I model the late transition era, I prefer incandescent bulbs. I use 16 volt bulbs running at 12 volts for a more pleasing look and longer bulb life.
I use Venetian blinds and window shades where appropriate. Take a look at the structure to determine if the size of each window needs simple shades or a more detailed interior. Don't waste time creating an interior scene if it can't be seen because the windows are too small.
If the structure is at eye level with a visible interior, I suggest using LEDs in the roof where they can’t be seen to provide the candle power to make the interior visible. Then run some incandescent lights where they are visible to the viewer to provide the ambience of the incandescent without having to use a ton of them to provide the bright light to see the interior.
This warehouse uses the technique I described above. The strong light on the man is from a hidden LED. The interior lampshade and the two lights above the loading dock (hidden from view) are incandescent.
Have fun,
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
Running 12 volt lamps on about 9 volts looks fine. To be honest with you, I would have to get out the volt meter to check what I am running on the layout right now. I am using a wall wart for power, I cannot remember whether it is a 9 volt wall wart or a 12 volt wall wart.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
dstarrI use old fashioned incandecent bulbs, their warm reddish color
do you run the icandescents at a slightly lower voltage so that they're not so white?
You want to paint the interiors of styrene structures to prevent them glowing in the dark. I use a light colored paint to make the structure lighting brighter. I use old fashioned incandecent bulbs, their warm reddish color looks just like real light bulbs. White LED's show a blueish light like the old cool white fluorescent tubes gave. Yellow LEDs are better looking. And the bulbs work on AC or DC and they don't care about polarity on DC. You need to mount the bulbs high up so they do not show thru the windows. I put floors into multi story structures, it makes the view in the windows more realistic. No real building shows a gaping hole going down to the basement when you look in the windows. I drill a hole thru the layout to run the building power supply wire, I leave some slack and join it to a terminal strip underneath the layout. Remember you may want to take the structure out for work. I am using old 12 volt wall warts for lighting power.
assume led on roof/ceiling of room, not floor. how bright? white or yellow?
want curved flat black dividers so that you can't see thru building. is it worth lighting separate rooms or just corners of floors? any point to light rear of building?
what about multi floor buildings
connectors?