Poll Question: Train Room Lighting?

[oldline1]

I just built a 14x16 train room with 7' ceilings. I decided to use these LED strip lights and they work great. Just bright enough without blinding me. They are 4500 lumens. Flush mounting and low profile.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Lithonia-Lighting-LED-Strip-Light-Actual-48-in-x-2-62-in-x-2-16-in/1000704806

oldline1

[riogrande5761]

dstarr

My layout and train room lighting is done by the new fangled thin fluorescent tubes, the new ones that come with solid state ballasts.

Are you talking about the T5 HO (high output) thin fluorsecent tubes.  I was looking into those but IIRC, they used a lot of power.  Since I decided to got with a 2x2 pattern drop ceiling I decided both for cost of the lights and the lower power consumpsion to go with the LED flat panel lights.  Our electrician was joking that installing 16 of the flat panel lights would give him a sun tan.  We have dimmer so we can adjust the brightness.

 

gpharo

I’m talking about the lighting of the train room, not the actual trains themselves.  

I'm lighting the trains with my train room lighting in the ceiling.

Mine cost $33 and free shipping since my order was over $200.

[dstarr]

My layout and train room lighting is done by the new fangled thin fluorescent tubes, the new ones that come with solid state ballasts.  The come in various "color temperatures" and I am using the medium speed one.  I'd have to go down to the trainroom and pull a tube to get the model number which is too much work for Sunday morning. 

Color temperature was first used to describe incandencent lamps and sunlight and it is a measure of how hot the source is.  Hotter means whiter light.  Both sources produce a continuous spectrum, all colors.  Fluorescent lamps glow from phosphors which put out all their light at jsut one color.  To make a "white" fluorescent tube the maker mixes the right amount of red and blue and green phosphors, and the resulting lamp outputs a line spectrum with all the energy at three descrete colors, red, blue and green and nothing inbetween.  Objects on your layout colored somewhere inbetween the three lines of the fluorescent look poorly, since the lamp fails to radiate energy at the frequency that the object will reflect. 

   To make matters worse, the red phosphors are quite dim compared to what is available for blue and green.  To get light output up, the old fat tube "Cool Whites" had a lot of blue and green and just a touch of red.  Our eyes adapt to the missing color and so the lamps look white, but objects with a lot of red, boxcars for example, looked terrible under cool white tubes. In fact they used to make "Kitchen and Bath" tubes with more red in the phosphor mix to make food and people skin look better. 

   I believe the new thin tube fluorescents look better due to a better mix of red, blue, and green.  I didn't find the "color temperature" rating made much difference.  I would take a few colored objects to the store and view them under the lamps you are thinking of buying, and also under sunlight.  Buy the lamp with the best compromise of good looking color and price. 

   Also consider having two lighting setups, one for working on the layout, where you want lots of light everywhere, and one for showing off the trains where you want good light right on the track and scenery and less light thruout the room.  Two wall switches, two lighting circuits.  While you are at it, it is nice to have another wall switch that turns off all the outlets in the trainroom.  Flip it off as you leave the room and you no longer have to worry about forgotten soldering irons starting fires overnight. 

[IRONROOSTER]

I prefer the 2700k led bulbs.  I find the 5000k is too harsh - makes me feel like I need sunglasses.

What I find really important is to have lots of lighting.  My basement train room is 17x44 ft and has ten 2 bulb ceiling fixtures arranged in 2 rows of 5 fixtures.

Paul 

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

I replaced 4' fluorescent lights with 4' LED lights, and I am very pleased with the result. .... No flickering ! 

[gpharo]

Yup, I was right. Combining the bulbs was a bad idea.

I’ve decided I’ll go buy 4000k LED bulbs, it seems a few of you like them

[gpharo]

 Maybe I should consider something around the 3500 to 4000 K, something in the middle.

My track lighting takes four bulbs, do you think it’s a bad idea if I go with 2 warm white and 2 cool white bulbs.  I’m going to try as an experiment but I don’t think it will look good.

[gpharo]

I’m talking about the lighting of the train room, not the actual trains themselves. 

[riogrande5761]

I had 5k LED lights on last layout but they were a bit harsh to my eyes.  I've recently installed 16 2x2 4000 temp LED lights dimmable and like them.

 

[Pruitt]

I use 4kK LEDs. Lots of them. Not quite as harsh as sunlight, but not tungsten-bulb yellow either.

Looks good to my eyes.

[gmpullman]

Like others here, I have a "working mode" and a "running mode" for lighting. I'm at about 95% LED with some soffit lighting using T5 high output tubes.

IMG_8609 by Edmund, on Flickr

Some of my 2' x 4' lay-in troffers have been "rebuilt" three times, first they were T-12 fluorescents with magnetic ballasts (buzzzzz). Then I went with T-8s and electronic ballasts. Nice improvement.

More recently I've ripped out the ballasts alltogether and retrofitted LED 48" tubes. Much brighter light output. I've also supplanted these with 2' x 2' lay in LED panels. Most of these are in the 4000K range.

IMG_8608 by Edmund, on Flickr

Here's one of the T-8 fixtures before conversion to LED and a 2x2 LED panel beyond. I have noticed a design change in some of the LED troffers. Newer ones are touted as "Edge Lit" which I presume the LEDs are arrayed around the perimeter. These seem to have slightly more "glare" rather than downward-aimed light output of the earlier designed panels. I guess the idea is to have a better "beam spread" BUT on a low ceiling it seems that more light winds up in your line-of-sight.

For "running" I use a combination of dimmable LED recessed cans and track lights. Generally these are 2700K.

IMG_8624_fix by Edmund, on Flickr

Many of the track lights and cans were originally designed for MR16GU10 lamps and these were easily converted to LED. Some of the track lights have goose-neck flex heads that are easily positioned for photo shooting.

IMG_8647 by Edmund, on Flickr

IMG_8643_fix by Edmund, on Flickr

IMG_1487 by Edmund, on Flickr

Be sure to have one of these when designing your lighting:

GE_Footcandle by Edmund, on Flickr

Good Luck, Ed

 

[selector]

My train room is partitioned off from a double-wide garage.  It runs 24' X 9'.  I had an electrician install four 2X2 flat LED panels, three closer together and lighting the layout, with one set apart from those three by another two feet to illuminate my working desk and the existing entrance at the man-door.  The panels weren't cheap, close to $200 CDN each, and somewhat new at HD.  Can't recall the manufacturer, think it started with an F. AFAIAC, they do a superb job of providing diffuse and strong light throught the train room. They should be no more than half that price by now.  Here they are in an early photo taken two years ago:

[doctorwayne]

I'm using cool white fluorescents in my layout room, mainly because they offer the most lumens of the different fluorescent tubes available. 
There are currently 27 double-tube 4'ers and 2 double-tube 8'ers, along with a couple of cool white LEDs as "fill" lighting in corners of the lower level.

However, I'm going to replace some of the 4'ers with thin LED pot-type lights (also cool white), as I can more easily locate them closer to the aisle in some areas where obstructions above the drop ceiling restrict placement of the fluorescents.  In those areas, the aisle side of the layout isn't as bright as I'd like, so trains and structures nearest the viewer are always in shadow.

I'll probably re-use the removed fluorescents elsewhere in the layout room, as you can never, in my opinion, have too much light over your layout.  I did, however, deliberately not include windows of any type in the portion of the basement where the layout is located.

If I want to shoot photos in sunlight, I'll build a diorama that can be carried outdoors.

Wayne

[BRAKIE]

For those with spare bed room layouts give natural light a look. All of my ISLs lighting was by natural light and at night warm white LED bulbs in floor light stands.

[Tinplate Toddler]

What are we talking about? Train room lighting or layout lighting? For a room, I prefer warm-white LED "bulbs", but for layout lighting, I go for cool-white LED strips, which I can dim to the brightness of my liking.

[dehusman]

I am using nine 2700 K LED flood lights, about 1000 lumens each, I tried the 5000 K LED flood and found them very harsh, way too blue.  Have not tried the 48" LED fixtures.

[hardcoalcase]

Back in early 2015, when I was starting to prepare the train room, I used the planning tool on a lighting company's website (I forget which company) to get a recommendation on the number and type of lighting fixtures I'd need for my 23' x 18' space.  The planning tool asked how much light was needed, and from my prior layout experience, I checked the box for "sufficient for doing close-up detailed work, at any level, and at any part of the room."

Based on their recommendation, I installed six fluorescent lighting fixtures, each with four 48" tubes using Phillips lamps (F32T8 Daylight, Alto II, Color Temp 6500). 

Yes, my train room is as bright as day, which is the way I like it.  As construction progresses, I'll also need to alert operating crews that they may want to bring a ball cap with them. 

This was before LED lighting became widely available.

Jim 

 

[josephbw]

We model the real world in miniature, so why not replicate the sun with cool white lighting? I use square LED panels in the ceiling tiles for general lighting over the walkways, and rolls of LED's in home made reflectors over the layout.

[RR_Mel]

Neither! 5000°K LED lighting.  I learned the hard way that Fluorescent lighting fades the scenery badly over a few years.

 

 

Mel

 

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

 

I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

 

[gpharo]

Which lighting do you prefer for your train room, warm white (2700k) or daylight/cool white (5000k)?

I have experimented with both and I’m not sure which one  I like better.