Does anyone know what was the color of the backlight lighting on Great Northern F7A number boards? I've seen some modelers painting their LEDs for the light to have yellow cast - would that be correct?
trainsBuddyDoes anyone know what was the color of the backlight lighting on Great Northern F7A number boards? I've seen some modelers painting their LEDs for the light to have yellow cast - would that be correct?
While I don't know for certain, I can't imagine the backlight bulbs being anything other than the standard incandescent bulbs, probably of fairly low wattage. These naturally have a brown or yellowish cast, and will appear that way in night-time photography. You often see much the same thing in color pictures taken indoors of a party, unless film balanced for that light was used. The human eye/brain interface is a remarkable device that automatically compensates so we don't normally notice the different color shifts caused by each type of artificial lighting.
So I suspect the modelers are attempting to make the white color emitted by the LED more closely match the common household light bulb. Their approach may have been exaggerated by what they have seen from time exposures that were not color balanced to equivalent daytime illumination.
The glass in the number boards will also gradually collect dust and grime on the back side, and this will also affect the light passing through the white portion of the number board.
John
They originally were lit with your standard run of the mill 74 volt incandescent light bulb
Thanks guys, this was of great help. I painted lights for number boards on mine as well - looks good!
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