Layout Lighting for a new layout space in the basement - suggestions wanted (pictures on page 3)

[jhugart]

Here's my situation: I can free up a quadrant of my basement for model railroading purposes. I'm good at electrical work, so I can install any circuits and lighting that I need. But I'm not sure what all my options are.

For lighting shelving and other storage, I'm thinking either fluorescent strips or track lighting (to direct into the space). Work areas, like a bench or crew space, will have fluorescent strips or maybe some train-themed lighting (any suggestions?).

But for lighting the layout itself, I'm not sure. Here's how my thoughts have gone:

First, track lighting. But a lot of track lighting is halogen -- it gets hot, but the basement almost never gets hot (I'm in Minnesota). UV is a bigger worry, but you can get filters to address that.

Next, fluorescent, even compact fluorescent in shrouded fixtures. Low heat, long life, but not sharp, and there's some color variation at times. Also can't be dimmed unless you get special ballasts.

I have this dream, though...

Lighting for the layout that could be linked to a fast clock for the purpose of mimcking the change from daylight to 'night' light. Does such a beast exist? I can see night being a flavor of blue light, but the true dream system would have warmer tones for sunrise and sunset.

I could always install generic fluorescent strips for general lighting during construction and such, but for operation, something more dramatic would be desirable. And I'm spoiled in that, since I do community theatre, and now how to do theatrical lighting design and operation.

Jacob

[der5997]

[#welcome] Sounds like you may be a pioneer in the fast clock linked to lighting idea. I guess you are stuck with incandescent for that. Flourescent also has different color values than incandescent, as you are aware. What that may mean for modelling is that your paint booth light should be the same type as your layout light.
Halogen I've no experience with on a layout. Heat is a factor if cooling air isn't good. Do you like the "harshness" of halogen? Think of the shaddows thrown by the models, and where they may fall.
The generally received wisdom(GRW) is to install your ceiling and lighting before the layout benchwork, so your idea of having flourescent to work by and later some other system for operations may need a little logistical forethought. But then, GRW says to put up your backdrop before the track and scenery, and how many of us get around to being that smart? [banghead]
Basement layouts(and layouts generally)need quite a bit more light than is ordinarilly realized. You know all this from the theatre.
My [2c] would be to go for incandescent , and also provide for special areas and scenes within the overall lighting plan.
Good luck on the fast clock thing. Don't forget to make notes and photos so you can write it up for magaizne articles.[8D]

[jjbmish]

For general lighitng I would go with the fluorescents. There are a wide variety of lamps available that will allow you to get a good look to your layout. I would use the same lighting at your work bench so that you don't different colors out of items under different types of light. Things look have different tones under fluorecents vs incandescents. But for the ability to go from day to night you will need incandescent lights. It can be done with fluorescents but it would be expensive.

John

[cwclark]

I use florecent lights but I did put in recessed lighting for time of day scenerios...I installed 12 recessed lights, 4 bulbs are blue for night time, ...four bulbs are yellow from morning and evening lighting, and four bulbs are white for daytime lighting...I use the florecent when i work on the railroad but use the other lights when i'm operating...Chuck[:D]

[jhugart]

I'm not too worried about backdrops and benchwork, since I'm thinking of modules at the moment. Different scenes, like dioramas, but when connected the proper way give you operational capability.

One idea I had was to build the lighting into the module. You have to design the module to be viewed from one direction. Then you make a cyclorama that curves up the back, like half of a parabolic curve, with the focus being above the module.

The back of the module is for the skylight source. This is where your blue sky, red sunset, what have you, comes from. So there's a gap between the back of the module and the cyclorama's base that admits your light source.

The top of cyclorama has a valanced area where your spotlights are. These are what mimic the sunlight.

Assume you have red-green-blue color source for the cyclorama lights...maybe add white for reducing saturation, then you just need to figure out the curves for brightness of each color channel at each point in time on the clock, fast or otherwise.

The spot lights would also have a curve to match the level of sunlight.

Deluxe is to have the model lights for buildings and streets operate like this, too. The streetlights are almost an inversion of the curve for spot lights. But building lights are nearly random, but taper off late at night.

Anyway, each module could be on a fast clock bus, so you could use a controller for the lights on each module. The controller would let you set a gross season - summer, fall, winter, spring, to determine if the day/night was balanced or biased towards one extreme or the other. Short winter days, long winter nights.

And the icing on the cake would be some sort of fibre optic star pattern for night, but maybe it could be faked by some spotlights with patterns (gobos) on them...such an instrument would probably be too involved for the area. I always imagined the spotlights to be low-voltage halogen for the brightness and dimming capabilities.

I'm surprised no one has done this commercially yet!

[rayhippard]

Jacob, My son and I are building " another " new layout and we want " stage " lighting
also. We are going to use the new rope lights hooked up with dimmers. You need white and red and blue to make morning, daytime and night effects. We have done this before with colored lite bulbs but you get brite spots and dim spots. The rope lights spread the light
out much more evenly and you can easily add more light with more ropes. We are going to put aluminum foil behind the ropes to increase the light downward and as a heat shield for the valance. I have never heard of a way to adjust the dimmers except by hand. This would be a subject that our electronic friends might want to to work on.
Ray

[dickiee]

rayhippard:

How about giving us a little info on "rope lights". I have never heard of them.
thanks
Richard

[Anonymous]

Rope lights are similar to christmas lights. They're a string of small lights in a colored or clear plastic tube for decorative lighting. Most Home Depots or Lowe's have them in their lighting department.

[Anonymous]

Since you are into theatre, do it exactly that way.

Two sources on every area with differing whites from the front. Some soft should be supplied from the back or above.

Some architechtural dimmers will allow simple contacts to trigger changes, I believe I saw a fastclock with external outputs for sound systems, perhaps they can be used in conjunction with a relay to trigger the dimmer inputs.

This won't be cheap, but you will have some bitchin lighting.

[jhugart]

I'm trying to figure out a solution that will reduce the amount of invention I need. *grins*

One thing I found, though it is measured in hundreds of English pounds as a cost, is a scene dimmer with multiple channels. It can be programmed with events, and probably cross-fade from scene to scene.

For the non-theatre-techies, let me explain:

Let's assume that you want to light your layout throughout the course of a simulated day. So you need full daylight, full night, and a dusk/dawn. These would probably be represented by white lights, blue lights, and yellow (or amber or red) lights, respectively. Let's expand it a bit, and say that dusk is more red, and dawn is more yellow.

The result is four channels: white, blue, red, and yellow. In reality, each channel would be a light source -- rope lights, strip lights, incandescent bulbs, what have you. The catch is that the sources must be dimmable. (Fluorescents generally aren't, though some compact fluorescents are designed expressly for dimming.)

A scene dimmer that can control four channels means that it can have a different light level for each channel. Let's suppose our scene dimmer can hold at least four different scenes. We might lay the scenes out like this:

Sc. 1, Dawn: Red channel at 25%, Yellow channel at 75%, White channel at 0%, Blue channel at 0%

Sc. 2, Daylight: Red channel at 0%, Yellow channel at 0%, White channel at 100%, Blue channel at 25%

Sc. 3, Dusk: Red channel at 100%, Yellow channel at 25%, White channel at 25%, Blue channel at 0%

Sc. 4, Night: Red channel at 0%, Yellow channel at 0%, White channel at 25%, Blue channel at 75%

We can program the scene dimmer with these values, and then we only need to select that scene on the scene dimmer in order to have our lights at the levels we programmed.

But wait, there's more!

It looks like multi-channel scene dimmers can have some timing and programmed sequences of scenes. Suppose I'm going to simulate a working day on the railroad, from midnight to midnight. I might come up with a program like this for a three-hour session:

Event 1 (first midnight): Scene 4 (Night)
-after 45 minutes, fade to-
Event 2 (dawn): Scene 1 (Dawn)
-after 15 minutes, fade to-
Event 3 (daylight hours): Scene 2 (Daylight)
-after 60 minutes, fade to-
Event 4 (sunset): Scene 3 (Dusk)
-after 15 minutes, fade to-
Event 5 (night again): Scene 4 (Night)
-hold on last event-

It looks like a sophisticated residential scene dimmer could even handle times for fades between events, so you don't go in only five seconds from full night to full dawn, but do it over a period of, say, three minutes....but maybe going from daylight to dusk takes ten minutes. Again, part of the event programming.

Now how much would you pay? But wait, there's more!

The scene dimmers I was looking at had a simple control panel, but came with a remote control that had more buttons on it than a typewriter, so you could do all the detailed programming for setting levels, scenes, events, timings, etc.

What's the catch?

Well, there's a maximum number of watts per channel. It looks like 600W is common. If you were using something like halogen lamps, which are typically around 50W to 60W, you could only handle 12 at most. For a modest layout, this is probably sufficient, but those layout-with-a-house-as-a-roof empires would easily exceed the capacity of a residential scene dimmer.

Also, you are installing one set of light sources for each channel you want to use. So I may be installing ten strips lights for the red channel, ten for white, etc. That's a lot of wiring and hardware hanging off your ceiling, just to get the ability to simulate light levels.

But it would be pretty cool!

[jhugart]

Things are looking up!

As I mentioned in the last post, the device to get is a scene dimmer, residential grade. There seem to be two big companies that do something like this.

First, there's Futronix. Their web site is http://www.futronix.info/ --I got messed up when I found it via Google, and ended up at the UK site. Since then I learned that the P800 system, which has eight channels at 600W each max, and a total dimmer load of 1000W, costs only about $542.13. They have manuals on-site to explain pre-installation considerations, and how to install and program the dimmer.

Then there's Leviton. They make several lines of products, but it appears their big scene-based stuff uses X10 technology. This involves sending a signal on the AC power system itself. It's main use is whole-house control; without adding any additional wires, you can set up a house control system for your lights. The thing I'm not clear on is whether or not you can program sequences into this system.

That's the goal. I'm working on the assumption that I can have an operating session that runs two or three hours, so I'd want the ability to program in a lighting cycle to mimc the lighting conditions within that window. It wouldn't be connected to a fast clock, but that's OK. What worries me is that the Leviton system looks like it could only do this if you got a computer running Visual BASIC hooked up to the system, and that would cost more than the Futronix system that does it already.

I think if you had the basement empire, and wanted to spend the money, you could get the architectural/commercial grade of Futronix scene systems and be all set. But it uses three types of power inputs, and needs a closet to hold the dimming equipment. This would come as no surprise to anyone who has worked in a theatre, but I suspect most homeowners think of a dimmer switch as a simple dial -- a variable resistor -- but there's more to even those simple systems, and bigger ones need a lot more.

Anyway, I'm concluding that it is do-able, it is just a matter of establishing the limits of such a system and whether or not the cost justifies it. Spending less than $600 for a control system doesn't sound like such a bad deal to me, though.

[foxtrackin]

I just finished adding lighting to my lay out. I used the undercabinet low voltage halogen lights, like the ones you find under kitchen cabinets. I spaced them two feet apart and placed them 3 feet above my lay out. So far I am very pleased with the look. They give full coverage of my lay out and they are dimmable. They are 12v 20w bulbs and give off a crisp natural white light and some heat, but my lay out is in my basement which is cool any how. The lights are designed for bookshelves and displays. I also have fluorescent lights for general room lighting.

[Anonymous]

What a low price! I was expecting a $2000 minimum. Looks like an excellent system! I think a company called Smart Home sells all sorts of X-10 accessories for timer control.

[StillGrande]

QUOTE: Originally posted by foxtrackin

I just finished adding lighting to my lay out. I used the undercabinet low voltage halogen lights, like the ones you find under kitchen cabinets. I spaced them two feet apart and placed them 3 feet above my lay out. So far I am very pleased with the look. They give full coverage of my lay out and they are dimmable. They are 12v 20w bulbs and give off a crisp natural white light and some heat, but my lay out is in my basement which is cool any how. The lights are designed for bookshelves and displays. I also have fluorescent lights for general room lighting.

I've been thinking about using these to light the lower level of my soon to be built layout. My wife has used them for a couple of projects (built in bookshelfs and to light the kitchen counters) so I have an "expert" at home for advice on installation. I haven't decided on the overall lighting yet, so I am reading this thread carefully.

[rexhea]

jhugart,

I use fluorescent lighting for general work sessions and have track lighting with halogen 75w bulbs for my operating sessions. The track lighting is great to add focus to specific areas and you have the versitility to adjust them as you want., change wattage, control them, or later change to color bulbs.

Try your local electrical supply house for light controllers. They should be able to suggest a unit that will match your needs.

Another device that will do all the things you are talking about is called a Programmable Controller. They cost from a couple hundred dollars to thousands. Industry uses them to control processes and your city to control your traffic lights. They contain internal relays, timers, counters, discrete input/outputs(on/off), analog input/outputs (varying voltages) and many more programmable instructions. Some are programmed with a simple built-in keypad and higher levels will use an interface with a PC. You program them to operate within the perimeters you set. i.e. If you want a light to turn on in 1 hour and another to dim to 50% after you throw a switch twice and everything to turn off after 4 hours---just program it. Maybe high end for what you want , but I'm sure your electrical supply house can fix you up.

Just thought of something that would work and not cost much nor be complicated.
Go to http://www.x10.com
They have remote control dimmers and on/off switches and etc...for your home. They also have a computer software program (runs in the background) that with an inexpensive interface will control lights by time with these remote modules to turn on/off or percentage of brightness.


REX

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: but I'm sure your electrical supply house can fix you up.

No, my local store doesn't carry theatre grade dimmers.

Smart Home sells all sorts of x10 accessories. If you had read the replies, you would have seen x10 disscused.

[rexhea]

Smart Home sells all sorts of x10 accessories. If you had read the replies, you would have seen x10 disscused.

[Big_Boy_4005]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jhugart

I'm trying to figure out a solution that will reduce the amount of invention I need. *grins*

One thing I found, though it is measured in hundreds of English pounds as a cost, is a scene dimmer with multiple channels. It can be programmed with events, and probably cross-fade from scene to scene.

For the non-theatre-techies, let me explain:

Let's assume that you want to light your layout throughout the course of a simulated day. So you need full daylight, full night, and a dusk/dawn. These would probably be represented by white lights, blue lights, and yellow (or amber or red) lights, respectively. Let's expand it a bit, and say that dusk is more red, and dawn is more yellow.

The result is four channels: white, blue, red, and yellow. In reality, each channel would be a light source -- rope lights, strip lights, incandescent bulbs, what have you. The catch is that the sources must be dimmable. (Fluorescents generally aren't, though some compact fluorescents are designed expressly for dimming.)

A scene dimmer that can control four channels means that it can have a different light level for each channel. Let's suppose our scene dimmer can hold at least four different scenes. We might lay the scenes out like this:

Sc. 1, Dawn: Red channel at 25%, Yellow channel at 75%, White channel at 0%, Blue channel at 0%

Sc. 2, Daylight: Red channel at 0%, Yellow channel at 0%, White channel at 100%, Blue channel at 25%

Sc. 3, Dusk: Red channel at 100%, Yellow channel at 25%, White channel at 25%, Blue channel at 0%

Sc. 4, Night: Red channel at 0%, Yellow channel at 0%, White channel at 25%, Blue channel at 75%

We can program the scene dimmer with these values, and then we only need to select that scene on the scene dimmer in order to have our lights at the levels we programmed.

But wait, there's more!

It looks like multi-channel scene dimmers can have some timing and programmed sequences of scenes. Suppose I'm going to simulate a working day on the railroad, from midnight to midnight. I might come up with a program like this for a three-hour session:

Event 1 (first midnight): Scene 4 (Night)
-after 45 minutes, fade to-
Event 2 (dawn): Scene 1 (Dawn)
-after 15 minutes, fade to-
Event 3 (daylight hours): Scene 2 (Daylight)
-after 60 minutes, fade to-
Event 4 (sunset): Scene 3 (Dusk)
-after 15 minutes, fade to-
Event 5 (night again): Scene 4 (Night)
-hold on last event-

It looks like a sophisticated residential scene dimmer could even handle times for fades between events, so you don't go in only five seconds from full night to full dawn, but do it over a period of, say, three minutes....but maybe going from daylight to dusk takes ten minutes. Again, part of the event programming.

Now how much would you pay? But wait, there's more!

The scene dimmers I was looking at had a simple control panel, but came with a remote control that had more buttons on it than a typewriter, so you could do all the detailed programming for setting levels, scenes, events, timings, etc.

What's the catch?

Well, there's a maximum number of watts per channel. It looks like 600W is common. If you were using something like halogen lamps, which are typically around 50W to 60W, you could only handle 12 at most. For a modest layout, this is probably sufficient, but those layout-with-a-house-as-a-roof empires would easily exceed the capacity of a residential scene dimmer.

Also, you are installing one set of light sources for each channel you want to use. So I may be installing ten strips lights for the red channel, ten for white, etc. That's a lot of wiring and hardware hanging off your ceiling, just to get the ability to simulate light levels.

But it would be pretty cool!

I did this exact same concept 11 years ago at the Mall of America. The dimmers I used were made by Lutron. Each dimmer unit had 2 seperate 20A circuits in it. I used a total of 10 units, or 20 circuits, for the 2000 square foot space. There were 5 banks of the 4 different colored incandecant floodlights. Though I never tried it, the dimmers were supposed to be capable of dimming fluorecent lights as well.

The controller had 4 presets, and was tied to a computer which went through a full day night cycle in 15 minutes. All we did was have the computer close a relay which had the same effect as pressing the button on the controller. Then there were 24 different layout lighting circuits also controlled by the computer that would go on and off at different times during the day night cycle.

The really cool part is I still have the system, dimmers, tracks, fixtures, controller, even the bulbs. All I have to do is set it up.

[Anonymous]

Rexhea, do you have track lighting on the ceiling above the whole layout ??? I have been toying with this idea as well. I work at Home Depot in the electrical/lighting department and have first hand knowledge of most of the products that are being discussed. I also like the idea for the under the counter halogens, but my layout right now is just one level with out anything on top. right now its just clear to the ceiling.

josh

[jhugart]

I plan to visit some local lighting specialty stores to see what they think. The controls are the part that will let me do the fun stuff.

X10 looks interesting, but I don't want to use a computer to control all this stuff. The one I'm using right at this moment is owned by my employer, and I don't think they'd approve of me taking it home for use as a glorified light switch. *grins*

Since I'm in a basement scenario, and not going to a multi-level plan, I'd use track-lighting on the ceiling. The trick would be getting enough lighting without blowing the controller. Let's assume that one 50W halogen bulb can illuminate 2'x4' of layout space. With a limit of 300W per channel, that's only six lamps, quite a limitation. And the scene dimmers have total wattage limits that may be less than the total of the limits of each channel added up.

Big Boy's suggestion sounds great, but if it was at the MoA, then it was surely commercial grade. I'd be willing to believe I could accomplish anything with that grade of product.

I'm sure there's a way to get the effect, when I get a solution, I'll post.

[Big_Boy_4005]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jhugart


Big Boy's suggestion sounds great, but if it was at the MoA, then it was surely commercial grade. I'd be willing to believe I could accomplish anything with that grade of product.

I'm sure there's a way to get the effect, when I get a solution, I'll post.

Yes, I'm afraid it was commercial, but that was 11 years ago. The entire system cost about $10,000 back then. Lutron may have something less expensive, non commercial, available these days. If you live in the metro area and would like to stop by sometime, just drop me an email.

[rexhea]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nhguy21

Rexhea, do you have track lighting on the ceiling above the whole layout ??? I have been toying with this idea as well. I work at Home Depot in the electrical/lighting department and have first hand knowledge of most of the products that are being discussed. I also like the idea for the under the counter halogens, but my layout right now is just one level with out anything on top. right now its just clear to the ceiling.

josh

Hi Josh,

Yes, I have the track-lighting follow the entire layout including to the peninsula's. I set them up where they can be aimed at an angle projecting a broader and not so intense beam of light. To prevent shadows, I may have a lamp on another side aimed across the layout. Be sure and install where you can reach them for adjusting and to change out the bulb. As your layout grows, just add more lamp holders.

I got my setup at your competitor (Lowe's), but they are about the same. The system is very easy to install and doesn't cost that much. Many ways you can power them including the light fixture in the ceiling or a power cord that simply plugs in a wall receptacle.The bulbs do produce a good bit of heat, but I still prefer them over fluorescent when I operate.

REX[:)]

[jhugart]

The saga continues...

I visited a lighting shop yesterday, and was met with confused stares when I asked about scene dimming. They recommended a big electrical supply company in town, and I've contact them via their web page to see what they know.

On the flip side, I've sent a message to the folks at smarthome.com to find out if the programming of crossfade and hold times is doable with off-the-shelf X10 equipment and software (there's both Macintosh and Windows software for X10 control). I should hear from them in a couple of days.

And the really cool thing is that St. Paul, Minnesota, lets you apply for electrical permits on-line! No more taking off work just to get a piece of paper.

I will probably make a decision in the next week about what I'm going to do. The one reason why the X10 stuff looks more appealing at the moment is because I could have multiple banks handled by dimming receivers. (For your non-technical folks: Imagine that instead of overloading one simple dimmer switch with ten lights, I could have ten dimming switches, all controlled by a computer.) This would elimiante the overload considerations with the Futronix products.

Some questions to companies like Leprecon and Leviton/NSI about their lighting control capabilities have been unanswered so far or have directed me to theatrical lighting applications.

Watch this space...

[Anonymous]

I use simple shop lights and four-foot fluorescents mounted at a 45-degree angle behind a valance.

However, the tubes are full-spectrum types made by Sylvania or GE, available at most home-improvement and hardware stores. They will need UV filters -- the tube variety -- as I found out recently when I had to repaint my backdrop due to fading after two years under the lights.

The advantage that outweighs the cost of full-spectrum fluorescents is that the colors are balanced and vibrant.

[Anonymous]

Its a very interesting topic, one which I am playing with too. Currently I am using florescent and halogen for may daytime layout and am using low wattage blue reveal and florescent for an evening layout. I too am wondering for the "in-between" lighting for dusk and sunrise. I am just combining dimmer switches and playing with those too for different desired effects. It gets quite complex!

[jhugart]

I'm narrowing things down. Here's where I'm going so far:

X10 dimmer switch that handles 600W (there's also a 1000W variety) and can dim low-voltage lighting, like halogen track lighting. I'm finding out if I have dimmer switches with the same receiver ID if it will work as planned (imagine a DCC situation where you have two engines with the same ID).

A bridge to go from my computer to the power lines.

The Indigo home automation software for my Mac, to control everything.

I'm also finding out if I can have push-button controls in the basement, so that pushing a button is detected by the computer, so it will start, say, a 2-hour cycle, or a 90 second demo.

I plan to hit Ikea tomorrow and look at their lighting options, since they are pretty inexpensive.

The key point is that fluorescent lights, while relatively cheap and bright, don't dim well. If you want to have smooth changes from day to night, you need to have something like halogen.

When I get my prototype going, I'll post more. Heck, maybe I'll submit an article to MR!

[rexhea]

jhugart,
Glad you found what you needed for the job.
Let us know when you have it set up,

The Best of luck

[bsteel4065]

I've wanted to create sun up and sun down with lights coming on in buildings etc for ages. I posted a query about this a long time ago but obviously the stuff wasn't out there then. Surfing around and looking at X10, smart home, etc as mentioned by all those above seems to offer a solution. If you get a result, jhugart, please, please let me know!

[bsteel4065]

You'll need an X10 computer interface, the harmony operating system for your PC and X10 dimmer switches. Program the system via the computer interface with your PC using the OS and the dimmer(s) will dim accordingly. It's also a reasonably cheap option.

[jhugart]

bsteel-

Yes, I downloaded Indigo, which is a Mac OS X-native X10 control system. I need to get the interface to the house power, and I've got one dimming controller and one keypad. The keypad will be to send signals to the computer saying "Start 3 Hr show" or "Do a demo" or "Jump to Night scene" and such.

My current plan is to use low-voltage halogen luminaires with 50W MR16 lamps. I'll have three tracks: red, clear (white), and blue. The blue will be set 'behind' the centerline of the module, the clear directly above the front edge of the module, and the red more above the heads of the operators, but the lamps set to project from extreme angles on the sides.

The pipedream mode would be to have clear in three separately-controllable tracks for a mid-morning/noon/mid-afternoon lighting direction, and two separately-controllable tracks for dawn/dusk red directional lighting. This doubles the number of controlling dimmers, though.

After I get these installed (I just finished the basement prep, see my other topic on being a novice modeller), I'll worry about building lighting. I know digital circuits, so I could make something using CMOS or TTL to handle the appropriate timings. I'd just need a way to get some randomness in terms of which lights come on at what times, but we'll see!