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Adding lighting to layout room

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  • Member since
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Adding lighting to layout room
Posted by Slowmover on Monday, February 27, 2023 4:42 PM

I am building this 9x13 HO layout in a basement room with negligible natural light.  The only light fixture in the room is a single large LED fixture on the ceiling.  I plan to have some additional lighting installed by an electrician.  I would appreciate any good ideas on how to better light my layout.  Thanks!

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Posted by dknelson on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 11:05 AM

Slowmover

I am building this 9x13 HO layout in a basement room with negligible natural light.  The only light fixture in the room is a single large LED fixture on the ceiling.  I plan to have some additional lighting installed by an electrician.  I would appreciate any good ideas on how to better light my layout.  Thanks! 

Now is a good time to be thinking about this since I suspect many and perhaps most layou t owners wish there was something different they could have done about lighting.  It would be interesting if there were layouts in your vicinity that you could visit and ask about.

`LED lighting certainly changes many old assumptions that were formed when fluorescent lighting became so popular.    I have fluorescent lighting mostly of the cool white variety and note the fading that fluorescent causes on scenery, books on shelves, and railroad art on the walls.  It causes challenges to layout photography and now that the first generation of tubes are failing I face the challenge of trying to swap out new bulps without damaging stuff on the layout (or throwing my back out).  I know indoor LEDs last a long time but some thought to ease of fixture replacement is not a bad idea.  

Here are a few thoughts that come to mind.  The "color" of lighting is an issue that has been written about in MR because it certainly does affect the realism of paint schemes and scenery items.  Using the same lighting "color" on the layout that is used where you do your painting and weathering is one common piece of advice.  I frankly do not know what options are available for LEDs but it is worth looking into.

Even-ness of light.  That was always the problem when incandescent bulbs were used for layout lighting.  There'd be bright spots and dim spots.  Fluorescent helped particularly if mounted high enough.  I don't know how LEDs stack up on this topic -- do you want continous light or are gaps OK?  My bias would be for nearly continuous so that tubes (if tube LEDS are what you use) snake around the ceiling following the layout footprint -- but that also assumes a final decision has been made about size and shape of layout.  Plan now for stage 2 (and 3)?

 

Direction of light.  Light over the aisle can create unwanted shadows when operators are present, so lighting that actually follows the layout footprint has become sort of a gold standard for good layout lighting.  There is also the issue of a valance to further direct and localize the light.  You also do not want to be annoyed with bright light in the eye.

Dimming for night operations.  The early generation of LEDs were not dimmable but maybe this has changed.  If a gradual dimming is not practical or is too expensive, maybe a secondary lighting where at the flick of a switch it can be nighttime with at least some ambient light.

This may sound odd but is born of experience at a vacation condo where EXTERIOR LEDs have a failure rate due to many factors.  What we have learned there is that LED fixtures are not really standardized and it almost seems like each new batch starts with a fresh and proprietary design.  We purchased a supply of original fixtures for future replacement but are starting to dip into that supply.  This may matter less for interior lighting where the actual physical appearance of the fixture is of no concern.  But buying some spares MIGHT not be a shabby idea.  

Dave Nelson

 

 

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Posted by Lone Wolf and Santa Fe on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 11:25 AM

I think track lighting is the best way to go since you can move the lights to where they need to be and you can add additional fixtures if you need more lights. The tracks should be over the ailses so that they can shine at an angle towards the layout and not shine in your eyes. Make sure you get the fixtures which can be aimed. Some can only point stright down. You don't want that kind.
You can also have another track with lights that shine on your background walls if you want to get carried away. But that is more for people with experience in theaterical lighting who want to add clouds or sunsets or different color skies.

Modeling a fictional version of California set in the 1990s Lone Wolf and Santa Fe Railroad
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Posted by Lone Wolf and Santa Fe on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 11:38 AM

This is true that lights in the aisle can create shadows but it depends on factors like the height of the layout and how wide the aisles are. If the layout is low then shadows are more likely.

If the lights are above the layout then the structures and scenery can also cause shadows and the lights will also shine in people's eyes. It's a balancing act.

A valance works well because the lights are right on the edge of the layout but it can make a small room seem a lot smaller and claustrophobic.

Modeling a fictional version of California set in the 1990s Lone Wolf and Santa Fe Railroad
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Posted by Llenroc fan on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 3:01 PM

When you swap out the old flourescent tubes there are now LEDs that will substitute with no problem.  I was goind to do the change for the old ones in my garage (it originally invovled cutting wires to eliminate the ballast, etc.) and discovered that all I had to do was buy the properLED tubes, put them in in place of the old flourescents and I was done.

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Posted by Pruitt on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 3:34 PM

This is what I did:

Lots of 1X4 LED panels. These are 5000 Kelvins and dimmable. I bought them from Lightup.com for a very reasonable price (roughly a third of what you'd pay ad Home Despot).

The layout is very well lit, even for my old eyes.

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Posted by doctorwayne on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 4:51 PM

I originally used fluorescent lights in the drop-ceiling of my layout room, as I had found a good (and affordable) source for the devices, and the lighting tubes had always been very affordable too.

When I added a partial upper level to my layout, I had to add more lighting to the underside, as otherwise it would have been too dark to see much of that area, so I added more fluorescent fixtures, along with a few LED bulbs in some of the corners  of the lower level...

Here's a view of the entry to the layout room, with fluorescent lights on both the upper and lower level to the left...

...and LED lights on the upper level, to the right, and fluorescents on the lower level, which is a staging yard.

While the LEDs emit a decent amount of light, when they're close to the layout, as shown, they need to be fairly close together, as the light-spread is quite limited limited.

For that reason, I still use fluorescents on the areas beneath the partial upper level (there are a couple of LEDs in the corners) but if I wanted to use only LEDs  there, they would likely need to be spaced at 2' intervals, which would require 21 of those pot-lights.

There are more fluorescents here...

...and even more here...

...but I have added some of the LED pot lights, and will likely remove the fluorescent at the right, and the four in the distance, replacing them with the LED pot lights, which can be spaced-out at about 3' intervals...

...and there's another one here, which will also be replaced with the LED pot lights...

Wayne

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Posted by HO-Velo on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 9:57 PM

Upon seeing a valanced shadow box layout in the pages of MRR mag. I knew that was the type of layout I wanted to build.  After eleven years of service the GE 4100K T-8 florescent tubes are beginning to fail and require careful moves when replacing.  To my eye there's been little to no fading, but most of the structures and scenery are in the neighborhood of eight years old or less.  

Wishing you luck and loads of fun building your layout.  Regards, Peter

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Posted by gmpullman on Wednesday, March 1, 2023 12:02 AM

 

This vintage thread has some input on lighting. In general I have a work and maintenance mode where the whole room is lit up and then a "running mode" where only the layout is highlighted and is dimmable and flexible (track lighting is great for quick changes to highlight an area or eliminate shadows).

 

https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/269457.aspx

Much of my main room lighting went from magnetic ballasts and T12 fluorescents to electronic ballasts and T8 tubes then finally to LED replacement tubes, eliminating the ballasts all together supplemented with LED thin-panel lay-ins.

Good Luck, Ed

 

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Posted by rrebell on Wednesday, March 1, 2023 8:02 AM

Regular track lighting with LED bulbs. Thats what I do and being LED's draw less power, you can get a lot of them on a strip. The only thing you have to do different is they must be plugged in as they will take any standard bulb and I have more than enough cans to blow any breaker if I used incandesent.

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Posted by Slowmover on Thursday, March 2, 2023 2:13 PM

Thanks for the tips!  I think LEDs over the tracks seems like a good way to go.  

I would post a picture of my layout if I could figure out how.  Maybe I'm too new to the forum?  

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