Lighting in removeable buildings.

[Anonymous]

I have two questions. 

1.  I have built the Walthers ADM Grain elevator kit (minus half of the roof of the head house).  I intend to put a lighting strip into the head house.  What would be the best brand of light strip to put in such a building?

2.  What is the best type of plug to use to connect the lights as this will be on a modular layout, and the buildings are going on a removable, separately transported tray?  The buildings will be connected to a +12V DC bus, with a common ground.

[rrinker]

Phone plugs are the most durable. Most of them do short momentarily as you plug and unplug them, so make sure your power supply is protected by something other than a fast blow fuse, or even worse, the fusible link inside a wall wart. There may be non-shorting types available. Or just make sure the power is always off when adding or removing buildings. For more than one circuit in a building, the stereo type gives you 2 circuits plus the ground. Another rugged option is a 5 or 7 pin DIN connector, which also gets you more circuits and no shorting. The advantage of these types of plus if that the socket part can be mounted solidly in the benchwork so you can lift the structure with one hand and pull the plug with the other. Other types of miniture connectors often don't have a panel mount jack option, so yuou need to hold the building plus have two hands to unplug. Not bad if you are some sort of mutant with extra hands.

                   --Randy

 

[mlehman]

I tend to use a pair of wire nuts. Cheap, reuseable, and portable.

[RR_Mel]

For what it’s worth I make my own connectors from K&S brass.  I went to a standard spacing for the contacts on vehicles (¼”) as well as most of my buildings (¾”) for interchangeability.

 

I’m not the normal Model Railroader, I do my own thing most of the time.  Having retired from Electronics after 50 years I really get into lighting and wiring of all kinds.

 

I use K&S .030” brass rod as the male connector and 1/16” brass tubing for the female connector.  With the male connector (Tubing) flush with the surface it’s hardly visible when nothing is plugged in above it so removing a building or vehicle isn’t noticeable.

 

My vehicles (90 or so) can be moved all over my layout.  My scratch built houses can also be swapped around easily.  My yard buildings are removable but can’t be swapped out because of surrounding scenery so the connector spacing is not standard.

 

I also use 12 volt incandescent lamps operating at 9½ volts for realistic 1950s lighting.  Over the years I’ve used all kinds of connectors for structure lighting but they always needed a hole that was obvious with the building removed.  I do the same thing with my vehicles.  By using the tubing flush with the scenery (or road) a missing structure or vehicle isn’t noticeable.

 

Check out this post on my blog of my Diesel Maintenance Building.

 

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-24-lighting.html  

 

Like I mentioned above I’m not normal.

 

EDIT: That post is from 2010 and I have more than doubled my collection of illuminated vehicles.  I now have over 120 Mel vehicle connectors in my roadways and parking areas.

 

Mel

 

 

Modeling the SP in HO scale since 1951

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

[Anonymous]

Randy,

A stereo plug might work, but Im really only using 1 circuit.  No reason to have multiple circuits as I plan to use LEDs and the DC bus on our club layout is rated for several amps.

Mike,

Wire nuts unfortunately do not meet my clubs wiring standards.  All connections are soldered or a locking plug (between modules).  Connections on my own modules may be of any type.

 

[Anonymous]

Mel,

Bulbs are out for me.  I need a long lasting light source with very low current draw.  I should have previously mentioned that I intend to use commercially available plugs vice manufacturing my own.

[Soo Line fan]

These work pretty well.

Or

[RR_Mel]

BMMECNYC

Mel,

Bulbs are out for me.  I need a long lasting light source with very low current draw.  I should have previously mentioned that I intend to use commercially available plugs vice manufacturing my own.

 

Your correct about current, I recently increased my 1.4 volt power supply to 10 amps.  My vehicle current is has gone up to 4.6 amps over the last five years and my structures draw 9 amps at 9½ volts.  But they look very realistic.

 

I have about 200 12 volt bulbs between structures and street lights.  My roundhouse alone has twenty 12 volt 100 ma. bulbs, at 9½ volts it draws 850 ma. By it’s self.

 

The only LEDs on my layout are in signal heads with the exception of a sign on the roof of Doug’s diner.  I can turn on and off the LED sign on the roof by reversing the voltage to the interior diner lights.

 

 

Mel

 

 

Modeling the SP in HO scale since 1951

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

[zstripe]

Mel,

We must have gone to the same school....I started just a yr before You, but have the same way of doing things You do. The joy of it all...it's simple and it works. 

Take Care! 

Frank

Btw: All the buildings and vehicles are removable and have first floor interiors. Some have LED and incandesants in the same building, running off the same circuit, so only two wires are needed.

[rrinker]

 For one circuit, stereo plugs can eliminate the short - use the tip and the top ring, leve the middle ring unconnected, and you won;t get a short plugging them in or pulling them out.

 Multiple circuits in one building can be useful though - for a business that isn;t 24 hours, you could have one circuit light up the whole thing, and a second circuit light just one or two little lights for security lights. Or in a house, you could have lights follow some sort of a pattern - at dusk the lights go on downstairs, later on lights go on upstairs, and the downstairs ones turn off.  All sorts of possibilities.

 I suppose this could be individually programmed in each structure with a small microcontroller, then only 1 circuit feeding the building would be neded and the micro would turn groups of leds on and off. Hmm... now this has me thinking..

                    --Randy

[RR_Mel]

Like your pictures Frank!  I love lighting up stuff.

 

This is my yard at night.

 

 

 

My Roundhouse is the only non removable structure on my layout.  The roundhouse and turntable are mounted to a plywood section 53” x 26” x ½”.  If needed I could remove the entire section resulting an a massive scenery redo.

 

Everything else is removable.  I juggle the vehicles around the layout quite often for different looks.  All of my vehicles with the exception of emergency vehicles have two ¼” spaced brass rods to power the 1mm 1½ volt headlights.  My emergency vehicles have a third rod for the flashing beacon, also using a 1mm bulb.  I built a simple flasher circuit for each vehicle so that the bulb do not sync.  I have 9 extra three contact locations for my 6 emergency vehicles so that they can also be shuffled around.

 

Mel

 

 

Modeling the SP in HO scale since 1951

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

[mlehman]

Mel,

Beautiful work! Would sure like to see more of your night scenes.

[RR_Mel]

mlehman

Mel,

Beautiful work! Would sure like to see more of your night scenes.

 

At the moment Mike I have everything pretty well torn up doing some ballast work in my yard.  I haven taken any new night pictures in five years.

 

I have removed all the structures in the portion where I’m working but I should be finished in a week or two and I’ll take some new pictures.  Even my Blog has fallen behind on night pictures.

 

Old age is cruel and I must have been a very bad boy because the guy upstairs is getting even for all my bad deeds in the past.  Working on my stomach laying Ballast isn’t an east task anymore, my Arthritic joints tell me all about it.   

 

 

Mel

 

 

Modeling the SP in HO scale since 1951

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

[wjstix]

I use mini-connectors from Micro-Mark in my buildings and flats. By using the same connectors, I can move buildings from place to place and the connections are interchangeable.

http://www.micromark.com/mini-connector-kit-pkg-of-10,8839.html