Enhanced Building Lighting Using Leds

Looks great Rod.

John

Very nice job, Rod!  I want to convert each caboose to LED before tackling buildings.  I’m not in a rush on buildings because most haven’t even found a permanent position on the layout.

Rod, is the black electrical tape to keep light  from leaking through the roof joints?

@CK posted:

Rod, is the black electrical tape to keep light  from leaking through the roof joints?

Bingo! The fit of the panels is not perfect and light does leak.

Great job Rod.  I now have a new future project. 

@Rod Stewart posted:

Bingo! The fit of the panels is not perfect and light does leak.

That's a great idea. I have the same building and have slowly been reworking it. I reinforced and filled a lot of the joints with sprue goo but then that still needs to get painted. The tape would have probably been easier.

Next up: TaDa, the RK Esso gas station, one of my favorite action accessories. Again I used 12V warm white strip leds, around 3 sides of the car bay, and also under the gas pump canopy as you can see. I used the method Hokie71 devised of using an existing light socket as a power source, so as not to mod the OEM wiring.

The following pictures show the station at rest with the car bay lights off, then lights on and door open. Finally the car is parked under the canopy ready to gas up.

All in all I am quite pleased with the outcome. It looks way better than it did.

And here is a neat surprise: Guess what I used for a power module to light the leds? Nothing at all! They are plugged right into the AC supply for the original car bay light, no resistor, nothing. The station runs on 14VAC, so being as the diodes are leds they are only seeing half wave, about 10V average. Figured it was worth a shot to see how this would work. I ran it for about 1/2 hour on the bench with no ill effects at all. So now its on the layout for the long haul and my fingers will be crossed that all goes well.

Going forward I am thinking the next few buildings will get the same straight plug in treatment for the leds since almost all the layout accessories are on 14VAC power. Gotta like it! Makes it pretty simple to add leds.

BTW, Happy Halloween everyone! Boo!

Rod

Rod, they are still getting reverse voltage, which leds don't handle very well.

@John H posted:

Rod, they are still getting reverse voltage, which leds don't handle very well.

True John, but they are diodes after all! And its only a strip of leds, so if it burns out at some point I’ll replace it with a blocker diode in the wiiring. No big deal, time will tell.

Rod

They look good, Rod, however and not to sound critical, how do they look with room lights dimmed?

While LED light bulbs have come a long way and my home is full of them - and love the energy savings, my experience with the small LEDs strips and bulbs for model trains and buildings has been lackluster, no pun intended. While plenty bright, they are way too much on the cool side of the color spectrum, and thus give a sanitized hospital white light. Menards buildings are infamously known for this unrealistic and annoying lighting. I paint the bulbs to reduce this poltergeist effect, which helps a bit. I also think you cannot dim LEDs with adjustable voltage, am I right on that? My overall question, has LED strips and bulbs been improved to represent wam lighting, and if so what are the brand and types?

@Paul Kallus posted:

They look good, Rod, however and not to sound critical, how do they look with room lights dimmed?

While LED light bulbs have come a long way and my home is full of them - and love the energy savings, my experience with the small LEDs strips and bulbs for model trains and buildings has been lackluster, no pun intended. While plenty bright, they are way too much on the cool side of the color spectrum, and thus give a sanitized hospital white light. Menards buildings are infamously known for this unrealistic and annoying lighting. I paint the bulbs to reduce this poltergeist effect, which helps a bit. I also think you cannot dim LEDs with adjustable voltage, am I right on that? My overall question, has LED strips and bulbs been improved to represent wam lighting, and if so what are the brand and types?

I usually run trains with the overhead lights somewhere between darkish to medium bright. The gas station doesn’t look too bad in either scenario. I most always use warm white leds for passenger car lighting and for these buildings, and they don’t have the clincal white look you refer to. Menards for some reason seem to always use bright white 5V strips, and they don’t look very realistic.

Yes these leds are dimmable by straight voltage reduction. To dim these led strips all you would need do is add a resistor or variable pot inline. I reduce the bright menards leds with an adjustable buck converter in the supply; they look way better dimmed.

Rod

Most of the Menards building have to have their lighting dimmed with something.  A variable pot is the easiest for me to do.

Art

@Paul Kallus posted:

My overall question, has LED strips and bulbs been improved to represent wam lighting, and if so what are the brand and types?

Led strips can be purchased in different wavelengths. Search for light in the 3000K range for ww, or warm white. The bluish light is cool white, around 7000K. In the middle is usually daylight or bright white at 5000K.

Here' the IHC engine shed lighting project from a couple of years ago. For this I used bright white led strip to make it look something like commercial fluorescent lighting. Power is supplied by a home-grown variable voltage reg using a 317 chip. I chose this because there quite a few leds (a full length row above each engine) and a constant current board might not have been up to the task.

Two LED applications on my subway modules: First, warm white individual LED's for an old fashioned incandescent light bulb look:

Second, cool white LED strips for a 1960's fluorescent light look:

All the lights are powered by variable DC from a power pack, keeping the voltage at 9 volts.

Joe, you nailed it! The first picture I thought was the real deal its so lifelike. The gal in flipflops just does it! Nice work.

Here is the just converted RK Harley-Davidson showroom. Again I used warm white leds and tapped power from a convenient OEM light socket using Hokie71's method so as to not tamper with the existing wiring. It's direct connection with no regulating module at all. The two outside lamps were a mod done a few years back but I figured they could stay. Notice the tiny 200R pot just beside the socket. It is set about half travel which looks pretty good IMO.

Now all I need is a couple more sets of Hogs to stick in the showroom; it looks kind of bare!

@Rod Stewart posted:

The gal in flipflops just does it! Nice work.

Not to derail your thread, but 3D-printed figures have become incredibly good.  The difference between the plastic and pot metal figures on my first two modules and the 3D figures on my last module is amazing.  3D figures are now becoming as accurate as the trains and buildings.  Between that and the LED lighting, super-accurate modeling is becoming achievable for the average hobbyist (like me) at relatively little cost and effort.

I honestly thought the gal in flip flops was a real person in a real subway. A great photo, btw, Joe.

John's suggestion on searching for the 3000 K warm LEDs is spot on, but do sellers always list the Kelvin spec? Joe, what brand are your warm LEDs in the subway?

@Paul Kallus posted:

John's suggestion on searching for the 3000 K warm LEDs is spot on, but do sellers always list the Kelvin spec? Joe, what brand are your warm LEDs in the subway?

Sometimes they don't so that's why i recommend searching for ww also. I have bought a number of reels; none had brand name. Only difference is sellers. I pay a little more to use USA merchants to get them faster. I use a number of styles. Here is a thread (about half way) on some street light replacements I did. Most all of my LED work is due to great info from @gunrunnerjohn and @stan2004. Ain't this forum great?

@Paul Kallus posted:

Joe, what brand are your warm LEDs in the subway?

I bought the ceiling lights from an Ebay vendor named Murton Scale Miniatures ("see-search" seems to be the Ebay vendor name). The wall sconces and the token booth lights were sold by an Ebay vendor named "wehonest_cn". I had no trouble with either vendor. Quick service, responsive and good communications.

So here's a little time-saver trick I just stumbled onto that seems worth sharing. This makes it easy to connect strip leds painlessly to common Vreg or Ireg board modules, without the need of wiring them together. It will work nicely for preparing strip led lighting for use in buildings and such. It would also work in a passenger car if you have sufficient room on the underside of the roof to mount the module.

First tin the end of the led strip and the underside of the +/- output connection pads on the board with a couple of small blobs of solder like this: (Keep the blobs fairly small)

Then place the board end (watch polarity!) over the strip end, aligning the solder blobs like below, and touch your iron to both. (This board output pattern has a pitch of 0.1", which is pretty common, and fits the pads on the led strip nicely)  In just a few seconds the joint should be done. It's likely a good idea to check it with your DVM to make sure the blobs aren't touching and creating a short. That wouldn't be good.

And here's the test specimen at about 11 volts. Yahoo!

Unfortunately I didn't figure this trick out until right after I needed it, like always! Now I just hope to remember it for next time. Should save some time where space permits.

Here is a note that I did up for a gentleman to help with the success rate of the direct solder method.

It works best with small solder blobs on the tape pads as well as on the bottom of the board pads.

Then place the tape flat on an old towel (not a heat sinking type surface) and hold the module in position with one hand with moderate pressure, whilst applying the iron flatwise across the tops of both board pads simultaneously. The heat flows thru the solder down to the junction spot and melts all. Hold the heat for 2-3 seconds, you should see/feel when the solder melts.

Remove heat and hold in position for several seconds. Should set just fine. The trick is to work on a surface that won’t steal the heat from the bottom of the tape. Wood or a towel works fine.

Test with a DVM after done to make sure the + and – is not shorted together by solder flow.

Rod