Has anyone used the long LED light strips to create twilight or night lighting on their layout ?

I bought two spools....not to the install stage yet. Did kinda test them...I like the soft even light they gave off.....we'll see how it looks.

Yes I have install a 6' strip under my elevated loop and they work nice. The one I have can be dimmed. But even on the lowest setting I don't think you will get twilight,

You can see it here under the upper level where the Maintenance #69 car is running.

AMCDave & KRM,     Thanks for your input.  Dave, I know you haven't installed them yet, but did you choose the multi-color version with the controller that enables you to program the color and intensity ?    

I am going to use a light blue seamless paper around the layout and the LED strips behind the mountains. I have the LEDs and tested them. I'm using multi colored strips so I can go from blue to red and change the time of day. They come with a remote. I have switched almost all my lighting to led. The theater I am building has programed lighting that slowly changes every 30 sec. Three colors. There is a small computer that's programed inside the theater. You can do amazing things with these new LEDs. I get mine from China and very low prices with free shipping. Don

chris a posted:

AMCDave & KRM,     Thanks for your input.  Dave, I know you haven't installed them yet, but did you choose the multi-color version with the controller that enables you to program the color and intensity ?    

I went with warm white w/o a controller. My idea was room lights out and the LED's on for a twilight look....my favorite time of day....thx

What I did is ended up getting a total of 6 of the Philips Hue Lights installed. I have four in track lighting in one half and two in a ceiling mount on the other half. I have images under the Do You have a layout Photos. That shows a little bit of what I can do on my layout. though I need to get different bulbs for the track lighting. I can do Sunrise look, sunset look, broad day light(haven't tried that one yet), and night scenes

I think the RGB strings with the controllers would give you the most options. I got some of those for my wife 4-5 years ago, they were quite versatile. I will have to look around here and see if I can find them, I don't think she ever used them for anything? We moved around that time and quite a few things got disrupted. Some are still in that state.

I only have the bright white installed under my layout for work lighting and finding stored items under there. Just about like being in the room with all the lights on under there now.

Another option is Eddylights.com multi-color LEDs.  They make 3.3' LED bars controllable by DMX components -- providing complete daylight, twilight, and nighttime options.  That's what we are currently planning to use for my layout being built this year.

David

Thanks to everyone who replied.  I'll have to do some reading about some of the ideas posted.   Probably leaning toward the RGB strips as least for a fit test.  The idea of placing them behind the scenery and in front of my backdrops sounds interesting.   I have about 60 linear feet of backdrop currently hanging vertically and about 1/3 of them have shallow relief mountains just in front of them so this could end up producing an interesting back lit effect on the sky and painted clouds.  

I find the cool white produces all too much blue for a true representation of night time lighting, granted, it's a big step in the right direction.  I have since toned down the blue by coloring the strips with a yellow Sharpie.

 I chose to shade the lighting from direct eye contact with a valance.  Here's the lighting at full intensity for picture taking, but they can also be dimmed for better realism.  Notice the softened shadows produced by its multiple light sources.

Bruce

One of the sponsors, Hikel layouts did this for the NWTL layout.  It takes about 3 minutes to go from mid day to night.  Maybe worth reaching out to them.

https://youtu.be/5zco5gszjac

If you go for the multi-color ones, go for the ones that have three-chip LED modules, that way you get the true colors.  Many of the multi-color strips just have three different colored LED's in a group, they don't mix nearly as well.