I have enjoyed your videos

I have enjoyed your videos on YouTube.

I am trying to figure out how to get my SageTV to play your youtube videos.. right now it only seems to feed very recent videos. Then I will be able to enjoy tracking through them. I espeically need to finish up our series on hand-made turnouts. Any chance that will be reposted in higher res sometime? I like seeing how I can do it without a fast tracks jig which I cannot currently afford.

Welcome to the forum!

Chris

RE: I especially need to finish

My hats off to you! That series has 58 parts.  If I had to do it over again I would have used more time lapse to blow through some of the the more "Boiler Plate" aspects of building a turnout.  Ah well.  It is what it is...

It's on my list of things to do.  The videos actually are "Hi-Res" based on the YouTube standards af a year ago. About 6 months or so after I uploaded the last one YouTube changed the aspect ratio of their players to wide screen which was cool yet a bit irritating since all my "Hi Res" videos weren't really Hi Res any more.

Cool. You're the kind of audience I was targeting.  The fast track jigs are really slick but they're also pricey.  I got a #6 N scale Jig because I'm going to need a lot of #6s for my yards (when I get around to doing them). It does save some time and enforce consistency.

E

Black Ceiling

 Hi E,

Great videos, very informative!

I have an unrelated question, and hope this is the right place to post this. I notice in your videos that the ceiling above your layout appear to be exposed joists, and painted black. I have been considering doing this to my layout room, but am unsure of how dust would collect or how to mount lighting etc. Would you recommend going this route? Have you found any significant benefits or drawbacks? 

Hope you can help.

Stan

I notice in your videos that

 Actually the joists aren't painted black.  I live in an older house (1920) and the basement is really shallow (6ft, 3 in from floor to Joists). They probably look black due to the florescent lights behind the valance.

I'll post some pics of my lighting later.  I got some Honey do's I need to take care of outside....

E

Here's how I did my lighting..

Ok.  I started by adding a 20 amp circiut to my breaker panel.  I used 12 ga wire from the panel to all the lighing outlets.  The lights are controlled by a single switch fastened to the ceiling joist.

The line gets a few more times to feed power to several outlet boxes strategically place throughout the room.

For the most part I use simple plug in flourescent shop lights.  If the lights run acrros the joists I haide them behind a simple(emphasis on simple) masonite valence. 

Lights that run parallel with the joists are raised up between them so i don't need a valance.

There are a couple of areas where I had to mount the lights on the valance itself.

The advantages of using flourescent lighting are...

• It's cheap (especially if you just go with shop lights)
• Low energy consumption (as opposed to incadescents)
• Low heat output
• provides good bright lighting

I think I spent maybe about 250 - 300 about 5 years ago to get everything in place.  The disadvantages are...

• You can't dim them for night settings (at least not the shop lights)
• They're noisier (ballast hum)

That's all I can think at the moment. Hope this gives you some ideas.

Dimming

Can't dim fluorescents without very expensive controls, but I notice you have many fixtures side by side. Putting half of these duplicated lights on a separate circuit would give you the option of turning on all of the lights, or just some of them. Not dimming, but reduced light that might have a nice effect.