Changing My Mind Midstream
Installing the lights took longer than I expected. The main reason being that I ended up changing some of my key decisions part way through the project which resulted in redoing a significant portion of the lighting installation. Here is how all that transpired…
Design Goals
The general philosophy behind the design of this layout is a giant shadow box to focus the viewer’s attention on the railroad. To pull this off I need an integrated lighting installation that is out-of-sight, out-of-mind but makes the layout easy to see. Here are the design goals that drove the decisions I made about lighting:
Use LEDs – In previous projects I have done the fluorescent thing. I have done halogen and I have done track lighting. I have seen many railroads that used incandescent lighting. I have even used home built, low voltage light systems. With the advances in LED lighting and cost coming down as much as it has, there is no doubt in my mind I want to go with LEDs.
Removeable - I want the lighting to be removable. If I need to perform maintenance on the lighting, I don’t want to have to risk damaging the layout to get at the lighting. Also, since the strip lights use adhesive to stick to their mounting surface, I need to be able to remove whatever they are mounted on if I need to work on them.
Low Profile – They need to be as thin as possible. My space below the upper deck gives me about 1-1/4" of vertical space to mount the lights. This thickness includes the bulb, fixture, and power. None can extend beyond that 1-1/4".
Low Heat – I need a lot of lights. I don’t need a lot of heat. Additionally, the lights mounted under the upper deck are in a pretty tight space. I am not wild about enclosing heat sources in tight spaces.
Consistent Temperature – I am referring to color temperature (see the previous blog post xxxxx for details on color temperature). I want to use 5000K across the entire layout and my goal is smooth, even lighting everywhere.
Consistent Light – I want to avoid patchy lighting. My goal is consistent, smooth lighting across the whole railroad and avoid things like deep shadows in corners. I especially want to avoid alternating light/dark patches along the backdrops.
Non-Goals – Things not to do
I had some non-goals too, deliberate decisions I made regarding things NOT to do:
Not dimmable – Some folks like dimmable lighting so they can simulate dawn/evening or nighttime. I am planning on the layout being used for operations. N scale is hard enough to see in the full light, I don’t need to try to do any nighttime operating. If I want to light structures for viewing or photography, I can do that with the lights off, I don’t need to dim them.
No colors – Some folks use actual colored lights for different moods. I just want even consistent lighting of one color.
No spot lighting on featured scenes – My goal is the layout as whole will be interesting. I am not going use lighting to highlight featured scenes.
Proof of Concept
Building a double deck layout, I suspected early on that installing the lighting might be a challenge. I was less concerned about the upper deck, where there was plenty of space to hang lights. The real concern was with the lower deck due to the limited space available for mounting any type of light fixture.
I started planning the lighting installation BEFORE I built any benchwork. I figured it would be easier to know how the lights were going to be installed so I could design the benchwork to support that design, instead of trying to retrofit the lighting into benchwork after the fact.
We had used LED strip lights on the modules in my friend Bob’s garage and I was planning on using these.
They were easy to install, and their form factor made them ideal for tight spaces. And, they produced no heat whatsoever.
I had an idea of how I wanted to install them. I decided that after I got the first section of benchwork installed, I would take a break from framing and install a section of lighting as a proof of concept. The idea being to identify problems early on before I had a whole room full of benchwork that was difficult to light.
After researching lights, I decided I liked the low cost, 12 volt LED lighting strips. After the experience in the garage, I knew they were reasonably priced and easy to install
The plan was to mount the strips on 4’ long 1/8” Masonite panels. This would give me lighting panels that were light yet fairly rigid. Overall they would end up being about 1/4" thick – ideal for installing in the limited space under the upper deck.
For the lower deck, each panel would be 4’ long and 15” deep. They would end up being mounted at a slight angle to fit under the shelf brackets. Notched were cut along the back edge to slip around the thicker portions of the shelf brackets.
I decided to try 4” spacing between each strip on the panel. The first strip being right along the front edge so I could have light as close to the front edge as possible. The goal being to try to avoid shadows on the front of any model structures located near the front of the layout.
The photo shows an example of one of the LED lighting panels in progress. Pre-drawn lines make it easy to keep things straight. I cut the strips to length. They are clearly marked where you can safely cut them. This photo shows some of the strip’s details.
The two copper ovals with the scissor icon printed between them shows where you can cut. When you cut the ovals in half, it results in two small copper tabs where wiring can be attached. If you look closely you can seem them under the silver metal contacts of the connector on the left side of the picture.
The connector is part of a premade wire connector that is available to connect strips together.
The connectors slip over the end of the strip with the metal contacts over the copper tabs. You then snap the cover closed to secure it. It’s a simple idea that works ok but not well. Sometimes you have to fiddle around a bit to make good contact and get a reliable connection. These are designed to be in a fixed-in-place installation. I find that if you bump the wires occasionally, the lights tend to flicker due to questionable contact at the connections.
The truth of the matter is I wanted a more reliable and stable connection. My preferred method for connecting wires to the strips was soldering them. In the interest of full disclosure, the manufacturer does NOT recommend soldering. I have a thermostat controlled soldering iron and I use a low melt solder. I found that if I tinned the tabs and tinned any wires I was connecting, soldering was fast and easy and I had no problems at all damaging the strip in any way. The connection is many times more reliable.
One thing I am sure some are noticing in this last picture are the bare connections. I would NEVER consider a connection like this if the system were not low voltage. These strips run at 12V, about the same as most of us run through our rails. Also, I made sure that the power supplies I use have circuit protection in case shorts occur. Even with those considerations, it is electricity and you need to treat it with care. We have all heard the stories (or experienced) the tool-left-on-the-rails or loco-shorted-across-the-switch-points stories. Even low voltages can be dangerous.
Another important thing to keep in mind while working with these strips, they run on DC current. They are diodes so the direction the current flows through them is significant. They are clearly marked for positive (+) and negative (-). In both the previous pictures you see the +/- signs. Make sure that as you are connecting sections together to keep the polarity of the connection correct.
Regarding polarity, I learned another interesting lesson about power supplies. In a past project I had used low voltage yard lighting and track lighting transformers to create some homemade light fixtures for N-Trak modules. I even had a large track lighting transformer already installed in this train room for a prior project. I had planned on using it to drive a bunch of these strips. It was rated at 12 volts with two 250-watt legs. I figured that beast would drive most of the LED strips for the upper deck of the whole railroad.
It was not to be. An important fact to keep in mind, older track light and yard lighting systems do use low voltage transformers, but they put out AC current, not DC. Those transformers will not work for this type of strip lights. These LEDs require 12V DC.
If you see LED bulbs in a track light system, don’t assume that means the transformer is DC. Track light systems now have both fixtures and bulbs with built in converters that allow the use of LEDs even though the transformer is putting out AC. For these strips, make sure your power supply is DC.
For connecting the power supply to the panel, there are premade connectors with 5.5mm x 2.1mm female barrel connector for hooking up the power supply. With the same male barrel connector used on many wall wart type power supplies, this makes the connection almost plug and play.
For a cleaner installation I drilled holes in the panel and dropped the wires through from the back, right next to the strip. A quick spot of solder and the connection was made. This made the face of the panel much cleaner.
In this picture you can also see examples of the notches cut along the back edge to slip around the shelf brackets when the panel gets installed. I also found it much easier to install the panels on the layouts if I drilled a finger hole centered on the front edge. This gave me a place to hold on to the panel and pull it forward against the back of the fascia while mounting (more on this later).
While I like the ease of installation, this next photo shows one of the pitfalls of letting your mind wander even for a minute while installing the strips. Can you see the problem…?
If you look closely, you will see some interesting wiring. Note how the front two strips are wired together, then the last two strips are wired together – twice, and there is no connection between the second and third strip. This was easy to fix but you need to keep your mind on your work.
Installing the Masonite Panels
Once the strips were mounted to the panels, the next step was getting the power supply ready. I ran a bus of 14 gauge 2 conductor lamp cord along the front edge of the lower benchwork, just behind the fascia.
A side note here about low voltage wiring. Low voltage wiring is a bit more sensitive to long runs of wiring. When putting current through any wire, there is natural impedance in the wire that will cause a reduction in current. The longer the wire, the more impedance, the more drop you will see in the current over that wire. Since low voltage already is, well, low, the impedance in a long run of wire can have a significant impact on the current. Due to this, if you are going to have a longer run, consider using a little heavier gauge wire.
For those of you who ever installed one of the older yard lighting system, this is one reason the wiring is so heavy. Yes, it is more durable for being outside. It is also more efficient at sending the low voltage current over a longer distance. Therefore, I am using 14 AWG wire even though this is only a 12V system.
Back to the power bus… At every other joint between panels, I ran the wire through a European style terminal block where I spliced in two of the prewired male barrel connectors.
To help reduce sag in the panel, a 3/4" x 3/4" strip of pine is glued along the front edge of the panel. This strip will also be used to secure the panel in place once installed.
To install the panel in the layout, you rest the back edge on top of the lower level skyboard, connect the male barrel connector from the power bus to the female on the panel, then lift the front edge up, behind the upper deck fascia. A hole is drilled through the fascia into the pine strip and a brass thumbscrew is threaded through the fascia into the pine strip to secure the panel in place. I used two thumbscrews per panel to secure them in place.
If you recall earlier, I mentioned drilling the finger hole in the panel. This is where that hole really comes in handy. It makes it easy to be able to lift the panel into place and hold it firmly up against the back of the fascia while inserting the thumbscrews.
I like the nice even light that I get. The panels are easy to build, they are light, and easy to install.
I was quite happy with the design and went ahead and built a couple more to install along the left wall. These were in place for most of the first year while I worked on the rest of the benchwork. This helped me smoke test them for an extended period and check out other aspects of the strips – like would the adhesive backing hold up over time.
After a year and a half, all was still good. Here is a shot of the left wall as of two months ago. The panels are about a year and a half old and installed in the lower deck. As you can see, nice even light along the length of it.
This was three panels, each 4’ long and 16” deep, a total of 48’ of strips (four 4’ strips on each panel), using about 75 watts of power total. No heat whatsoever.
Cost was half of a 4’x8’ sheet of 1/8th inch Masonite, $30 in LED strips, $22 for a transformer (that could safely drive about 7 of these panels), and a few bucks in wire and connectors.
This was exactly what I wanted and worked as well as I had hoped. When the benchwork was all in place, I went ahead and built panels for the rest of the lower level and both the upper and lower level on the peninsula. A friend was coming to town and wanted to see the progress so I made a big push over a couple of weekends to get the panels in place before he arrived. Everything was looking pretty good...
And then, it happened…
The Visit
As I have mentioned in earlier posts, my friend Bob, the originator for the first version of this layout project had decided to relocate permanently from the Seattle area to Arizona. We pushed hard on the railroad over the summer to get as much done as possible because his plan was to move south this past Fall.
In early September, a mutual railroading friend of ours was coming up to Seattle to help Bob make the drive from Seattle down to Arizona to ferry one of their vehicles down before the rest of the household was packed up. Al Frasch, a name some folks here might recognize from articles and well-traveled N scale operating groups, used to live here in the Seattle area out on Whidbey Island. This is a short ferry ride and bike trip from Bob’s house.
The year before, Al had decided to move to Arizona as well. Up to that point, Al had a remarkable N scale railroad and hosted many operating sessions for both local modelers as well as world travelers.
Bob was a fairly regular operator at Al’s and when we were working on the layout in Bob’s garage, Al would occasionally come over and lend a hand.
Al knew about the move to my house but had not seen the layout yet. So, when he came to town to help Bob, one thing on the To Do list was come out to see how we were progressing on the project at my place.
This turned out to be a fateful visit for me.
Al showed up and we gave him the walkthrough tour. He seemed to like most of what he saw. I was especially eager to show him the lights and get his opinion. He walked around looking things over, nodding to himself occasionally. He checked out the lower level and peninsula and then looked over at me and said, “So, how did you solve the sparkling rail problem?”
I gathered all my wits about me and confidently replied, “The what?”
The Sparkling Rail Problem
The sparkling rail problem is the effect you get when you put a piece of track under a light source that consists of rows and rows of bright, tiny, points of light. These LED strips are rows of bright LEDs with no diffusers so each LED is a specific point of light. In a sense, thousands of tiny light bulbs. When pointing down on a wood surface, this is not a problem and all you get is a nice even light.
The problem occurs when the light hits a very reflective surface, like the top surface of a clean railhead on a piece of track.
All this time I had been working under these lights, I had used them for general lighting while I used the benchwork as a workbench. I could see my tools fine. I also put a couple models under them and shot a couple photos. Everything I did made me more satisfied with them.
The one thing I never thought about doing, was putting track under them just for the sake of looking at it. I tried to capture the effect in a photo and found it hard to do. Especially because in-person, the effect is easy to see.
This is one of the best photos I could get and it doesn’t do it justice. If you look at the closest rail, you get the idea. You see the individual bright spots. In person, this is much more obvious. It was especially bad when you stood at the end of the peninsula and sighted down the length of it. With track running along the length, and rows of strip lights all along the same length running in the same direction, it was going to be quite a light show.
So, as they say, back to the drawing board…
This effect bothered me enough that I decided to rethink my lighting solution. The new solution involved removing all the panels and redoing the lighting from the ground up. While this was a lot of work and more expensive, in the end, I am even happier with the new solution and I have at least 30% more light in the room than I had with the strips. The installation is clean and easy to maintain.
In my next post, I will go over the details of the final solution.
