Amoskeag Northern - Conrail Portland (PRO&C) Line Engineering Thread

[peteski]

Another baby!!

Jon

Obviously Ian enjoys making babies!  Maybe even more than model trains. 

Congratulations Ian!

[Ian MacMillan]

Some more rock on the ceiling this week.

[mcjaco]

Looking good.  Jealous!!!

[basementcalling]

Some more rock on the ceiling this week.

Looking good.

[Ian MacMillan]

Well all of the drywall is up in the layout portion of the layout. Only the office/desk part needs rock. (photos tomorrow) Next up is getting the backdrop up. I have always planned on having the corners coved, but recently in the last week or so I have been thinking of curving it up to the ceiling as well. I was able to find a calculator online that will give you the dimensions for gores so that the room corners will have 1/4 dome curves.

I found that I can make the curve with half a sheet with a 2' radius.  Heres an example of the calculator that I found on a astronomy fan site. I'm planning on trying it this weekend to see if it is what I want.


I also ordered some LED string lights to see if I want to use those instead of the party light strings I had planning on. At $14 shipped, I couldn't pass up trying them.

[Ian MacMillan]

Decided not to curve it to the ceiling. I did not like the height I decided that I will go straight up and use diffusers.

[Ian MacMillan]

Based on a post by Brendan in his D&H thread I decided to pick up some 5050 LED light strings. I found a dealer in the US that provided 5m length strings of warm white LED's with a rated 780-900lu per meter for $15 shipped.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/400417805389?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

I tossed them up quickly last night to see how they look and I was impressed with them. I am planning on putting up two strings for each section, one towards the rear and one towards the front of the layout edges. I'm also thinking of adding a blue LED strip down the center to have it on for night ops, but thats just an idea for now.

Quick throw up grab of one strip. Dont mind how crappy the lower and upper fascia look, they are just quickly screwed up there to see the height between the viewable area.

[bdennis]

Looking good Ian. Im keen to see / hear about your progress.
What is the colour temp of the LED's you have? From the picture, the strip looks to be 5500k

[conrail98]

According to his link the should be 2800-3500K. The cool white are 6000-7000K that are in the same store. How "yellow" do they look? I've got a few T8's in the warm white range and others in the 5000K range (daylight). I think I prefer the higher, just don't know if the 6000+ ones would be too much or not. Do you think they'd work as lower deck lighting? Are you planning on getting another strip in different color to compare?

Phil

[nscalemike]

Wow these look nice!  I might have just found an answer to my lighting issues as well.  What are you using for the power supply?  Based off the photos they look plenty bright, is that 1 strand or 2 up right now?  Once the backdrop is painted it will reflect more as well.  I hate to spend money since I have about 50 mini bases and the CFL's to go with them, but three strands would cover my layout, be less power, and less likely to blow my house up!

Looking forward to seeing more testing! 

[Smike]

VERY interested to see more on the lighting. My room is in the same state (sheet rock) and I'm looking for any reason not to cut holes in the ceiling to get great lighting. This looks like it! 

[bdennis]

Guys,
Just on the colour temperature.
See my blog update.
http://dh2ndsub.blogspot.com.au/

The Day light LED's need to be in the range of 5000K to 5500K. While researching this I received a 5m strip that are 6500K and are very blue and not suitable at all.

I have since found a local supplier that has what he called Pure white rather than cool white and they are 5500K.
Some of thje ebay sellers dont list the colour temp so just be very careful about what you order as you may end up with a very blue light..
So you may choose to ignore the ebay links I may have placed on my layout thread and see what you local suppliers can deliver.

Brendan.

[Scottl]

I am following this with interest.  It may be possible to fine tune the LED color by painting the waterproof casing of the strip with a transparent color like orange.  I have done this with DCC decoder LEDs and it works well.  This would not be difficult to do, in case someone gets stuck with the wrong color temperature from an online purchase.

I'll definitely be doing this on my own revised layout, with reflectors made of 1/2 section of pipe lined with reflective aluminum tape.  Perfect for getting lots of light on the subject without modifying the room lighting.  I like the energy efficiency as well- 10s of watts is very appropriate and will minimize room heating in the summer.

[peteski]

Making cool white LEDs "warm" by painitng the case with transparent orange paint works, but it noticeably reduces the light output.  This is not very apparent on N scale headlights, but if you do that on a strip used to illuminate a layout, it will be noticeably dimmer.

Why? because you filtering out a good portion of the light emitted by that LED.  White LEDs  we are dealing with are actually blue LEDs which a special phosphor coating which converts part of the blue light to other colors (to achieve full spectrum approximating white). But the blue light from the LED that comes through the phosphor is still a arge part of the total emitted light. Transparent orange paint blocks a significant part of that blue light.

[Scottl]

I agree, it is to be avoided.  However, if someone ends up with the wrong color of LED strip from an online source, it may serve some purpose through tinting.