overhead lighting for layout room

lehighline posted:

I bought my track lighting at HD. Unfortunately, the particular model is now a discontinued item. But they did market a replacement, so go in and look.

The cobalt blue paint for the sky is easy, as they mix it for you right there in the store. I blended my sky with white as I got closer to the horizon. Its a little tricky to get right, but you can always paint over it if you don't like your efforts.

Here is another thought: Blue Christmas LED strings. Put them down low behind your buildings and give yourself a gap between the back/sides of the layout and the wall to hide them just below the tops of the hills. Kill the main lights in the room and light the strings for a neat night effect. Buy a string or 2 as a trial. If you do not like it, use them next Christmas on the house!

 

Chris

LVHR

Chris,

That is a great paint job, and you have some pretty nice scenery to go with it.

Aflyer

I'm considering overhead layout lighting using 5000k PAR 38 dimmable LED flood lamps.  I'm thinking about spacing them roughly 3 1/2 feet apart, mounted at ceiling level.   There seem to be different types such as Phillips model # 435016 with multiple, small diodes contained within the face of the bulb in contrast to others such as Sylvania, Hyperikon and Energy Star with a single, large diode in the center.  Also seem to be significant variations in beam angle from 30-something degrees up to 110 degrees.  Many of these are sold in 4-packs only and all are pricey so it's a bit impractical to just buy various and try them out.

I'd appreciate thoughts/experiences from any who have used these  types of bulbs.

Bill

I have Philips PAR38 screw in replacement bulbs in our master bath. The ceiling height is 12'. They have 7 emitters and are 18 W bulbs. 150W incandescent equivalent. The color temperature is 3100 deg and the color accuracy (or CRI) is 91%. We are totally happy with these lights. We renovated two homes over the past 3 years and converted to  90% LED and 10% tubular fluorescent. Our goal was to create a lighting environment that was indistinguishable from incandescent/halogen. We chose Philips, Sylvania and Halco bulbs. These are 5W and 8W single emitter bulbs. We also have some 3 emitter 5W LED's that work fine. Other brands may also be just as good but we did not test them. The Halco LED's are used outdoors for the Architectural accent lighting and they precisely match all the other LED's.

I have no personal experience with 5000deg bulbs. Keep in mind the color temperature and color accuracy are at 100% brightness; as they are dimmed these values change. We have quite a few MR16 LED spots for highlighting artwork. I can see the color shift as I dim them down to around 40%. i should have used a lower wattage LED for this application.

Our trainroom has 3100deg 8W LED floods (120deg beam spread) on 8' centers in  an 8' high ceiling. They are mounted in recessed can fixtures. They provide good general lighting. we are adding 24V LED strip lights that are infinitely color variable to add to the layout environment. They are much more cost effective than individual fixtures. 24V are better than 12V strip lights since the current is half, allowing more LED's between power feeds. I feel layout lighting is critical and cheap LED's with poor color accuracy are just not worth it.

If you are recess mounting the lights I recommend 4' centers since the ceiling joists are on 16" centers. Hopefully this helps. There is no single correct solution for lighting once we go away from incandescent.

This is very helpful.   Many thanks.   Bill

Old school, incandescent. Click on the link.   There is a lot of new technology in the last 10 years.  LED, energy conserving lights seem to be the fixture of choice on most commercial job, I've worked on lately.  

Here is a link to my lighting thread: https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...he-train-room?page=1

I tried track lighting with undesirable results.  I think it would be OK for highlighting certain areas but not for general lighting.  The LED units I used are dimmable and produce nice even lighting.  I hardwired mine into remodel cans and I am very happy with the results.  As you can see from the first photo in the thread, the light is bright but not overbearing which ends in results that have too much color saturation.

I hope this helps.

I also have installed LEDs in ceiling "cans".  I believe one added benefit of LEDs is you can run insulation right up to the cans because they don't produce heat; whereas incandescent bulbs can burn out prematurely unless you use the cans that allow insulation (which I did not because I did not think of it).  So if you are planning to sound proof your ceiling to keep the beautiful noise of trains from driving your family nuts, you may want to consider this. 

[Ceiling insulation might make another good topic because mine isn't finished yet and I'm leaning toward Roxul insulation for sound.  I prefer the insulation against the bottom of the upstairs flooring so that I have access to pipes and wires in my ceiling  -- so I am going to probably put in 1 x 1 inch wood strips about the ceiling to contain the insulation above the wires and plumbing.   (see photo) But I digress...]

I am running dimmable LEDS (make sure they say that on the pack) and blue incandescent 75 watt flood bulbs side by side with dimmer switches.  That way I can get variable white light and then variable blue light when I want the layout to be a nighttime scene.

I noticed on your Ebay link you show blue and colored LEDS.  I bought dimmable white LEDs in 2 packs at Sams Club which work great and are priced right.  After experimenting, I've decided to run 75 watt flood incandescent blue bulbs for a nightime effect.  I tried blue LEDS and the lighting was awful -- made buildings and such look like they were under a black light -- too intense (photo). 

Mike