Lighting Bar Mills Sokol's Furniture and Mattress Company

[ReadingBob]

I thought I'd do a spin off of my Bar Mills - Sokol's Furniture and Mattress Company Build thread and focus just on lighting the structure so here it is. 

Once I had the walls of the structure joined together an evil plan started to formulate in my head on how I could light this puppy up.  The roof of the structure (the white card in the picture below) drops down into place behind the cornice and rests on the bracing at the top of the walls.  So I started by replicating the roof on some black matt board I picked up at an art supply store (Sam Flak's).  I'm not sure exactly what it is, it's about 1/16" thick and very stiff.


I then trimmed 1/8" off the black matt board to account for the bracing.  The way the walls were assembled included formers at odd angled joints that were glued just underneath the 1/8" bracing.  These angled pieces gave the black matt board something to rest on at that end of the building.  On the other end I glued a couple of pieces of bracing, diagonally, in each corner to give it something to rest on at that end.  Here you can see the black matt board, in place, and how the roof will drop into place on top of it.  There's a little clearance between the two for some low profile wiring. 


And here's the roof in place.


I cut two more pieces of the black matt board to match the first and then trimmed off the corners so these two would clear the support pieces the top piece will rest on.  For the bottom piece I also trimmed off a section to clear the wiring for some exterior lights that will be added at a later date.


Now it's time to start prepping for the lights.  I start by marking the positive lead of the current limiters and LED's with a red Sharpie.  I also test the LED's prior to marking each one.


I'm working on the lower card first.  I had roughly marked where I want the LED's to be and drill holes for both them and the Current Limiters.  I had a plan in my head as to how I want the circuit to run.  More on that a little later.  This is the first time I've ever used copper tape.  I got some from our friend Slim at [img=http://microlumina.com/store/]http://Microlumina[/img].     The tape is 1/8" in wide and I believe there's 55 yards on the roll.  I laid the roll down flat on my work bench and was very, very careful with it.  I've read horror stories about this stuff unspooling itself and becoming a real nasty mess.


More in a few...          

[ReadingBob]

The copper tape has an adhesive backing.  It can be a bit tricky to remove.  I used the edge of an X-Acto blade to get in between the backing and the copper tape and separate the two.


I then laid the tape out on the black matt board following the pattern I had devised in my head.  I cover the holes I had pre drilled and then opened them up with the tip of the X-Acto knife afterwards.


After all the tape was in place, and the Circuit Limiters and LED's were soldered in place, here's what the lower level circuit looked like from the top.  I added some graphics to illustrate the flow of the current.  The Positive leading into the circuit connects to the Positive lead of two Current Limiters.  One branches to the left and one to the right.  From there the Negative lead of each Current Limiter runs to the Positive lead of the first LED's in each series.  The Negative lead of the first LED is then connected to the Positive lead of the next LED.  All in all, each series has one Current Limiter (3 volts) and 3 LED's (3 Volts each) which means it will require a minimum of 12 volts to light the circuit.
.

By the way, where the positive and negative entry points are on the end of the card will be between two windows on the wall.  I didn't want the wiring the will run from floor to floor to be visible through a window.

Here's the board from the other side.  I let the LED's hang down pretty low because this 'ceiling', if you will, will be pretty far above the windows that are in the doors on the bottom level of the structure.


For the lower level floor I had drilled the holes using a pin vise.  When it came time to do the next two floors (which will have an identical lighting pattern) I decided to expedite the process and hold the two boards together and use a Dremel to drill the holes.  There's absolutely nothing precise about this.  I had marked where I wanted the LED's and Current Limiters to go with a pencil and simply drilled two holes in each spot, eyeballing everything as I went.  The holes need to be approximately the same distance apart as the leads are on the component that will go in that spot.


After finishing the second level floor I connected it to a power source to test it.  Rats.  On series of LED's didn't light up like I had expected them to.


I'll cover trouble shooting and what I did wrong in my next post but, for now, that's enough for today.   

[cuse]

Wow. A build within a build...very informative!


John

[ACL1504]

Bob,

Wow, what a fantastic tutorial on the use and wiring of the copper tape. Beautiful job on the entire build.

Tom

[ReadingBob]

Wow. A build within a build...very informative!


John

Thanks John!  It's all Slim's fault.     He's the one who convinced me I could do stuff like this.  I don't particularly enjoy the wiring, soldering, etc. part of it but the end result really makes the extra effort worthwhile.        

[ReadingBob]

Bob,

Wow, what a fantastic tutorial on the use and wiring of the copper tape. Beautiful job on the entire build.

Tom

Thanks Tom.  I have a roll of that tape here for you.  I hope this helps a little bit when you get to lighting up Delwin's.  That's going to be something to see.   

[jbvb]

Which of Slim's 'current limiter' parts are you using?  I've used a number from a package I bought a couple of years ago, but I thought they were only rated for 20 milliamps.  It looks like those you're using can handle two strings of LEDs in parallel.

[deemery]

One of my projects for the roundhouse is a similar lighting design.  So I'll be very interested in your debugging tips.


dave

[martin.ojaste]

Dare I say this? -  That was a bright idea lighting the structure and you know I would not have led you blindly.

[GPdemayo]

Really neat Bob. 

[donatode]

I agree!  Very neat and informative.  Thanks.

[ReadingBob]

Which of Slim's 'current limiter' parts are you using?  I've used a number from a package I bought a couple of years ago, but I thought they were only rated for 20 milliamps.  It looks like those you're using can handle two strings of LEDs in parallel.

Hi James.  We probably have the same Current Limiters.  The one's I have are rated at 20 milliamps as well.  For each current limiter I have maximum of three (sometimes I have only two) LED's following the Current Limiter in series.  It may have been a little hard to decipher from my top down photo so here's a diagram from bottom showing the connections.  There are two Current Limiters connected to a common positive feed.  One for the series on the left and one for the series on the right.   



I don't get any fancier than using small groupings like this.  I have a Business Degree (Accounting) so this electrical stuff is not really my forte.  If I can get it to work anyone should be able to. 

[ReadingBob]

One of my projects for the roundhouse is a similar lighting design.  So I'll be very interested in your debugging tips.


dave

Thanks Dave.  I'll have them for you soon.  I'm sure others will chime in with some useful information too!   

[ReadingBob]

Dare I say this? -  That was a bright idea lighting the structure and you know I would not have led you blindly.

Hi Martin.  This one just cried out to be lit up.  I have the inside pretty well covered.  I'm pondering how much exterior lighting to add and how to go about it.   

[ReadingBob]

Really neat Bob. 

Thanks Greg.  Hopefully you'll get to see it sometime in the near future.