Sandy Lake & Northern misc builds, etc.

[deemery]

Well, I went down and reconnected (and tested!) the back wall light strip.  Then I grabbed my roll of gaffer tape and taped the wires to the ceiling near the connection points, to relieve strain.  Hopefully that's a permanent fix.  

Off to the eye dr in a bit, not sure when I'll get back to the layout with one eye done and the other still needing correction.

dave

[Philip]

Looks great Dave!

Philip

[deemery]

Well, I didn't get all of the strips done, but that's because I added 2 small fill strips:


What's left is the string that goes along the front, following the curve of the benchwork just out of sight on the bottom of the photo.

A new lesson learned:  Just because connectors bought at different times -look the same-, that doesn't mean they'll actually mate!

dave

[jbvb]

Watching your progress with interest.  Almost all of my layout is illuminated by fluorescent tubes and LED strips more or less above and slightly in front of visitors.  I like the effect, more or less "cloudy bright" with no sharp-edged shade.  Your photo shows several different sources illuminating parts of your scene.  I'm curious how much shade you'll have and how it will look.

Changing topics, did you see the article Create Realistic Rocks with Custom Molds by Ken Harstine in the June RMC?  He's modeling specific locations high up in Donner Pass with lots of exposed rock. And he's paying more attention to geology and rock type than many.

[deemery]

The lights are complete above the farm corner.  This is the darkest part of the layout, and shows just the LED lighting (no overhead room lights). 

The lighting here is frankly not even, but that's OK.  I did orient the strips to provide the best light over the tracks, to highlight the trains (if I ever run any...    )

The troublesome connection on the strip at the far corner is loose.  So today's project will be to try to fix that.  It'll be painful (literally, that's a nasty contortion to reach the connector...)

add:  I did get that loose connection resolved. 

dave

[deemery]

More on lighting.  I decided to tackle the other side of the drop ceiling area.  Here's an overview:

Here you can see the drop, the existing large room light, and the layout underneath.

The idea is to get the LEDs particularly over the tracks and structures/areas of interest, to prevent dark spots. 


I traced the line of the benchwork onto the ceiling, and then used chalk to sketch out where to put the strips.

Chalk, of course, is easy to wipe off (although I have to use a damp towel.) 

I drew the lighting pattern on a piece of scrap paper, and added the wiring trace (the dark lines)

The power feed is in the top right corner. 

It's difficult to see, but the feed wire for the power will come up through the coving in the back corner in the first photo.  I got a 12v power supply, this is probably significant overkill for the lighting:


A question for the assembled experts:  I want to mount this under the layout, but I want to make sure dust, etc doesn't get into the supply.  I'm thinking about building an open box, with a cloth cover, that's larger than the power supply.  That box would be open to the bottom, allowing air flow from underneath but protecting from dust from above.  What do you-all think?

dave

[deemery]

Well, bleep!   The light strips I installed were supposed to be 4100k.  Instead they're 3600k, and they're dimmer than the new strips I just got.  Removing the existing strips would be a lot of potentially messy work, but I think I'll bite the bullet and do that.  Mixing 2 colors on either side of the aisle will just look funky!

dave

[Mark Dalrymple]

Making some good progress, Dave.

Cheers, Mark.

[deemery]

After much cogitation and angst, I've decided to get one more strip of 3500k lights to finish that particular corner of the layout.  Anything else would entail removing lights from the ceiling, and they're -stuck on there permanently-. 

So that'll put the lighting project on hold, until the 3500k lights arrive.  I'll move onto another project, I can do some scenery on the farm side of that corner.  But first, I'll hook up the 12v power supply so I don't have to jury rig the power to the existing LED strips. 

dave