Doug, this forum has cost me more than a paltry $15. LOL. Another suggestion is, check out the two stall engine shed kit review I did. There’s also a reference there to and pics of a four sided diamond stud that Fire Mountain Gems sells as well. That particular product is fantastic for chimney caps or small utility box cabs on top of buildings or something to that effect. You’ll see what I mean in the pics, as I used them as rain covers on chimneys of the engine shed. To save you some money, it might be worth looking at one of those cheap dollar stores or party supply stores for anything that has fiber optic cable on it. This little glow stick thingy that was passed out at the wedding has a decent supply of fiber optic cables on it. Otherwise you could randomly start showing up at weddings in your area and maybe you’ll get lucky with someone passing them out. LOL
Like this one: https://blinkee.com/product/fiber-optic-centerpiece/ Little money for a lot of fiber.. Matt
Hi, Matt I have bought a fiber optic starter kit for a few dollars. It comes with light source, battery holder and fibers. I have attempted to use it on a couple of projects. The problem I am having especially in small spaces is corraling all the fibers into a manageable bundle without kinking or bending the fibers. Has anybody used fiber optics in their buildings and kits? Specifically getting the fibers to the light source. Thanks, Jim
Hey Matt, that is a great find. Price is right and it looks like you get a boatload of material to work with. Jim, there are several online articles that I found regarding this. They specifically said do not use CA glue. The other problem is a glue gun in my opinion would also melt the fiber optic cable. EVANS DESIGN sells small sleeves that are supposed to be usable with their LED lights, in order to secure the bundle. However, heat shrink may work as well but you have to be careful because I found that the blow dryer I was using softened, if not partially softened the fiber-optic strands. On the sawtooth warehouse, I had a bundle of four fiber optic strands together. I used a small piece of tubing to secure them first and then shot the backside of them with a high end construction grade clear acrylic caulking. I think it’s best if you trim the source mating side after you get them in a tube and they dry as a bundle. That way you can cut them all or sand them all to the same length. Sending this from work at the moment but if I have time I will lay out the materials on my bench when I get home.
Lance, What z led lights did you acquire? Thinking to put on in the porch of the Section house I am building. Also, you ended up using the fiber optic cable, where and what is the light source you leveraged? Thanks as always! -Tiest
Tiest, On this same posting, scroll up to the Nov. 1st time-frame. There I highlight what I did and what I used. Nothing fancy. The fiber optic cables are used or from a cheap party light wand. One might find these at Walmart or some cheap party supply store. As for the light shade, that came from Fire Mountain Gems. The link is also covered in this posting. The only other thing you’ll need to do is tie into a light source. But if you are planning to light the inside of the building, you could tap the fiber-optic cable up against it as well and it would light the outdoor porch light. As a general comment about lighting the building you were working on, it was not real common for those to have an industrial light of this nature. Possibly a small porch light with no cover on it is doable, but for such a small building, I would not add the complexity. Especially if this is your first build.
I drill a small hole in the end of the LED's curved surface, put a dab of RTV (silicone caulking) and push the fibers in. You can easily see where the LED is so a fairly deep hole with just enough width for the fiber/bundle makes a very stable starting point, allowing a lot of fiber flexing until you find your best spot. Sand the end of the fiber (finger nail sanding stick to make the light disburse (like a beacon on a Cab). A Bic lighter (flame) will polish it u, if needed. If you need a larger surface the fiber's diameter, heat up with a low temperature soldering iron, side of a glue-gun tip or the flame, the quickly press flat on Teflon or other slick surface.
[mention]rray [/mention] Based on above statement, what is the LED voltage and power supply voltage in combination with the 4.7K ohms resistor you are using? -Tiest Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I use a 12v power source, which measures 12.8V. This is what is assumed to be the typical accessory voltage for a model railroad power supply. With the 4700 ohm resistors, the LED's are running at 2.7mA, which is just above where the LED's start to emit light. If you are using an oldschool 16VAC accessory supply you will get 3.4mA half wave, which is still good enough to run the LED's. Lately I feel that running the LED's so bright that light leaks through the walls of a structure, or that make roof glow are too bright to be convincing, and more like a Christmas Village display.
Just a little dirty secret about LED's, and their manufacturers deceptive practices: As an added benefit of running LED's at a prototypical low illumination level, is that the lifespan will be longer, possibly a lifetime. I am sure you all have purchased items where the LED's have burnt out in a couple months. What is happening is that LED manufacturers are trying to produce LED's that output more light. The race is still on to get more and more light per LED so they can be used to illuminate home, factories, car headlights, etc. They are overdriving most LED's so they can brag theirs produce so many lumens. As an added benefit to the manufacturers, those LED's fail at a much higher rate then under driven LED's, leading to repeat purchases, all the while bragging their LED's also last 50K-100K hours. As it turns out, LED's light output is not linear to power supplied either. They have found that the light output of 2 LED's ran at a fraction of their forward brightness is much brighter than the output of an LED ran at it's maximum forward brightness, yet the less total wattage is consumed. It's being wasted as heat, in which more excited atoms move material in the circuit "electromigration" until one side of the circuit gets too small to handle the current and the device burns out. Here is a story of interest: Apparently inspired by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who wanted more efficient and longer-lasting bulbs. The secret? A normal LED bulb uses an LED “filament” at 1 watt each. The Dubai bulbs run at about a fourth of that which means they need more LEDs to get the same amount of light, but they should last longer and operate more efficiently. After exploring the brightness and color of different lamps, [Clive] tears one up and finds some surprises inside. The LEDs get over 200V each and the driver circuit has a lot of pairs of components, possibly to keep the size small for the high voltages involved, although it could be to improve reliability, [Clive] wasn’t sure. By reducing the power, [Clive] was able to count that each LED strip contains 21 LEDs. He also notes some of the oddities in construction that appear to be for reliability and ease of manufacturing. We aren’t sure how that compares to the construction of conventional bulbs. The circuit includes a bridge rectifier and a linear current regulator using a MOSFET. The bulbs cost a bit more, but if you factor in the probable long life, their total cost over time should be reasonable. Overall, it is interesting that a nice design came from what amounts to government regulation. Of course, there is a price: in exchange for the development of the bulbs, Philips has the exclusive right to make and sell the bulbs for the next several years. They expect to sell 10 million lamps by the end of 2021, although they are only available, currently, in Dubai.
other imporatant factors are: LED's should NOT be used with AC power as the Reverse Voltage is ~5 volts. Even with a limiting resister, and are only uAmps of current due to the resister, they can still easily fail. But, many do this without issues. The trick is to wire a few in one polarity and another few in opposite polarity LED's operate on Current (once you get above 2-3 volts for the semiconductor materials to activate). They are NOT like a lightbulb and will NOT become more yellow/orange with less Current. In the Game (Global commodity), they want super high Lumens, 4100K White at a minimum, 5000K for near 'Photo white' and (worse) 6ooo+K for 'Cool white (blueish). Make sure you get Warm White ~2700K or Sunny White 3100-3500K. It is impossible to get that 'candle' or old dirty lens look without painting over the lens. They no longer make at 10-100 millicandela (Dim-Dim), 2000K color. LED's should have their own resistor, not wired in parallel with 1 resistor as the LED's have temperature variable 'negative voltage drops' but the main issue is ALL of the LED currents go thru 1 resistor so you will need a higher wattage resistor (large body and can get hot). You can place several in series (approximately 3, using 12 volts and the required resistor) and get the exact same as 3 individual LED's with it's 3x larger value resistor as the example above. LED's that are Red, Green, Orange and Yellow are true color although 'White' LED's are absolutely not! White LED's use the the principle old CRT tube TV's used: bombarding phosphors. White LED's are really utra-violet blue that bombards green and red phosphors to create mostly what looks 'white'. The designed color spectrum has the mix of phosphors and specific amount of Current. Reducing (or increasing) the current will change the color spectrum. They are NOT like a lightbulb and will NOT become more yellow/orange with less Current That is why you see a smattering of colors when you buy them. Either designed and proper current makes Brand A, Product B but change current and you won't get it. LED's have dispersion profiles, being brightest strait on and falling off towards the sides. Most are ~120 (+/- 60 degrees) from the straight on. The SMD versions are commonly this way, if the 'yellow-ish' color is above the typically white base. If the is no protruding yellow, mean you have to look at the LED straight on, then there are narrower dispersion, ~30 degrees (+/-15)
[mention]Zscaleplanet [/mention] , [mention]rray [/mention] and [mention]SJ Z-man [/mention] thanks for sharing your awesome amount of experience on this topic! I had no idea and always happy to learn new things. I ordered these https://tennentm.wixsite.com/ironpenguin/product-page/pico-leds-size-04020402 leds in warm white. I will be wiring the individual leds with 4.2K ohm resistors. Will share result once I have added this to my newbie section house build. Thanks! -Tiest Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Today I managed to make the smallest illuminated gooseneck lamp I have ever attempted. Thanks to a new generation of even smaller pre-wired LED's available, 0402 sized wired with enameled 0.1mm diameter wire, I was able to fit a single strand through 0.7mm brass EDM tubing, and solder the LED Cathode and negative wire to the tubing itself. This was the only way to get a lamp this small for my new structure: The previous gooseneck lamps I made were using 0.9mm tubing, and were much harder to bend, resulting in a 6mm protruding lamp. This thinner tube can be bent to a 4mm gooseneck, or is it crookneck? Anyways, this size better fits this model.
So, these lamps are much smaller than you can make with a fiber optic strand, and while not really to scale like you would find on a real building, the lampshade is large. Still, it's as small as I can do so far, and it's better than nothing. Here is how I did them: 1) I cut a 20mm length of .7mm tube, fed one wire from an 0402 LED through and soldered the other end of the LED to the tube. Then I soldered the other wire from the LED to the end of the tube, added 2K of resistors, and tested with a 12V source: Satisfied that the LED lit, I bent the crookneck in the tubing with wire bender pliers: Then I bent the 90 degree for wall mounting: Next I slid on the 3mm smooth half round bead end for the lampshade, and filled it with clear parts cement: Then I just set it so the glue would dry and the lampshade would be angled correctly: And I superglued them into my building, then painted as desired:
WOW, really small! Night pics PLEEEZ! Love to see the effects on the doorways and building overall. That little buildings got a ton of character and the lights are just gonna add all the more to it.
