All may not be lost. The lights popped off the sidewalks pretty easily and they also came apart really easy. Yes all 6 LEDs were popped, a black spot in the middle of them all. I had some tiny LEDs left over from my train station so I put those in the lamps and I just finished re-attaching them to the sidewalks. I will wait till tomorrow to rewire them, and this time I am putting a ballast resistor on them to prevent this from happening again. These LEDs are rated for 2.8-3.4v so I should be good. I still have more coming but not for a couple of weeks.
I say, today is a good day! Last night after the lighting disaster I made the attempt to remove the lamps from the sidewalk and they came up pretty easily, then I tried removing the heads, and once again they came off really easy. The lamps were actually pretty easy to take apart and fix. I glued them back down and tonight I rewired them! I experimented with different resistors and found that a 3.3k was perfect, it allowed me to actually run the board at full voltage and not over do the lamps, they actually have the perfect light level. The buildings are bright and all is right in the world… until I wired up the tree that is. The tree runs on a 3V battery pack usually so I figured the same 3.3k resistor would also be perfect… nope, the tree was really dim. So I cut that out and tried another try. This time 1k and it works great at full power as well. So finally I have the lighting situated, at least as far as I can at the moment.
Started the scenery tonight! About half finished with the base, I will sprinkle some snow on once I get it all sceniced for an even covering. I also did some electrical work tonight… but I will show you that later. Teaser pic of the start of the scenery!
The ground cover looks great! It seems a shame to cover some of it with snow but it is a Christmas layout so I guess that comes with the territory.
Im not going to put down heavy snow so it’s important that I have a good looking scenery first. There will be some kids playing in the snow behind the houses, but the streets will be clear and the snow will be light. I may put it a bit thicker on the mountain, because we’ll it’s a mountain.
I wasn’t sure where to put this post as it would also make a good workbench post, but since it’s for the mini layout, I will post it here. My final structure for the layout is a Woodland Scenics kit called Fresh Market. They make this as a built up model or as a kit and the price difference said buy the kit and build it yourself. So…. Paint is coming along nicely, the green will look better after the second coat. The beige for the bricks is 2 coats, the first looked almost as bad as the green does, the darker beige will get a second coat after I finish the window trim. And the really fun part has been the fruit stand. Before I went to bed last night I painted the dark brown, and this morning I have been detailing it. I still have a bit to go, but this has been really fun to do. After a bit of detailing we now have Oranges and 3 kinds of apples. Similar pic to the one above but this one shows off the detail on the barrels better. And lastly I have my kids for the snowball fight. That will be happening between 2 of the houses.
I love the fruits and vegetables! Here's a challenge. See how small your printer can print and print up price signs for them.
I was wondering whether we'd see a Snowball Fight. It was my first thought when I started paging through this thread.
I have finally started the assembly process of the last building I need for this little layout. It’s going pretty ok. Enjoy the work in progress pics, I have had to stop for glue to dry before I really mess something up.
That is progressing nicely! Christmas layouts are great fun! And you are going sooo fast, even when the plaster was drying......Thanks for keeping us up to date!
Everyone has been saying I’m moving fast on this but it doesn’t feel that way to me. I just do a little here, and a little there every night and it keeps moving forward. Other than Fresh Market all the buildings were already built, and only needed minor things like lights to be finished off. Tonight was a HUGE step forward, I got Fresh Market finished and glued down on the layout. The hotel also got windows, lights and even a couple blacked out windows too. Lighting is installed, but I will have to wait till tomorrow to hook it up. Here are the final pics of the Fresh Market. Here’s the front view One side, the other side didn’t change since the last pic so you only get this side tonight. Back of the building, complete with hand truck and some other misc items. And here it is at home on the layout. Lighting will be in store tomorrow.
