The JACALAR RR

Interior Lighting Part 2

(First, I forgot to point out the styrene posts that I mounted the LED and door photo to (for completeness) -- they are .060x.060 strips, above)

The other type of lighting I have done is for when I want a real interior, not photo. In this case, I use the Ngineering nano LEDs which are surface mount devices (SMDs). You have to be able to work with real precision to get the wires attached on these, and I have been using them both for structure lights as well as signals and street lamps.

For the example, I am showing a DPM/WS building which I have as apartments in the upper floors, and an A&P on the ground floor. This required both "room" lighting, as well as photo lighting (for the apartment interiors)

This photo shows the "taken apart" interior, with lots of wires! The ground floor store interior is in the background, and a key here is that there is a back wall that is not as deep as the building (the notch is for the doorway). This back wall allows the wires back support to be hidden when looking in.



On the left of the image, you can see a support structure with apartment interior photos. These are illuminated with two incandescent nanoLEDs mounted to the front wall of the structure. This gives a nice warm glow to all four apartments.

Between the rear support structure and the circuit board, you can see, out of focus, the ceiling for the store with wires going to it. This sits down onto the support braces, and I hold it there with double-sided tape (which was good, since I wouldn't have been able to take these photos else wise).

Here, you can see one of the two nano-LEDs which light the apartments, mounted on the front wall. I have the wires routed so that they can't be seen when looking in (unless you really take an unusual angle). The windows all have curtains, shades, or something in them, which is what all those other items on the walls are.




same photo, with LED lit



Comment - the other great thing about using the micro-connectors! Makes it easy to light the structures when not on the layout. I have a 12V wall-wart with the mating plug.

 

Interior Lighting Part 3

Here you can see both "apartment lights" lit



wider angle



When wiring these multi-LED buildings up, I have come to rely on the Ngineering Power Distribution Jr boards. These have a current limiting chip on them, which keeps each device at their maximum rated 20mA. They can also have other resistors added to adjust the current, allowing controlled dimming.



The ground floor A&P market needed a more uniform and brighter lighting, with the whole interior well lit. For these, I mounted 4 bright white nano LEDs onto the ground floor ceiling. These give a very nice fluorescent light



And, everything tucks up nicely, with the ceiling above the door frame, and stuck to the two interior brackets I made (which are cemented to the underside of the roof) with double sided tape

 

Interior Lighting Part 4

This helps illustrate how these buildings attach and sit on the layout.

The mating power cord is brought up from under the layout, through a whole in the base styrene



Here we see it with the interior of the market in place



And, finally, the building lit up




I have also taken to using PC-board rail ties as mini-boards for soldering the SMD LEDs and SMD resistors. I have done that in my small depot, where I needed lights across a small section of the ceiling.

Hope you guys have found these 4 posts useful.

 

The interior details are the ModelTech Pre-painted interior details available from FiferHobby and others

 

Started mocking up how to place all these buildings on the layout. Construction paper is so much fun to cut up, makes me feel like I was back in grade school

This is an overview of the industrial and seedy area. The black will be road or lot, the orange is meant to be sidewalks, etc. the two small houses won't stay there, just using them to represent small buildings in those spots



This shows how it flows into the rest of Cherylton. I moved the City Hall and Police Station up to the front of the layout, at the intersection.



I also moved where I would putting the A&W to next to the diner

 

These shots are a bit more "street view" of what the residents and workers would see











I will have the area around the industrial spurs raised up to roadbed level, as well as the section between the tracks. Am still debating the back area, in front of the gas tank; whether to just have the road turn, as shown, or build another highway bridge across the double mains, leading into the backdrop. Comments are welcome.

 

This week's modeling was building an SP interlocking tower. It is actually going onto the Silicon Valley FreeMo-N module called the Wye Knot, but I wanted to see how one would look on the JACALAR. I had been wondering what to do with this little space in town at road crossing, and I think this fits just perfectly.

Looking from the front of the layout



Looking down, from over the skid row area



And this is looking down from the roof of the hotel



I am going to have to get one of these kits for my own (American Model Builders LaserKit Interlocking Tower)

 

That is a nice looking tower. Gives me an idea....

 

Great work! City scene is giving me some good ideas.

 

Thanks, Jerry. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make any progress since then, haven't even made it out to layout! Work has gone to about 12 hours a day, including weekends, since April 4th. And, technology gremlins have hit the household hard. First, our home server died, and now my PC (7 years old Pentium-4) is clearly dying all in the past 3 weeks. Looking on the positive, I am getting a brand new PC which will be so much more powerful - downside, had to put off ordering one of the Big Boys, and most everything else for a few months.

 

Your life sounds like mine Rick! LOL

 

I use the special clamp Tim sells, and clamp it in a third hand. Solder with Optivisors.

I messed up three before I got one right. Buy a pack of the less expensive ones to practice.

 

I got my new PC up and running, it is SUPER FAST (takes less than 30 seconds for full boot - using a 256GB M4 Crucial SSD as boot drive), and it can now run Helicon Focus. Here are my first two photos taken

This is the Morning Daylight, pulling out of Laurel Gulch, heading towards Cherylton. This is a 16 photo stack



Here is the Daylight coming up the foothill grade into the High Sierras. This long shot is a 29 photo stack



For the PC techies:
Motherboard - ASUS P8Z77-Deluxe
Processor - Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge (3.5GHz)
RAM - 16GB G.Skill Ripjaws Z 4x4GB (1600)
Boot Drive - Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SSD
Data Drive - HGST 1TB 7200 RPM (will be adding a second, soon, and can't decide whether to RAID 1 or just two drives -- have NAS RAID doing autobackups as is)
Case - Antex 302 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
Power - Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750W
CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Hyer 212 EVO
GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 670
Blue Ray Burner - Pioneer BDR-208
OS - Win7 64 bit Pro

With this PC, I am looking forward to getting back to making some videos. It was such a pain on the old one (750 MHz Pentium 4, WinXP) and took hours.

 

A Big Boy Arrives on the JACALAR

It was an exciting day on the JACALAR, as another addition to motive power finally arrived. Here we see UP x4023, recently acquired by management, making its way across the High Sierras, coming out of the highest tunnel



continuing over the trestle

 

Making its way down out of the mountains, the new arrival enters the main yard area, passing SP GS-4 4453. Hopefully, these two will get along



Checking out its new neighbors




Of course - no good day goes unpunished :rats: As I was customizing the programming on the new acquisition, my auxiliary power supply (a PC power supply) died! Not sure what happened, heard a "squeak" and all my aux power went out. It was only about 3 years old, and only used on the RR. Turnouts, turntable bridge, signals, lighting, all out.

 

Having fun with Helicon Focus, the new Big Boy, the vintage Jaguars I picked up in Scotland... I call this one "Please pass the Grey Poupon"