Station lighting 101! 400th Topic!

[NozomiFan]

Many things can make a layout look good, or they can make it look like crap.
Lighting is key if you want to run a train at night, or just make it prototypical.

First you need to get you hands on some LED's or get some extremely tiny light bulbs.
This is really only for Solderers only/if you know how to solider.
I got my mini light bulbs from my LHS, but if neded you can order them from some where.

Glue in the light bulbs on the the roof of the station, and wire them through the station.
Hook them up to a AC power pack and done!

[quinntopia]

Nozomi, I couldn't agree with you more about how much lighting adds to a layout!  From my own experience, i actually took some baby steps to to get to the point where I can solder and add resistors to buildings.  There are some LED's available that are pre-wired to accept any voltage (well, usually 8-20w or so) and from DC or AC, but these can be expensive for adding a lot of lights.  I used these for some of my early building projects, but the cost ultimately led me to soldering my own, which wasn't so hard with the use of some handy internet tools, at least once I got past my fears of the 'soldering iron'!

This calculator is a great tool for those of us with limited electrical knowledge.  http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
You just enter in your source voltage (which is the rating in watts of the power source for your LED circuit, which is usually identified as the 'output' from whatever transformer or wall wart you are using); then enter the 'diode forward voltage' which will be identified with the LED's you buy and is expressed in voltage (e.g. 3.2v); and then enter in the LED's 'diode forward currrent (which again will be identified with the LED and is listed in milaamps, e.g. 20ma), and then the number of LED's that you will have connected, then ---wallah! --- you get a nice little 'picture' of how to wire it all up!

[NozomiFan]

Nozomi, I couldn't agree with you more about how much lighting adds to a layout!  From my own experience, i actually took some baby steps to to get to the point where I can solder and add resistors to buildings.  There are some LED's available that are pre-wired to accept any voltage (well, usually 8-20w or so) and from DC or AC, but these can be expensive for adding a lot of lights.  I used these for some of my early building projects, but the cost ultimately led me to soldering my own, which wasn't so hard with the use of some handy internet tools, at least once I got past my fears of the 'soldering iron'!

I do some of the voltage in my head or I buy the 12 Volt rated bulbs that I can link up.
Also I used "light bulbs" instead of LED's because it looked more prototypical.

I made some progress on my layout yesterday and did some scenery.