Large Scale Central

Structure Lighting Project - Indoor Edition

I’ve been playing around with lighting ideas for indoors. With Wall Station being moved indoors I had two ready to go lit structures to get started. I hooked them up to my track which serves as my lighting power buss , but the results were unsatisfactory. Outdoors, the track alone handles this job well. All joints are either screwed together or clamped from when it carried track power for locos. When I built indoors I had pulled the plug on track power, so most track joints are loose. This results in enough voltage drop at the South end of the railroad that LED modules won’t light up.

At first I thought the small power supply I was using might not have enough for the load, so I wired in a big supply left over from my Ham Radio station. Here is the “Power House”…

I still have that MRC connected to the rails as well, but I need to add some isolation switches in order to use it. A timer takes care of turning all lighting, indoors and out, on before dusk and off well after sunrise. Back in my track power days I was pretty organized when it came to wiring. This junction block connects multiple power supplies to multiple power insertion points. It now feeds a constant 12V for lighting…

After tying in the big supply and taking voltage readings I decided that I didn’t need more amps, I needed a better path. I decided to run a lighting buss wire under the entire indoor layout. The south-end was wired in this weekend. Here is the Power House all put back together after everything was connected up…

With good power at the South end, Wall Station and Platform found a winter home. Railroad management decided a passenger car should be spotted in front of the platform and ordered it done. Pencil pushers didn’t realize that the car could not be switched into that position due to track limits. But the crew got it done with Porter #3 and a long chain. The interior lights are tied into the buss…

I made the billboard stand years ago for an EBT display at the ECLSTS. It found a new home at South Willow Hill…

Wall Station looks a lot more inviting here then covered in snow and ice outdoors…

A close-up of the EBT Billboard. The mileage shown is from York to Orbisionia…

Now on to the Challenge build that will fit in to the right of Wall Station at BOX.

I remember that bill board very well. That was one of the great years in the Alcove. I believe the prototype sits at the Fort Littleton exit of the Pennsy Turnpike. It was in disrepair when we first discovered the EBT, but upgraded around the turn of the century. Great model!!!

They were all over Huntingdon county. Jim Vliet of the FEBT took it upon himself to update the design and reface all of them. I got the art files directly from him and printed them at reduced size.

Hey Jon,

Any chance you could send me the file for the EBT billboard so I can print it out on vinyl for my railroad? Pretty please? (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

Joe Zullo said:

Hey Jon,

Any chance you could send me the file for the EBT billboard so I can print it out on vinyl for my railroad? Pretty please? (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

Well, it’s not mine - I used it with specific permission for one model. I can see if I still have Jim’s email and ask if OK to share. Assuming he says yes, then I need to find an Adobe Illustrator file from over 10 years ago. Can you work with that, or would you need it converted?

Jon

I would need it converted if possible. Thanks.

Here ya go Joe. Jim Vliet has been making this available to modelers for years, so we are good to go. First, you should see the original…

And Jim’s original TIFF file converted to JPG. Original would print in scale for 1:24. I don’t know if the JPG conversion retained the same DPI.

If you would like the uncompressed TIFF file I can email it to you. Just PM your email address.

Thanks Jon. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

Jon,

Notice the mileage…

Nice! As a sign guy might I suggest trimming tight to the black border around the sign then center that in your rounded corner frame? That will give an illusion of a wider border that fits the frame.

Some new night pictures. With progress made on finishing the area of South Willow Hill I set up some night photos this evening. For ambient light I have two blue led under-car tubes left behind by my youngest and a few red sign modules. An LED flashlight was used for white fill in some. Full manual mode; very small aperture and very long tripod exposure This shot needs some foreground fill, but I posted it because I like the headlight starburst on #3

A little tighter and brighter…

SWILL Tank…

Number 3 waits for #8 to clear with it’s Northbound train to exchange cars with the Northbound job…

And finally, one from my phone. It takes great low-light stills when you can hold it steady enough. Need to build a tripod mount for it You can really see the blue light in this shot…

Nice effect Jon. It adds some great depth to those shots. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Ogle Winston Radder

Lighting effects really add something. Very nice John.

the “moonlight” is an idea, i will sure copy

Korm Kormsen said:

the “moonlight” is an idea, i will sure copy

I have an ulterior motive. In low light everything looks better. Takes the 10 foot rule down to two feet at least (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Interesting picture and lighting effect! Thanks for sharing.

Nice lighting effects, Jon… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Final post on this thread - I have three threads running with lots of overlap. More details of the lighting installation are in my Indoor Division thread which will be continued: https://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/26294/cvsry-indoor-division-phase-iv?page=1 and there is discussion of the LED lighting system in Microcontroller Powered RGB Lighting at https://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/27993/microcontroller-powered-rgb-strip-lighting?page=1

To close out this thread a test few pictures that weren’t posted in the other threads. These taken using the new RGB + WW + CW lighting strip and android controller.

Cool! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)