I’m in the process of laying out the buildings for the town of our Redwood Creek and Tallulah Ridge RR. I want add lighting to each structure and am searching a good solution that takes in to account efficiency of the wiring to the safety of all the parts. In a nutshell my plan is to use a 12 volt landscape lighting transformer to power the LEDs that will be installed each building.

The buildings, although not all placed side by side are close to being in a line.

So I guess I’m looking for advice on the wiring to use from the transformer to the town site. Do I use the landscape wiring which is very thick compared to the LEDs which are micro thin?? Should I bury the wiring in PVC conduit for protection? the company I’m planning to purchase the LEDS from (recommended on this site) has multiple connectors for daisy chaining.

I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions

Richard

While I’m at it…I need some artistic advice. I’m using PVC Foam Board for the bases of the buildings and have had some fun etching a wooden sidewalk on a test piece. the bases you see in the above picture are 1/4" thick and have decided to order 3/8" to match the Piko bases. The 1/4" will be used for the creation of hopeful new buildings with a little more character than what you see…but that’s down the road a bit.

What’s the best method for painting the sidewalk so it closely resemble a real wooden one?? What paint is the preferred type as well as technique.

Thanks,

Richard

I would use the company wire along with the connectors, You can buy (if it Malibu ) , up to 100 ft spools of wire if needed, and what I have gathers is best, is to just direct bury the wire, its made for outside use, but bury it like under or right next to the tracks so it will be less likely to be chopped by an errant shovel while doing garden work. I am going to use the about same method to light my RR.

Thanks Pete for the thoughts. I have plenty of the Malibu wiring. The issue is connecting it to the extremely thin LED wires. They sell 28 gauge Kynar wiring. I’ve emailed the company for their suggestions. I guess I could just solder the Malibu wiring to the thinner Kynar wire and use heat shrink tube.

I bury my landscape wire under my dirt roads, so I know where it is, and so it can reach my buildings. I only used conduit when I passed the wiring under a large fill, so, in the future, if I have too, I can add another run of wire.

Good advice from David. I bury my outdoor lighting cord under the buildings, and leave a loop of wire exposed. I use small light brackets mounted in a 3d print (attached, to mount either incandescent or LED lights in the building.

My initial plan is to run landscape light wire against the concrete base of my back fence then “T” to the town. From there I’ll figure out how to branch it to the buildings but I’m thinking mainly under them like some of you have recommended. Big question is going from the larger landscape wire to the very thin LED wiring. What have some of you done to let these two different gauges meet?

I solder smaller wire to the larger, then shrink wrap the connections. Not good forever buried, but so far (2 summers, 1 winter) so good. I have been adding small connectors at each building so it can easily be removed for service. I am using the common 2-pin (some call them JST) available all over the place (amazon, e-bay, all electronics etc.)

Richard, I light my buildings using cheap Wal-Mart solar pathway lights $.98, by eithers hacking and installing the solar panel remotely or just cutting a hole in the roof and silicone in place, you can also just direct the solar panel in a window, no wire and they turn themselves on and off