Akihabara Station

[cteno4]

Rick,

 

these strips are all powered by 12vdc. basically they are all made up of little units along the strip (usually about 1" long) that consist of three leds and a resistor. each one of these units just taps power off the 12vdc line built along the edge of the strip. this means you can cut them off anywhere along the 3 light unit line so you can have multiples of 3 led lights in length. you dont want to cut one of the 3 led units in the middle of a unit or that unit will be ruined, but the rest of the units in the strip will be fine.

 

the ones quinn linked are white leds. the ones you were linking earlier were rgb leds. these leds are three leds in one basically. there are 4 leads to power and control them. so you can give each led a different voltage and thus mix the light to what ever rgb value you want. ive often wondered how fine the control is on these to see if you could really tweak the color of your white light to just how you want it. these are made into similar unit strips and have the wiring on the strip for all 4 contacts instead of the 2 contacts for one color or white led strips. you then hook them to a little controller box that varies the voltage to each color light to give the whole strip the resulting color you want. the controller boxes also usually have little presets to slowly change the colors or flash different colors. usually used for the disco lighting effects! but ive seen some systems that are really sophisticated to give some amazing room ambience lighting effects that slowly change over time.

 

as quinn noted they are also great to clip off little multiples of 3 light units to light buildings and such. nice to have a 12v standard and if you want to dim them just play with a resistor in series with your strip.

 

ive gotten a couple of the 5m white rolls on ebay auctions for about $10 (have to lurk to get them cheap) to play with to do some outside lighting poles along the driveway and also some accent lighting in the kitchen on top of the cabinets.

 

some guys are now playing with putting multiple strips of different temp white strips along the upper lighting facade of their layouts. then using a transformer for each you can vary the amount of each different temp white to get the perfect level and color of white you want to set a time of day (ie golden sunset, red dawn, bright noon, etc). throw in some computer control with nmranet and you could have the whole day cycle through on your speed clock!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

Hi Capt!

 

Allow me to share some of my ideas. Like Quin, i'm a SUPER fan for China made LEDs! Firstly, they cost REALLY cheap, like US$12 for a 5m long strip, and comes in so moany variety of colors. Secondly, it's so easy to work with! All you need to do is to cut the length according to what you need. They come in 3 LEDs per strip, and so long you cut in-between them they will work just perfectly. The next part is a little more tricky. Souldering the wires to the LEDs is what i perform worst, and hence i 'humbly' forced my workers to do that for me.    After that, it's just so easy to apply! Red is positive and black is negative! Also, if you would like to skip the soulder process and get ready to use type, you can also try this:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-3mm-12V-DC-20cm-PRE-WIRED-White-20000mcd-LED-Lamp-A-/271108086463?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f1f4d1abf

They are LED pre-wired bulbs, and BOY believe you me they really are BRIGHT! They come in a variety of bulb sizes and voltages, but of course i prefer 12V the most...

 

Lastly, allow me to share some of my buildings which i have already installed lighting into them. Planning to make all the buildings in Takahashi Town light up in the dark for the extra WOW factor! Cheers and hoped i helped!  

[Densha]

I'd say isolate the light from the inside a bit with some of those buildings, light usually doesn't shine through walls.

[JR 500系]

I'd say isolate the light from the inside a bit with some of those buildings, light usually doesn't shine through walls.

 

Yes Densha that is a problem... I'm thinking of painting some of the interiors with BLACK paint so that the light doesnt shine through them and only through the windows... I also realised that usually for Tomytec buildings, the lights tend to shine through... Perhaps due to the color or material that the building is made off... The Kato buildings are really good though, like in the 0101 Sixth Avenue building. It shines perfectly!

 

Point to add also, i love to get the cheaper generic China made figures too to 'populate' the building before illumination. The shadows that the figures cast when the light is on is just beautiful ~~

[Densha]

I know some people put aluminium foil on the inside of the building. I haven't done that myself though.

[KenS]

I followed Quinntopia's advice and painted the interior black (two coats of black spray paint to ensure full coverage, followed by a coat of white to act as a reflector actually) for my lit buildings, and it made even a thin Tomytec building quite opaque.  The hard part is not getting the black on the outside (masking it off didn't work so well). I usually end up painting the outside anyway, since I want to kill the shiny plastic look, but that would be a problem on some of the nicer buildings that have good detail painting on the outside to begin with.

 

Lighting definitely requires adding people and interior detail, unless the windows are tiny, but the results are well worth it. Lit buildings look so much more "real" than ones with blank, black, windows.

[WuZhuiQiu]

I have an old Faller kit of a German castle which came with a pre-cut sheet of heavy black paper for lining the interior with. Thus, using black paper may be another, less messy option than painting.