I present to you 106 CFLs and 1850 LEDs working in concert to light the LK&O right-of-way.

The pictures are taken with room lights out and the camera flash turned off. My earlier testing showed the shadows caused by the cross ties will be severely subdued once the acrylic light panels are in place. Which by the way, is the next task.

Layout Reflectors

My challenge was fourfold:

1. prevent as much upward light waste as possible
2. push light to the rear of the acrylic panel
3. be inexpensive and easy to fabricate
4. be lightweight

By golly, I think I accomplished all four objectives. I found at Menards aluminum roll valley flashing from Appleton Supply Co. that is ideal for the application.  The roof flashing is 0.010″ thick and comes in 50′ rolls of various widths. I selected 12″ width. It has a bright mill finish that reflects well. Aviation snips cut through it like butter. It is like working with real thick aluminum foil! The aluminum is rigid enough to hold its shape yet so lightweight it did not add much additional static load to the valance. Attachment is by 3/4″ cup hooks screwed into the upper valance support beam and wire hooks resembling Christmas tree ornament hooks. The hooks are made of leftover wire from hanging the ceiling grid.

The reflectors are angled at roughly 45 degrees. Trial and err, judging by eye, and examining the effect on the cross tee shadows was my crude method of determining the angle.  Nails in a board allowed me to mass produce same length hooks. The bottom of the reflectors sit in the corner formed where the valance and lower support beam come together. I had to work around a few obstacles here and there like HVAC ducting and LED wire drops but that was no real problem. A bit more measuring, a bit more cutting. I found that trying to work with pieces longer than 8′ became unwieldy for one person to put into place. Fortunately, most of the reflector locations were less than 8′ long. Longer ones I broke into multiple pieces. All in all, it worked out real nice. The increase in downward directed light is substantial. I am pleased with the results.

Aisle Light Reflectors

For the aisle lights I used a similar material. Pre-cut aluminum step flashing sheets measuring 5″ x 7″ were screwed to the floor joist. Simple, very low cost, effective. The aisle lighting doesn’t have to be real bright like the layout lighting.  In fact, I was more concerned with heat buildup on the subfloor than reflecting light. The aluminum step flashing does a good job of dissipating the heat over a larger area. I measured a subfloor temperature with reflectors in place of 90-95F degrees on a 70F degree day after 4 hours of lights on. Without reflectors the subfloor directly above the bulbs was reaching 120-130F. Neither measurement is bad considering the base of a CFL operates at 160-180F degrees! Still, I’ll take 90F over 120F. Although the reflectors are small in size they still delivered quite an improvement in aisle light level.

Fill Lights

In the corners of the room where the layout turns 90 degrees I added fill lights to flood the corners with additional light.  The fill lights are nothing more than a socket on a wire fitted with a 23 watt (100W incandescent equivalent) daylight bulb. They too hang from cup hooks. This addition really made a huge difference. No longer are the corners darker than other areas. The fill lights plug into the receptacles installed earlier. This way they are controlled by the appropriate zone switch. I can’t wait to see how the corners look with acrylic light panels in place. I think it is going to be spectacular.

Here are a few pics of the installation. Enjoy the aluminosity!

Additionally, I slightly changed the arrangement of the control wires during the installation. This new schematic also reflects that change and so is accurate to the actual installation on the LK&O.

Thanks Bernie. BTW if you haven’t seen Bernie’s awesome modeling you owe it to yourself to check it out. It is amazing!

LK&O Lighting Schematic

The LK&O lighting system is complete. I turned on the power for the first time this weekend and, believe it or not, everything worked as hoped. Ah, what a feeling to have something work first time out. The room lighting, layout lighting, and railroad power are now controlled by a small panel on the valance near the door. Walk in, flip the wall switches, and start pressing buttons. Sweet!

Recall my dilemma was how to control all of the train room electrical from the wall switches without actually using the wall switch circuit to power everything. The wall switch circuit is only a single 15A circuit, not nearly enough capacity to power all my lights. My new arrangement accomplishes the task of controlling everything tied to three individual 20A circuits and a 15A circuit with the wall switches by using relays.

The Control Panel

Momentary push button switches are mounted in a little wood and acrylic panel on the valance. The feed for the push buttons comes from the wall switches – SW1 room lights, SW2 layout lights, SW3 railroad power. Pressing a black button (normally open) supplies power to the corresponding relay(s). The DPST relays are wired so one set of contacts powers the relay coil when closed. This makes the relays act in a latching manner. One press of the push button closes the relay and then the latching wiring arrangement keeps the relay energized after the push button is released. Pressing a red push button (normally closed) interrupts the wall switch power to the relay latching contacts thus opening the relay. The beauty of this arrangement is I can flip the three wall switches on the way out and be assured everything is powered down.

The panel is constructed from oak and acrylic. An 1/8″ wide, 3/16″ deep groove was routered in a 3/4″ x 2″ x 2′ piece of oak after which the pieces were miter cut on a radial arm saw. A coat of Golden Pecan stain and two coats of Minwax Polyurethane Satin completed the wood sides. The acrylic face is 1/8″ thick, drilled and painted black on the backside. Dry transfer letters were applied on the front with clear lacquer sprayed over to protect them and provide a smooth glossy finish. I find that spray paint does not like to flow out over dry transfer letters. To solve this I apply two very light coats of clear lacquer with plenty of flash time between coats. Then I follow with a flowing wet coat. After a day drying I then wet sand the surface flat with 600 grit sandpaper. Two more coats of clear are sprayed over the sanded surface. This process works well to get rid of the dry transfer letter wringing effect. Once the push buttons were soldered to lengths of wire they were installed in the panel. The oak sides were then placed with the acrylic sitting in the groove and a a little Gorilla glue placed on each miter face. Rubber bands were wrapped around the assembly to hold it tight while the glue dried. Finally, a 1″ wire exit hole was drilled in the lighting valance and the panel mounted with #6 x 3/4″ screws.

The Wiring

There is over 500′ of 12 ga Romex in the train room somewhere! I started with a partial roll of about 50′. Then I bought a 250′ roll. Then I bought another. Today I have a little 10′ piece left. It is no wonder why I went through so much wire. First I had to pull two circuits from the load center which is at the opposite end of the house. Our load center had one last remaining open breaker spot. I fitted a dual 20A breaker in the spot. Next, all of the wiring between the 12v power supplies and the LED strips is also 12 ga. This was done to minimize voltage drop so the LEDs are as bright as they are meant to be.

I learned something new while stringing wire. House wiring has insulation rated at 600v. I don’t know why but assume there is a good reason. My wiring for the push buttons is 115v AC so, following suit, I wanted those wires to have 600v insulation also. The relay coils are 115v so they draw very little current. Something on the order of 0.07A. Because there are so many wires exiting the control panel and they carry so little current I wanted them to be a real small – 22AWG. Have you ever tried to find 22 gauge wire with 600 volt insulation? It can be found but don’t expect a deal. To my dismay I realized I was going to pay over $40 just for the short length of wire I needed if I purchased it from wire suppliers. Forget about finding this stuff at a big box store. Then eBay came to the rescue. I purchased a 2000′ roll (yes, 2000 feet!) of MIL spec TYCO Electronics premium stranded wire for $9.99. That same roll would have been hundreds of dollars at a wire supplier. I had enough to wire my control panel with 1,950 feet left over!

The 12 ga Romex supplying the LED strips is routed up to the ceiling, through the floor joists, and finally terminates at barrier strips on the rear of the valance just above the connection end of the strips. The strip leads go through a rubber grommet in the ceiling panel wall angle to the barrier strip. All ring connecters are crimped and soldered. This same arrangement is repeated all way round the layout.

The Power Supplies

To power all of the LED strips around the layout (there are over 3,800 individual LEDs) requires quite a bit of 12v power. Additionally, I built in reserve capacity in the event I decide to add additional low voltage lighting in the future. My power supplies are switch mode so there is no huge iron transformer or gigantic capacitors. Essentially they are the same type of power supply used in desktop computers except with more oomph. The upper deck has two 30A units (the two smaller ones) while a single 50A unit (center) powers the entire lower deck. I found that 50A is the limit before power supplies start getting real expensive. That is how I came to use two 30′s instead of a 60A unit for the upper deck. Each of the power supplies is operating at 40% of their rated current with my installed LEDs. This leaves me with enough reserve power to double the number of LEDs if desired while still maintaining less than 80% of total output from the supplies. It is not good to run the power supplies at full output for extended time. Besides, I don’t want the cooling fans to kick on. Too noisy.

The Relay Panel

This is the heart and soul of the lighting control. The enclosure is a common unit sold for installing alarm systems. It was just the right size, has a hinged door, plenty of knock-outs, and no where near expensive as a NEMA certified box. Mounted inside are 14 Magnecraft flange mount 30A DPST  power relays. These babies close with a resounding clack!

Entering the top are the supply circuits and control wires. Exiting on the right are the 12v lines to the LED strips. Exiting top left is the railroad electronics power. Exiting center left are the power supply circuits. Finally, exiting bottom left are the lines to each CFL string over the layout. Each push-on terminal is crimped and soldered. Needless to say, I spent considerable time wiring the panel. This picture of the wire scraps on the floor gives you an idea of how much cutting, stripping, and soldering went on over a period of a week.

The Zones

Why go to all this trouble just to turn on and off lights? Several reasons actually. Firstly, I don’t want to consume any more electricity than needed. The train room, if all on, will consume nearly 5,000 watts of electricity. Run that for a few days and see what happens to the electric bill. Being able to selectively switch on only the area that I am working in will save a lot of dollars. Next, is the problem of inrush current. There are over 150 CFL bulbs in the ceiling and lighting the layout. If turned on all at the same time the initial current demand would trip the circuit breaker. Adding to this is the high inrush current of the LED power supplies. The 50A power supply alone has an inrush current of 40A. The CFLs and the power supplies all together have a total inrush current of well over 100 amps. Ain’t no way the breakers will allow this to happen. Sequential turn on is the solution.

The layout is divided into 4 zones each approximately 25′ long. The beginning and end of each zone is determined by the party light strings mounted earlier. The LED strips were fashioned to mimic the party light start and end points. The lower deck has no zone 3 due to the arrangement of the track plan. For any given zone, the LED strips and the CFLs are controlled in unison. There are additional CFL fill light sockets mounted in the corners of the room, marked (C), where the layout follows the corner. This is needed because the layout CFLs are mounted to the valance which, in the corners, is quite far away from the center of the corner. 23 watt (100 watt incandescent equivalent) lamps will be in these sockets. There are no bulbs in any of the sockets in the pictures. I have yet to buy them!

The aisle lamps are also controlled by push buttons. When you enter the room and flip on the light switch only the ceiling lamps marked (A) will light. This provides light in the entryway and over my hobby workbench. Pressing the aisle button lights the lamps marked (B). Another electricity saving design feature.

So there you have it, my lighting solution for the LK&O Railroad. Be sure to check out the photo gallery below. Tons of pics. I am going to let my side cutters and soldering gun rest for a while as I move on to building reflectors for the layout CFLs. Thanks for reading!

Since then I have made great strides in the lighting control implementation. There will be a full post following shortly that will cover the complete installation. I want the installation finished before I post an entry so I can have pictures of it all. For now, this post is about the wiring of the relay panel only.

Using the wiring idea from the picture above, I created a schematic for the relay panel. It looks more complicated than it really is. This arrangement gives me independent control over:

• Upper deck CFL & LED lighting in 4 different zones
• Lower deck CFL & LED lighting in 3 different zones
• Aisle lighting
• Railroad power

As designed, the wall switches next to the door arm the lighting control system but don’t actually turn on lights. The control panel switches turn on the lights. The wall switches do however allow me to turn off everything with the flip of a switch. Cool! OK, so railroad power is not lighting but it just seemed logical to include it in the arrangement.

The panel is fitted with relays and mounted in place. Wiring has been run. Tonight I begin wiring the relay panel. Don’t miss the next post. It will be a biggie with all kinds of lights, switches, relays, and wiring goodness!

My arrangement of ceiling grid, while great for creating a pathway effect down the aisle, was not so well suited for installing lighting. None of the grid openings are standard dimensions so conventional drop ceiling florescent fixtures were out. I didn’t want anything to hang below the grid because the ceiling is at 89″ height now. Can’t lose any more height. My original idea of using can lights didn’t work so well because of floor joist location relative to the grid. The cans would have been forced into odd positions in the ceiling so as to clear joists. That’s no good. Plus, I wanted a low cost installation. The pictures illustrate what I came up with. I think it works rather well.

Leviton porcelain lamp sockets #022-8052-1 purchased from Hardware World are just perfect for mounting to the bottom of the floor joists. Next to each socket, or sometimes between two sockets, are placed 8 cu. in. single gang electrical boxes. The small boxes are shallow enough not to cause shadows. Their depth is the same as the lamp sockets.  The socket leads were extended as needed since the sockets came with rather short 9″ leads. In some instances 9″ was enough but the majority required lengthening. I used 16 ga stranded wire soldered to the socket leads then covered with heavy wall heat shrink tubing. The ends of the 16 ga wire inside the boxes are tinned so they work in wire nuts.

To minimize the number of wire nut connections between the wall switch and any one particular lamp, I divided the wiring into 4 branches radiating out from a common box. All of the branch wiring is 14 ga Romex routed through the joists and stapled correctly. Pieces parts from the original basement lighting that I pulled down was heavily reused. The old ceiling boxes became my new distribution boxes. They are located at key points near multiple lamps so that multiple Romex wire connections are in the distribution boxes only, not in the socket boxes. Each branch has at least 2 distribution points and feeds 10 -12 lamps. I consumed quite a few of the little blue boxes but that’s OK, they are very inexpensive.

The lamps are 14 watt (60 watt incandescent equivalent) CFLs with a color temperature of 5000K (commonly called daylight or full spectrum). Over the workbench I used 23 watt bulbs for a little extra light. As you can see in the pictures there is plenty of light and it does have a sunshine feel in the room. The timing of buying my bulbs was perfect – Home Depot had them on sale. $3.97 for a 4 pack. That’s less than a buck a bulb! I would rather be lucky than good and I certainly got lucky picking today to buy bulbs. With 43 of them in the ceiling a good deal was much appreciated.

I often hear people complaining about CFLs I suppose because of the mercury. Funny how no one ever questions why people weren’t dying left and right back when we used thermometers with 500 times as much mercury in them. Myself, I love CFLs. They give off so little heat and consume so little power. I would never had been able to do a lighting installation like this with incandescent lamps. Can you imagine how hot the room would get with 43 of those old 60 watt bulbs running not to mention how fast the electric meter would spin!

I kind of went nuts taking pictures so the image gallery for this post has just about every viewing angle you could want. Enjoy!

Next up is bringing in the two 20A circuits and building the control system for the layout lighting.

My process was much the same as the lighting grid in the valance. First I located points around the room with a water level 3-1/2″ below the bottom of the joists. Next, I cut a couple spacer boards to clamp on the valance that supported the wall angles in place as I mounted them one by one. My tape markings on the floor were once again used with a plumb bob to locate the ends of the wall angles. Once all the wall angles were in place I continued by fitting the TrimTex flexible angles in the curved corners. Unlike the lighting valance wall angles, fastener visibility was not an issue for the ceiling angles so I used 3/16″ aluminum pop rivets to install the vinyl angles. This made installation a bit quicker than the machine screws used on the lighting valance.

Railroads move stuff from here to there. Freight goes on a journey. I want to enhance the “taking a journey” effect so I used a follow-the-yellow-brick-road style of laying out the cross ties. With the wall angles in place I laid out the cross ties with mason’s string as before with the ties at a right angle to the valance and following the curves in the aisle. This layout made for a bunch more measuring, a bit more tie waste, and a more challenging installation but now finished I am convinced it was well worth the extra effort. The ceiling pattern really does give you a sense of following a path as you walk the aisle. Much cooler than a plain Jane rectangular ceiling pattern.

The aisles are lit through 16″ wide lighting panels in the ceiling. I added green arrows to the pictures below to show which panels will be lighting panels. Fitted to them will be the same white cracked ice acrylic sheet used over the layout. Speaking of lighting, that is my next step – add CFL lamp sockets in all the right places. My box of 50 Leviton ceramic sockets arrived earlier this week so I am all set to tackle lighting this weekend.

Until next post, enjoy the grid-ular goodness!

The wall switches are all fed from a single 15A circuit. Looking back I wish I had given consideration to just how much juice the room will need. Turns out it is way more than 15A. Take a look at the power requirements just for lighting:

The total amperage for the entire arrangement is 41.9 amps. That is a whopping 4,818 watts of electricity! Fortunately, rarely will it all be on at once. Only during a full fledged operating session will all of the layout lights be on and then the room lighting won’t be needed. When I am working on the railroad I will need to turn on just the room lights and the layout lighting in the area where I am working. Thank goodness. I would need a second job to pay the electric bill if all the lights were all on a lot.

As you can see there is no way to power all of the lighting from my single 15A circuit presently installed. I have a solution however. First, there is one last open breaker spot left in the load center. I will pull a fresh 20A circuit from that spot. Second, there is an existing 20A circuit dedicated to the jet tub in the master bath. The bathroom is directly above the train room so the wiring crosses through the floor joists above the layout. A jet tub is cool and all but we rarely use it. I am going to put a junction box in the tub circuit so I can tap in. The layout lights can’t be on when the jet tub is running but no big deal. The jet tub has been used less than 10 times in all the time we have lived here so coordinating between use of the tub and lighting the layout should be no problem whatsoever. This combination provides me with two clean 20A circuits and the existing 15A circuit. All total that is 55A which when de-rated 20% for continuous duty equals 44A. Sweet!

Even if I can’t turn on all the layout lighting from the wall switch I still want to be able to at least turn off all the layout lights with the wall switch. For that I have come up with a solution.

* Everything inside the dotted rectangle is replicated for each of the load circuits in the table above except for room lighting

This circuit uses momentary contact push buttons and DPST relays to turn on/off each individual leg of the lighting circuits. The relay coils are powered by the existing wall switch circuit (which also powers room lighting) while the relay load contacts are powered by the 20A circuits. Turning on wall switch #2 will “arm” the push buttons. Depressing the ON push button will energize the coil. One set of contacts is wired so as to keep the relay coil energized after the push button is released. In effect it is a do-it-yourself latching relay. Turning off the wall switch will cause the relay to de-energize and the contacts will open. Now I can flip the wall switch on the way out and all layout lighting will go out. There is an OFF push button so I can, if desired, turn off sections of lighting without turning everything off and back on again.

Digikey has the relays I need in stock and a huge selection of decorative push button switches of sufficient rating. I plan to make a nice looking back-lit acrylic switch panel with labeling and put it on the lighting valance near the train room door. Walk in, flip the wall switch, push the buttons only for the layout lighting needed. When done, flip the wall switch and walk out. Cool, huh?

The room lighting will be conventionally controlled by wall switch #1. Train electronics will be powered by the wall outlet circuit which is totally independent of the lighting circuits. There, a single simple relay will be powered by wall switch #3.

Problem solved and it will all work as intended!

The sockets are on 24″ centers which fit nicely with my light panels which are also on 24″ centers. The sockets were attached with a pair of 1-5/8″ drywall screws through the molded-on mounting ears on each socket. A nylon cable clamp supports the cord between sockets. As best as I could manage the sockets are centered in each light panel along the valance. Every light panel has a lamp. In the areas over 2′ in depth (Lapeer, Kitzmiller, and Brittain roundhouse) the Party Lights also run along the backdrop. This should make the lighting more uniform in the deep bench work areas.

Next, I have to cut to size all of the light panels. The panels themselves are quite expensive – $8.97 ea. I need bunches of them. Even more vexing than the cost is figuring out a means of accurately determining the shape and dimensions of each panel based on the grid already installed. I haven’t quite figured out a solution to this problem but I am working on it. Fortunately time is on my side. I need to spread out the cost of the panels over a long period of time so I can ponder the solution for a while.

Between panel cutting I can also start the grid work for the ceiling over the aisles and the rest of the room. I have a sufficient quantity of wall angle on-hand to get a good start. Two years into train layout building and I still haven’t made it off the ceiling!

Now, stop laughing at the crudeness. This is just a quickly thrown together test. I don’t have my reflectors made yet for the CFLs so I used some tin foil. The acrylic sheet is .070″ cracked ice white and has not been cut to size. You can see where it is draped over the cross tees. The CFLs are 9W (40W equiv.) 5000K daylight lamps on 2′ centers 6″ above the light panel. The LED strip is a 6500K SMD5050 300/5M. The mock table top is at zero elevation of the upper deck – 53″.

CFLs and Reflectors

With Light Panels

Compare the table top, front of the power supply, and the backdrop in each of the following pictures.

CFLs Only – Too green, not evenly dispersed

LEDs Only – Too blue, not bright enough

CFLs and LEDs – Perfect!