LK&O

A Railroad with Relevance

Lighting Proof of Concept

Written By: Alan - Jan• 10•12

I am in the midst of installing the party light strings when I could stand it no longer. I had to do a mockup to see if the lighting would be to my liking.

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!

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2 Comments

  1. Greg Amer says:

    Wow I didn’t realize that so much color variation could occur between CFL’s and LED’s. Color looks great when mixed. Acrylic panels look cool too. Is that just aluminum foil deflecting the light?

  2. Alan says:

    Yup, plain ole aluminum foil for this test. When finished there will be reflectors made from plastic nursery flower pots cut into quarters and painted white.

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