finally i figured out what the issue with the lighting system was. one of the supplied cables was not crimped properly.... it was a short fix however. after that wiring continued. so far i am using 2 light display modules and 1 light power module. here's more info about it : Littfinski DatenTechnik (LDT) - Digital-Profi werden! - InfoCenter unfortunately i ran out of channels so some of the buildings remain dark until 2 more modules arrive here... since work on the lights ceased i had the 'brilliant' idea to add lights to some of the trucks and trailers. the rear trailer lights are made from 1mm fibre optics while the 5 positions lights on the top are made from 0.25mm fibre optics. quite tricky to install. all trailers house their own 3mm red led with the according resistor. trucks have two individual red led for the tail lights and two white ones for the front lights. depending on the available space in the cab either one resistor for all led or two (one for the front, one for the rear) were used. it is doable to add working lights to n-scale trucks and trailers. however, expect a few hours of work ! the lighted cars are cheap chinese cars found on ebay. just added some tamiya clear orange to make the white led a bit more yellow. streetlights are chinese stuff from ebay as well.. as far as i remember they are less than 50 cents each... all i did was painting them with floquil silver. do you want me to go more into details or do you want to see some pics finally ? so here we go. module #1 (light power) powering street lights, cars and similar things which are turned off/on at once. module #2 powering some of the buildings module #3 powering another batch of buildings
screen shot of the software. each dot matches a channel powering one or more light bulbs looking north over the town still some hungry guests at denny's one lonely trucker's still on the road
the only butcher selling 7x24 ... night cycling... oh...another truck is trying to deliver on time. check the rear lights !
some of the buildings. there are many people inside did you see the rear lights of the trailer ? 'please take me dancing tonight' ... night@dancing just started. note the eye-catching truck cab... while the road from the main station into town looks empty...
someone's thirsty there. hopefully the soda machine is not out of order. take a look at the shadows. all these images are shot on my n-scale layout. no photo-shopping or similar. just resized a bit. and that's all folks !
Sandro, Very cool. I've been working on lighting an HO layout for a friend and now dread doing the same with my N. It's a lot of time making sure buildings don't glow through the walls and dealing with signage lighting, porch lights, etc.
Sandro, the 7-11 needs to be lit up.. Everyone needs a nacho break at 1AM... The lights look great! Does the light board have a timer, or it just allows different "districts" to turn on and off and different times?
art the 7-11 of course has lights. i used elf, a foil-type led running at 100volts. just need to install a relais to control it as well. each of the light display modules has 40 channels which can be programmed individually. there are different light effects available and on/off times can be set per channel. the software provides a fastclock with different speed settings. read more : Light@Night: Software and Functions
The layout looks great. I love the vignettes. The trucks are fantastic. The cars need paint to kill or subdue the light inside them. Another comment I have is the buildings do not have view blocks in them breaking them into separate rooms. Leaving some areas dark while others are lit. Some people use painted plastic making floors and walls. I use matting board. You can also do this with black paper covering some windows. Another effect is to use different colored LEDs in different areas of a structure. Use a Blue/White LED in the store on the first floor for the fluorescent lights and a Yellow/White or Sunny/White the rooms above. Of course using floor and room blocks of mat board. Also I use Iron Penguin Home Light kits. It is a unit that has three LEDs for a house. One is Blue and simulates a TV as seen through a window. The others are a steady on light and the last looks like a room that in entered then left with the light turning on and off randomly. Just some suggestions to take it to another level.
there are floors and walls inside the buîldings with individual light bulbs. not noticeable when all lamps are lit. i did search the web for pictures of living rooms, bed rooms, offices and more. printed the pictures out and glued them onto the view blocks. if you look tru the windows you'll see different rooms inside a building. of course there's also carpet on the floor. not plain white styrene. every room has a different colors and pattern on the carpet. last but not least there are dozens of people inside the buildings. small two-story buildings are divided into 4 rooms. large two story buildings into 8 rooms. a 3 story building would be either 6 or 9 rooms. craziest building so far is the motel. 18 individual rooms with furniture and guests. a total of 20 light bulbs.
Now that's cool. Your details are not apparent on my monitor. Nice work. I know that a lot of details with lighting get lost when taking pictures. I used to work in the marketing department of a lighting company and many pictures were composed of different exposures to get everything just perfect.
