I'm about to start (finally) wiring the lighting for my modest O-scale layout, I have a small town of about 10 buildings (mostly plasticville that have been painted and spruced up with windows, paint, additional signage, etc). I had quite a few 12 volt bulbs and I was testing using those. I put two in one building and it threw out enough light, but it pretty much used up all the juice. :|. I was thinking of dicing up a strand of some of those small interior Xmas lights. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I would like to keep the wiring as simple as possible, and so plan on running U shaped bus wires up one side of the towns main street and down the other. Total number of lights will probably be around a dozen and a half.
Hi Used up almost all the juice in what? Assuming they are standard 12V bulbs, they should draw about 30ma so 18 of them should draw just over 500mA To be on the safe side, a 12V 1A supply for your lighting should do what you looking for no problem. My advice, get a radio shack "REGULATED" 12V DC supply that can handle 1A and you should be fine. Just make sure the bulbs are no-where near the plastic of the buildings.. bulbs generate a lot of HEAT and some light.. that heat can get annoying. Regards Graham