Jim’s been in touch with a good ‘how to’ on LED street lights N scale – though it works in any scale to be fair.
“Al,
Attached are photos of yard lights I have built for my n scale layout.
They started as a 100 light xmas set regular price 12.99 on sale for 75% off on looking at it they are 3.5 volt led lights.
After taking the lights apart I get 3mm 3.5 volt leds, as my power is 11.79 volts dc I calculated that if I put 4 lights in series that would be a max of 14 volt draw and they worked good on my 11.79 volt system.
I then put a power wire on to the positive leg and attached the negative to the positive of the 2nd bulb using a cocktail stick and 1/8 heat tube I pulled the wires and cocktail stick through the heat tube and painted the bulbs sides black.
I then made a 2nd one and by attaching the positive on it to the negative of the first set and then attaching the wires to my power supply they worked fine.
Being retired and on a fixed income these N scale white LEDs became a good alternative at a much lower price than store bought lights.
jim”
A big thanks to Jim for his LED street lights N scale step-by-step.
I was going to take down the ‘silly sale bundle deal‘ on the print out scenery yesterday.
(I ran the sale to help with the competition)
But then these turned up from Dana and John:
“Hi Al,
…some pictures of over 25 models I have built using your stock designs and changes and additional structures I added to make my western 1880 town and logging mill and farm land….over the past six months,
Dana Green, Maine USA”
“Dear Al,
I started on the challenge project yesterday…
This is a little freight shed… O scale…
My current progress..
What you see here was “borrowed” from your covered bridge kit, your wood tunnel kit, the barn kit and a little scratch work of my own for the top of the platform… Yes, it is all card.
I did go a little crazy and detail the interior a bit…
I really enjoy your site. I thought I would send a few pictures of my layout four years in the making. The layout is 9’-0” X 17’-0” (274 x 518). We can run four trains. Some of the scenery is store bought and a lot is scratch built from materials around the house.
The table is built aircraft style with ribbed construction and 2 x 4 legs that have gusset braces at 8 perimeter locations. The center is supported by 4 2 x 4’s. The deck is two layers 1/2” plywood.
The trackage is the old fashion Lionel tubular track set on foam track bed. There are about 800 hand cut ties glued under the tracks with o scale ballast.
The layout is powered by two Lionel 275 watt transformers.
The lighting is divided into five separate circuits and are powered by five multi tap transformers.
All of the building scenes are built on 1/8 thick board so that I can remove each scene and place it elsewhere on the layout.
The mountain and tunnels are made of scrap styrofoam and sculpted using a hacksaw blade attached to piece of wood and heated red hot with propane torch then covered with plaster cloth.
All main buss wiring is # 12 with # 14 feeders. Wanted to make sure minimal voltage loss. One thing for sure is that you learn to correctly wire the layout so you don’t burn up things.
Have some of the usual accessories. Coal loader, stationary crane, water tower, culvert loader and a circus car. The locomotives are Lionel, K-Line and Williams 1950 to present.
Thanks for a great site and all of the ideas. It great to see what you folks do across the pond.
Gus”
A big thanks to Gus for sharing his O gauge layout. Whenever an O scale comes through at the mo, I always think of Martin’s O scale.
And here’s one from Dave that fell through the cracks:
“Hi Al, just uploaded this video trying to lighten the day.
Thank you for all the posts! I read them every day and save most of them for future.
I have finally started!
As a kid, I set up my Lionel around the Christmas tree and ran it until tinsel fell on the tracks popping the circuit breaker. It has been seventy years since those days and I have finally started my layout.
I decided my first effort would be a conservative 4 x 8 early twentieth century California Sierra Mountains logging operation with two connected tracks in HO scale; an upper/inner logging track bringing rough cut logs down to the mill and village where they would be cut and loaded onto flat cars for transport to “market” on a larger mainline.
I have completed the bench work and laid out both lines, but now I am losing some confidence.
My lower mainline should be fine with 18” radius and 2% incline/decline, but I’m more concerned about the upper layout.
I have designed the track on a 12” radius with 3% to 4% incline/decline hills.
My intention is use a small loco, x 6 x, or Shay at slow speeds pulling three or four logging cars. Am I destined for continuous frustration with derailments using this tight of turns?
Thanks in advance for your input.
Bill
California, USA”
Please do leave a comment below if you can help Bill.
