by davemoody » Tue Aug 16, 2011 11:36 am
Hello,
For my taste LED's do not give a realistic kind of light, and that's the goal here - realism. Here's what I did on my layout, using the electrical supply provided by most supply units. I used ordinary grain of wheat type bulbs, but connected them in pairs as shown below:
+ve connectio------------- bulb1 -------------- bulb2 --------------- -ve connection
So, if your powersupply is running 12volts for example each bulb is running at 6volts. If that is not enough then run 3 or 4 bulbs in serial until you get the right amount of current running through each bulb. If the current is less than the bulbs rating then it will have a lovely yellowish light instead of a bright white light, which in my opinion is far more realistic.
On a sidenote, I really hate running wires up the side of streetlight poles etc, looks ugly. Here's my suggestion for added realism. Use REAL overhead powerlines. What? I hear you say. It's easy. Just get some fine electrical wiring, like that used to make ribbon cables in a computer, strip the plastic insulation off, and then run it along powerpoles in your layout. If you use the above mentioned method of wiring bulbs you don't just get realistic light, you also get a realistic looking wiring system throughout your layout. You could always paint the wires with some kind of matt paint when you've done to provide some insulation, like a lightgray colour would be fine.
Happy wiring!
Dave.