Downlighters for railway room lighting

[47137]

My railway is in an L-shaped room with two windows. I'm preparing to call in an electrician to install some downlighters to provide general lighting across the room. The project would replace the present single pendant, this is near the middle of the ceiling and always leaves me working in my own light.

 

I'm thinking of something like this, with six LED lamps on a dimmer, replacing the pendant altogether:

 

I wonder has anyone done a similar project and found it to be worthwhile, or indeed can suggest a preferred pitch for the lights? The walls and ceiling are white, and the railway is along the two long sides of the room. There is a home-made lighting rig over the scenic part of the layout and task lighting on the workbench and fiddle yard; what I'm looking for is a spread of general lighting, but still acceptable if the room should be used as a bedroom. The ceiling is too low to try for pelmets with concealed uplighters (all around the room), which is what I would really like. Any pointers from experience would be great.

 

- Richard.

Edited November 3, 2017 by 47137

[gordon s]

Hi Richard, I do have downlights in my railway room and if I'm honest, I needed to do more research before they were installed.  I suffer from pools of light in certain areas, as they are either too narrow beam or they are not high enough above the railway baseboards.  My workspace in the centre of the room is reasonably well lit, although you do find your head or other body parts can create shadows with overhead lighting.

 

This might give you food for thought.

 

https://www.downlightsdirect.co.uk/advice/downlights/which-beam-angle-to-choose/

 

I shall be working up there today and might be able to take a few pics tonight, to illustrate how the lighting pans out.

[chris p bacon]

I'd light the room for another purpose (bedroom) and add additional free standing lighting for working and a rig to light the layout.

[Guy Rixon]

My kitchen, which is about 3m square, is lit by two downlighters in the ceiling centre, about 0.8m apart. Originally they were R80 spotlights, but recently I changed them for GU10 fittings carrying 7W LED lamps. This is enough light for most purposes, except that under-cabinet lights are needed to eliminate shadows at the edges cast by the cabinets themselves and anybody working in the kitchen.

 

I think the proposed lighting plan is going to be plenty bright enough, even for photography. Depending on the lamps used, it might be too bright, so one could consider wiring the lamps on two separate circuits and sometimes only using half of them. This is an alternative to the dimmer control.

 

Lighting the workbench may need something extra. I have a workbench lit by a fluorescent tube that is near the back of the bench. It's bright enough, but at night casts awkward shadows on the work. I need a spot light aimed over my shoulder to even up the illumination. The ceiling light in the room is in exactly the right position for this but being an ordinary CFL instead of a spot it doesn't cast enough light on the bench. I think the proposed plan might have the same problem. 

[Mick Boyd]

Hello Richard,

 

Like gordon s I had downlighters installed in my railway room above my layout and came to the same conclusion as gordon, if I was to do it again I would use spotlights to throw light over my shoulder towards the layout.

 

What I like about spotlights is that you can direct light exactly where you need it, something you cant do with non-adjustable downlighters.

 

Regards, Mick.

[47137]

I do enjoy photography, but I usually use a studio flash head (in a soft box) for the trains and the layout. It's a pain in the neck to work around it (the legs of the stand stick out too much), but it is portable and I can keep it another room.

 

I would rather have too much light than too little, but with warm white LED fittings I reckoned about 15W to cover the room to a good general level - and this correlates with the two 7W fittings in a kitchen.

 

When the room is empty, there is no obvious place to put the bed although it is supposed to be a double bedroom. Drawing in the basic furniture seems to help the plan - at the moment, I have space for a 5 ft divan (yellow), with the workbench below the window (green) and the layout taking as much space as I can manage in an 'L'. The chest of drawers (brown) is pulled away from the wall, so I can extend one track along the wall behind the bed area, and maybe around into the larger alcove:

 

The funny thing is, I'm already going off the idea of downlighters. I meet them in hotel rooms and they are always in the wrong place. Perhaps as Dave says, I would be better with a selection of portable lamps to put light where I want it. The lighting rig works rather well, even if it is hanging on small metal chains and pulled into alignment with string.

 

Perhaps a concealed up/down lighter along the back of each alcove would fill in the worst of the dark areas left by the pendant light. This could be a wooden shelf with LED lights on the top and the bottom, and a pelmet across the front. A lot less destructive than downlighters too. It is difficult to add a second light switch on the wall, but I could have a pull cord to turn these on and off.

 

- Richard.

Edited November 3, 2017 by 47137

[howardb]

Sunlight rarely is from straight above, so standard down lighters don't replicate this & will make the layout look dead, You would be better using something like these tracked lights from Amazon - the other advantage is that they can be wired direct to the existing ceiling rose.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SEARCHLIGHT-WHITE-TRACK-LIGHTING-LIGHTS/dp/B0168TBGLS/ref=sr_1_1?s=lighting&ie=UTF8&qid=1509715040&sr=1-1&keywords=track+spotlights

 

They want to be aimed in the same direction so the shadows match on the layout & probably just behind the line of your head. A typical beam angle is 30-40 degrees so if the distance from the centre of the spot to the aiming point on the layout is 2m then the lights should be at about 1.2m apart.

 

Also think about the colour of the lamps. I suggest something between 3800 & 4800k, but this will depend on the time of year you are modeling. Something colder, 4800 - 6000k would probably be suited to a snowy winter scene.

 

Fluorescent strip lights are probably better if you prefer an overcast, shadow free model

[47137]

Howard thank you for this. I agree with your ideas, but the task is really to get a better level of general illumination across the whole room. The lighting rig (April 2016 write-up) actually works quite well for the layout - I achieved the positioning and colour by trial and error and it is good for spring/summer time.

 

The biggest difficulty I have is when I take the layout down e.g. to stand it on end and work underneath it. I am always standing in my own light. The pendant light is also hopeless if I am trying to use a folding "Workmate" type bench in the middle of the room, or work on the floor which is useful for making large flat things like the next baseboard.

 

So really, a large even spread of light from a source on the walls or ceiling, and keeping the floor clear.

 

- Richard.

[howardb]

For general lighting without shadows a decent uplighter is ideal - no shadows and a very even light.

[Guy Rixon]

Also think about the colour of the lamps. I suggest something between 3800 & 4800k, but this will depend on the time of year you are modeling. Something colder, 4800 - 6000k would probably be suited to a snowy winter scene.

 

I know what you mean and agree that you need a bluer light to simulate a winter scene - but isn't it ironic that one needs a higher colour-temperature to get a "colder" light?

[HLT 0109]

Why not consider two or three LED strips?  Their effectiveness will be affected by the height of the ceiling above the layout.  I light the lower level of my two level layout with LED strips and find them very good but they are stuck to the bottom of the upper level baseboards so only 15" above the lower level.  The strips come in a wide variety - some are twice as bright as others and mine are in 5m lengths.  The length can be cut at marked intervals and one can use as many lengths as necessary.  Mine run on 12v so come with transformers to plug into the ring main.

[johnhutnick]

I would consider a ten light temporary lighting string from a major home store, using 60w equivalent daylight LED bulbs.

John Hutnick

[peterfgf]

My railway is in an L-shaped room with two windows. I'm preparing to call in an electrician to install some downlighters to provide general lighting across the room. The project would replace the present single pendant, this is near the middle of the ceiling and always leaves me working in my own light.

 

I'm thinking of something like this, with six LED lamps on a dimmer, replacing the pendant altogether:

six downlighters.png

 

I wonder has anyone done a similar project and found it to be worthwhile, or indeed can suggest a preferred pitch for the lights? The walls and ceiling are white, and the railway is along the two long sides of the room. There is a home-made lighting rig over the scenic part of the layout and task lighting on the workbench and fiddle yard; what I'm looking for is a spread of general lighting, but still acceptable if the room should be used as a bedroom. The ceiling is too low to try for pelmets with concealed uplighters (all around the room), which is what I would really like. Any pointers from experience would be great.

 

- Richard.

Most down-light retailers quote the included angle of light for the fitting, say 25 degrees.  Using this, together with the distance from the floor to the ceiling, gives you the diameter of the pool of light projected on the floor. Thus:

 

Radius of light pool on floor = (ceiling height) x tangent (included angle/2)

 

So for an angle of 25 degrees and a height of 2200 mm, the radius of the light pool on the floor is  2200 x tan12.5 = 488 mm approx., or diameter of about 1 meter.

 

I did the calculations for my daughter's bathroom with the result as shown below.  This was alright for a bathroom, with some pools just touching, but in another room, say a living room, it would have been better to have increased overlap and have some light being bounced off the surrounding walls.

 

Peterfgf

Edited November 4, 2017 by peterfgf

[young37215]

For my loft based layout the electrician recommended that I use Deltech Series 5000 flicker free LED strips. It was an inspired choice, these are brilliant and provide a consistent bright light around the whole room meaning that I am never standing in my own shadow when working.

 

www.deltechuk.com

 

[gordon s]

I think these days it's nearer 40 degrees for standard downlights.

 

 

Just out of interest here's a pic I took last night.  Just checked the beam angle and these are 35 degrees.

 

The ones in the side slope really are too close to the baseboard, but even the ones in the ceiling show as pools of light with portions in shade.

 

I've just installed a new kitchen and the under cupboard lighting is strips of LED's and I have to say I am pleased with the even light they provide.  Lightweight, low voltage, cheap and easy to install they may offer the perfect answer and I agree with HLT 0109 they could provide a solution.

 

 

 

[Harlequin]

Be careful when buying LED tapes - you definitely get what you pay for! Some tapes have widely spaced LEDs that give low brightness. These can be disappointingly dim and each light source can be seen if the tape is close to a wall or ceiling.

 

Tapes with bigger LEDs packed closer together give a better result and a good metric for comparing tapes is the "Lumens per metre" they output. You can calculate the total number of lumens and compare to your current light fitting.

 

I found this site to be quite informative and I bought some tape and a driver from them for my living room: https://www.instyleled.co.uk/white-led-tape/

 

I worked out the total number of lumens I needed to replace a couple of 3ft flourescent tubes, bought appropriately (the 20W tape) and the results are very good - about the same brightness and a good warm, even light.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Harlequin

[47137]

I do like the idea of the slimline LED battens - maybe the Deltech Series 5000, or perhaps something a little lower-powered. They can go flush on the ceiling with minimal remedial work if I take them out one day.

 

I haven't mentioned the existing pendant lamp yet, but I could put a fan in its place, with a LED batten each side like this:

 

Beam spread is around 120 degrees so plenty of light back off the walls. The biggest error I can see is too many lumens.

 

- Richard.

[BlackRat]

I've used them in my purpose built room, but as it's a standard height ceiling they aren't the best for illumination, even the new soopah doopah LED bulbs.

 

I've had to add 2 fluorescent strips.

 

The combination is spot on, I know coz Mr Nevard told me so when he came to take some photos for Model Rail.

[47137]

Well Mr Nevard certainly knows about lighting for his photography, although I try for a little more contrast in my own efforts. His photos always look as good on paper as on a screen.

 

Until now I have thought of room lighting as being of the three kinds general, mood and task - and it is the 'general' part I'm trying to set up. Nowadays people seem to write more about ambient, architectural and task lighting instead. So maybe I can work around the features of the room and let 'architectural' lighting provide enough general lighting - three LED batten lamps (or sets of flexi strips) on the wall and concealed behind L-shaped timber pendants pelmets:

 

Two battens above the windows and one above the door.

 

In numerical terms three 900 mm battens will put out say 3 x 3,000 = 9,000 lumens and this seems overkill in a 10 square metre room. I reckon 4,000 lumens would be fine. However the tops of the windows are only 300 mm below the ceiling so the lamps would put bright highlights on the ceiling and coving immediately above them, fading out across the room - see cross-section sketch. I'd have to call these bright spots "features". The bottoms of the pendants pelmets would have long slits to wash light down in front of the blinds (these are in the window recesses) and allow some air flow. If there are any dull spots on the ceiling (most likely in the larger alcove) I could add a downlighter.

 

I'm wondering do LED lighting battens splay out light outwards from their ends, at an angle (say 120 degrees) much like they do longitudinally?

 

- Richard.

Edited November 5, 2017 by 47137

[peterfgf]

I think these days it's nearer 40 degrees for standard downlights.

 

Screen Shot 2017-11-04 at 10.34.36.png

 

Just out of interest here's a pic I took last night.  Just checked the beam angle and these are 35 degrees.

 

The ones in the side slope really are too close to the baseboard, but even the ones in the ceiling show as pools of light with portions in shade.

 

I've just installed a new kitchen and the under cupboard lighting is strips of LED's and I have to say I am pleased with the even light they provide.  Lightweight, low voltage, cheap and easy to install they may offer the perfect answer and I agree with HLT 0109 they could provide a solution.

 

DSCF8813.jpg

You are right about the angle.  I should have mentioned that the ones I used in the bathroom were narrow beam because of the splash proof enclosure.

Peterfgf

[47137]

To make a start, I've ordered up two 1.2 metre battens, and I'll report back on progress. I think it is best to try for a uniform coverage, and only add downlighters if I need to fill in gaps.

 

- Richard.

[Harlequin]

This is a bit late, sorry, but the mind works in mysterious ways and I've only just had a lightbulb moment (haha  )

 

You could make a new light fitting for the ceiling, connected to the existing rose like this:

1. Cut a square or rectangular sheet of ply to say 1.2 by 1.6 metres.
2. Fit battens to the top face, inset from the edges of the ply.
3. Paint the outside edges of the battens, and the top face of the board outside them, white.
4. Stick LED tape around the outside of the battens and mount the driver inside the battens.
5. Paint the underside of the board white, or maybe an interesting contrasting colour or if it's birch ply varnish it.
6. Wire the driver to the ceiling rose and screw the whole assembly to the ceiling, over the rose.

Thus the traditional ceiling rose and pendant is converted into a sleek contemporary source of concealed energy efficient lighting - and the unit can be demounted in the future leaving the original rose and just four screw holes to be filled.

[47137]

Certainly not too late!

 

Up until now all of my ideas for ceiling-mounted fittings have involved suspension on cables or chains. The pendant lamp has one of those plaster ceiling centres and a hard mounting against the ceiling would hide this, but leave it there in case I ever wanted to see it again.

 

I actually thought of a circular sheet of board from the top of an occasional table to do something a bit like this, and then remembered I had decluttered and thrown it out. A square or rectangular arrangement would really suit the room better than a circle, and if the timber bracing you suggest was 80mm deep it would give room for LED battens (75 mm wide) instead of the LED tape. The whole thing could go up on some glass plates, with plenty of cable coiled up inside to allow easy installation.

 

Fundamentally this would put the LED battens in the centre of the room facing outwards rather than on the sides of the room facing inwards. I can experiment when the LED battens arrive. I suspect they contain two or three LED strips and if I can get inside them I could reduce the light output by cutting a wire or two. If the LED battens are arranged pointing towards the sides of the room rather than the ends of the room, this might minimise the interference with the layout lighting too - perhaps a panel 1.5 x 0.7 metres or so.

 

I think for me the underside of the panel would be best in white to match the ceiling, but the ideas of fixing up something with four screws, hiding the ceiling centre and wiring into the existing rose do appeal a lot. Many thanks.

 

- Richard.  

[ColinK]

I too have a similar problem, model railway round the walls and a central light so I'm always working in my own shadow.

 

I've got downlighters in two rooms and they are great, so I did think about putting them in the railway room. However, the electrictian advised against it due to the difficulty of installing them (would have to remove parts of loft floor to get cables in), plus he thought installing them could bring the ceiling down. From the posts above it looks like they are not the best answer.

 

One effective solution I saw at Holmfirth exhibition was white guttering upside down suspended above a layout using chains. Inside the layout were three led strips, two warm white and one blue. Provided great illumination, but wouldn't look good in my railway room.

[Harlequin]

Certainly not too late!

 

Up until now all of my ideas for ceiling-mounted fittings have involved suspension on cables or chains. The pendant lamp has one of those plaster ceiling centres and a hard mounting against the ceiling would hide this, but leave it there in case I ever wanted to see it again.

 

I actually thought of a circular sheet of board from the top of an occasional table to do something a bit like this, and then remembered I had decluttered and thrown it out. A square or rectangular arrangement would really suit the room better than a circle, and if the timber bracing you suggest was 80mm deep it would give room for LED battens (75 mm wide) instead of the LED tape. The whole thing could go up on some glass plates, with plenty of cable coiled up inside to allow easy installation.

 

Fundamentally this would put the LED battens in the centre of the room facing outwards rather than on the sides of the room facing inwards. I can experiment when the LED battens arrive. I suspect they contain two or three LED strips and if I can get inside them I could reduce the light output by cutting a wire or two. If the LED battens are arranged pointing towards the sides of the room rather than the ends of the room, this might minimise the interference with the layout lighting too - perhaps a panel 1.5 x 0.7 metres or so.

 

I think for me the underside of the panel would be best in white to match the ceiling, but the ideas of fixing up something with four screws, hiding the ceiling centre and wiring into the existing rose do appeal a lot. Many thanks.

 

- Richard.  

 

There are lots of options. Here are a few more thoughts:

• If the unit is made of 80mm deep bracing with 75mm wide fittings it will probably be quite heavy! So it might be difficult to manoeuvre into place and it will need stronger (and longer) fixings.
• I was thinking of a much thinner construction: 12mm ply at the most and 15-22mm thick timbers.
• Using LED tape + driver means you're just buying the components you need, to get exactly the brightness you need without modifying or throwing away parts of a manufactured fitting.
• The Rolls-Royce option: If you went for RGB+W tape with a remote control you could get exactly the light colour/quality you wanted - and even vary it for different purposes. I don't mean colour-cycling through gaudy primary colours - RGB+W lets you subtly adjust the colour balance of basically white light.