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Lighting The Layout - And Pliers


Miserable

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Progress on the banner repeater hasn't for a couple of days due to exciting family based distractions, but while suffering the weekly shop I found something that solves my layout lighting problem - the problem being lack of daylight in the loft and poor artificial lighting making seeing anything difficult. I was aware of LED strips from art installations I've assisted with, but I've not been able source them at either a sensible price or with adequate explanation of what you get for your money, so steam powered me was looking for some sort of strip lights. Cue the middle isle in Lidl. They have two types of strip, 2m and 5m. A peek in the boxes suggests the 2m version, despite being the same price (£15) as the 5m version, is a bit more industrial looking so the Brunel in me took over.

 

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This is the best the current lighting can do, without using an old standard lamp to illuminate where I'm working.

 

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From the always surprising Lidl middle isle. Clear white to sunset orange...

 

What I wanted was some sort of lighting 'behind' the purlin shining down in a hidden light source effect, so sticky back LED strip is ideal. I didn't want the whole loft lit, not a good music environment (for me). Though the strip comes ready-sticky, it doesn't stick all that well to old timber, but pairs of drawing pins 'clipping' the strip works just fine. Unpacking the box reveals an instruction book, power supply, controller box (I assume!), the LED strip and a male-male connector to add additional LED strips. Plugging it all in et voilà, cycling white light. During to the time it took to retrieve the instructions from the bin it actually settled down to a constant 'white', so no need to set up the Lidl app that controls the LEDs from your phone (Bluetooth). I'll experiment with softer white settings and sunset oranges later, for now seeing what I'm doing is priority.

 

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That's much better :-) I'll be getting another set next week (if there's any left) for the north end of the layout. Trouble is now I can see Ineed to finish the scenery...

 

And in other news, I found my favourite pliers. These are an ancient pair I've had for decades and the tips are just right for making loops in handrails etc. In a bit of a coincidence as I was celebrating finding them (I need them for the 43two1 20T BR brake van kit I have in the projects queue) when the previous one I built (using said pliers) appeared on eBay - according to the seller it's 'professionally built' which I'm happy to take :-)

 

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Is it sad to have favourite pliers?

 

Ah well, back to the repeater I guess.

Edited by Miserable

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Congratulations on finding the pliers. Many non-modellers would not understand the importance of such an event! 

 

Nice lighting, what a difference it makes. That distance shot of the corner with the trees is a bit magical, like a secret entrance to another dimension :)

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Congratulations on finding the pliers. Many non-modellers would not understand the importance of such an event! 

 

Nice lighting, what a difference it makes. That distance shot of the corner with the trees is a bit magical, like a secret entrance to another dimension :)

 

 

 

 

It's the portal to my imaginary world of endless summer days so I guess that's actually correct!

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You can get strips of lights like that direct from China on Ebay for next to nothing - just a 3-month postal wait.

They often run on 12v so if you've got an old spare controller kicking around you dont even to to buy a PSU.

I've got some in the ktichen under the wall cabinets, does a great job of lighting the worktops.  I used strong double sided tape to improve on the sticky.

Would probably be useful above a workbench too.

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My son has strip of these round the edge of his desk, again cheapies from China, they're on 24/7 and suprisingly have lasted years.

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