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Eastwood Town - A tribute to Gordon's modelling.


gordon s
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Hi Warren, been sitting on the bed since 5.30 watching The Masters.....as I was Thursday and Friday......:D

 

Wonderful place to play golf, even in November....Augusta, not the bed...:D

 

Wiring wise, the lights are 240v, but sealed plastic construction, so much happier there is no danger of shock. (Those are the mains leads hanging down with 3 pin plugs on for test).
 

When I had the garage conversion done, they put in two lighting circuits. Four downlights in the vaulted ceiling and three down each side on the roof slope. I pulled out one of the downlights last night and they all have 12v transformers. The one switch for the lights down both sides can be seen in the second pic above.  
 

My plan is to replace the dimmer and pull out the wiring via the downlight hole. With any luck I will be able to connect all the light battens back to the switch using the existing wiring. Once that’s done, I’ll cut some plaster board circles to fill the holes and then fill and paint. With any luck the wiring will all be hidden from view.

 

I guess these lights are 600-700mm above the boards, but am fairly sure you could go well over a metre or so without light deterioration, particularly if you build a deflector to stop the spread of light sideways.  Just thinking I have one in my filter shed in the garden and that must be a metre plus above the filters and the light is fine for a shed 12’ x 5’. Not for detail work like loco’s, but fine in a dark shed.

 

Edit: Forgot your question re fluorescents. They give the light output as 4,000 lumens. Just looked up 5’ tubes on Screwfix and they say 5,200 lumens so 20% lower, but then you don’t want everything washed out. You could use shorter tubes with 4,000 lumen output, but then you may have lighting gaps over an 18’ length.

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9 hours ago, gordon s said:

Old lighting....

 

DSCF1368.jpg.9265f9d9619291acc54761b968195597.jpg

 

That's exactly why I declined my friend's suggestion of downlights. You can get wide angle ones nowadays - we have fitted them in our kitchen - but I still prefer the tubes in the railway room.

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20 hours ago, gordon s said:

 

Downside? I've whacked my forehead on the front of the fascia several times......Ouch!

 

Of course, I'm 6'3", so others may not have a problem. I will experiment to see how to resolve this as it may well be I can narrow the depth of the fascia or lift it slightly. If not, I'll wear a hard hat.......

 

Maybe a helmet?
They come with a chin strap to help keep them on.  :D

 

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13 hours ago, gordon s said:

The spec says they are non dimmable, but then they aren’t particularly expensive. Heat wise, they do appear to get warm, but the spec says up to 25,000 hours, so I would have thought they would have incorporated a heat sink somewhere within the plastic case. To be honest, I haven’t had one on long enough to see if it’s an issue, but I can’t see Screwfix selling anything if it was a problem.

 

 

I bought an outdoor LED light from one of Screwfix's competitor. The data on the box stated "****** company ensures our products give years of trouble free use"  stopped working after 18 months.  They initially basically said tough its out of Gtee, I reminded them of their claims on the packaging and a gift voucher arrived for 80% of its original cost. 

 

I am a bit unlucky with LED's as I bought a lighting unit and 2 our of the 3 bulbs exploded within 2 months damaging the light fitting and the third stopped working

 

On the other hand our kitchen is full of them as is the alcove in our lounge with only 1 needing changing

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Actually seeing where the old lights were I understand better now what you were seeing. I hadn't looked that closely at other images when I posted my cheeky comment and assumed they were higher up firing down the ceiling surface to defuse over a wider area rather than being so close and thus having dark areas because the coverage did not join up.

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Gordon,

 

Those LED tubes look excellent. My loft is currently lit with fluorescent tubes which run off 240V but plug together meaning only one set of wiring to the first tube. Do yours plug into each other or do you have to wire each separately? 
 

Andy

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My wiring options are somewhat limited by having to use the original wiring as it is virtually inaccessible within the roof structure. As each individual tube is only rated at 45w, there’s no problem connecting them together.

 

These particular tubes don’t have the end to end connections, probably to keep the cost down, but it didn’t take long to take each cable to a central point and from there connect into the existing wiring back to the original switch in the roof slope, meaning all three are controlled by one main switch. My plan is to eventually connect them all to one main switch, but have single architrave switches on each fascia that will allow independent switching of each area. All 10 tubes will require just 450w, way below the maximum rating of 3120w for 1.5mm lighting cable.

 

I’ll use something like these with a 16mm plastic box on the back on each fascia plate.

 

https://www.screwfix.com/p/crabtree-capital-10a-1-gang-2-way-light-switch-white/25858

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We have a window cleaner......:D

 

Joking apart, they are just above ground floor level, so easily accessible. Our window cleaner who comes round has one of these extendable poles that will go up a couple of floors easily and uses 'pure' water pumped from a tank in the back of his van. The days of hanging off ladders two floors up with a chamois are long gone.

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4 hours ago, gordon s said:

We have a window cleaner......:D

 

Joking apart, they are just above ground floor level, so easily accessible. Our window cleaner who comes round has one of these extendable poles that will go up a couple of floors easily and uses 'pure' water pumped from a tank in the back of his van. The days of hanging off ladders two floors up with a chamois are long gone.

Now that you have added the second paragraph my 'funny' rating seems less appropriate!

 

I had wrongly assumed your attic was on the third floor like mine where I find the ability to turn the windows almost inside out to clean them very handy.

 

We no longer have a window cleaner.  The one we used to have passed the business to his son who then decided that too many of the houses in our neighbourhood had bolted gates which made accessing the sides and back too much trouble, despite having a ladder.  I started doing it myself years ago and haven't bothered trying to find another window cleaner.

 

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That's OK Teaky. I thought I was being a bit sarky, so added the explanation.....:D

 

We almost have a ground floor attic.....

 

This was our garage, so the conversion was a railway room upstairs and my office/study below plus the utility room at the back. As my job  was international, it made far more sense to work from home and only go into the office when required....and it gave me somewhere to run trains.

 

Next job will probably be to clean the roof....;)DSCF1387.jpg.b34caaeea5efcd1695195791adeb929a.jpg

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17 minutes ago, teaky said:

BTW  I rather like a roof with moss, lichen etc.  It softens things in a natural way.

 

Same here - a bit like the housey equivalent of a weathered loco....:laugh:

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22 hours ago, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

I like the Loco, Fire lighting equipment nonchalantly left against the engine shed  wall !!!!!!

 

manna


Nah, Gordon bought a log cabin from IKEA.

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Trouble is I lost the instructions, so have no idea which piece goes with which piece.......:D

 

Been to the tip again this week, with loads and loads of plywood off cuts. I can actually get into my garage/workshop now without tripping over bits of wood. Another appointment tomorrow when all the shed off cuts will go and another next Tuesday to get rid of another ton of stuff.

 

I have to admit, my wife has been ‘giving constructive advice’ ( some may call it nagging, but not me....;)) for months now about clearing up and it really has made a difference. Absolute pleasure working in the garage this afternoon and the extra light upstairs has made ET a lot easier to see.

 

Even the booking system at the tip works. Roll up at the prescribed time, no queueing and everything just happens without fuss or tension. I hope they stick with the system even after lockdown.....

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1 hour ago, gordon s said:

I have to admit, my wife has been ‘giving constructive advice’ ( some may call it nagging, but not me....;))  for months  now about clearing up ......

 

Ahhhhh, that explains it..... :D

For a railway modeller to be chucking out bits of ply (nothing bigger than 6" square I hope?) there has  to be threats of serious violence, or even worse.....

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Depends how many pieces you have left over......:D

 

You can accumulate more than a few when you’ve made several false starts over the years. Getting rid of the scrap boards is easy.....it’s all the other remnants that are just left on the garage floor....

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • gordon s changed the title to Eastwood Town - Three weeks gone in a flash......
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All the best Gordon, I was wondering whether you were still golfing in the rain and that's why we hadn't seen your posts.

 

Did you ask the important question "Will I still be able to build points for my model railway"?

 

Festive Greetings as well while I'm here.

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