LED Exterior Lighting | Cassidy Tires Rebuild 6 | CCMR At The Bench #21

[@lucgagnon5241]

Thank to you. Merry Christmas. Only hope I'll be watching more of you in 2025.

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

You bet Luc. Plenty to come in 2025!

[@chiparooo]

Great subject! I think you nailed it on the scale and light values. I’m just starting to do some N scale lighting so this was a big help to the possibilities. Very nice video editing, close ups, subtitles, music etc. too. Thanks for sharing!

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Glad this was helpful - where possible try to plan the lighting ahead of your structure builds, but where not possible like here, just be patient. A bit of creativity also helps.

[@jensknopfrangiert]

Very nice job. With some lights, the layout looks so much better and realistic. Particularly in the dark season. I wish you all the best for the new year. Have a great time and many hours of joy with your model railway in 2025. Best regards from Berlin, Jens

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Thanks Jens - Happy New Year to you as well!

[@lucgagnon5241]

Interesting... as usual ! I really appreciate you made us discover Atlas LEDs lightning fixtures. You got talent man. Happy holidays and thanks for all 2024 videos shared with us.

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Thanks Luc - always great to hear from you and enjoy the Atlas fixtures - they're quite nice! Have a great holiday season!!

[@bruceames6332]

Great series on the Tire Company , Dude. Merry Christmas to You and your Family and all the best in the upcoming New Year. Bruce in Minnesota

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Hi Bruce, thanks much for the kind note. Likewise, have a great holiday season!

[@TrapDoorWoodworks]

Great job! LED lights have sure added another layer of realism to model railroading, but like you said, retrofitting them into an existing layout is quite the task!

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Yeah this was definitely a challenge! Have a great holiday.

[@petermenningen338]

Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year from a former Chicagoan with s soft side for the South Side. Love your channel. ❤🌲🌲🌴

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Thanks Peter - merry Christmas and a happy new year to you and yours!

[@tczephyr3665]

One thing I would recommend is that you avoid, if at all possible, gluing the roof down and gluing the structure to the layout. That way if you decide to add lighting later you have a fighting chance to get it done. Also paint the interior walls with a dark color while building the kit. It’s a real pain to do it later, but if you don’t and you add lights later your structure will glow like it’s radioactive. Finally, seal all the seams to avoid light leaks

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

@@tczephyr3665 yep, had I considered lighting in 2017 those would be considerations.

[@tczephyr3665]

@ I wish I had considered all those things too. Retro fitting is a real challenge 😊

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

@@tczephyr3665 oh I know - likely the process would've been a LOT simpler. I don't think I started painting interiors black or wiring while working until a couple of years later. Those buildings have been a snap. Hindsight is 20:20 I suppose - hope you're enjoying your builds and have a great holiday!!

[@tczephyr3665]

@ One last thing. You mentioned the difficulty stripping fine wire. A company called Evan Designs does a lot of neat wiring stuff and they make a wire stripping tool just for fine wire. Or you can just burn it off with a butane match, like I do 😁 Happy Holidays

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

@@tczephyr3665 nice, thanks for this tip! I've gotten LED stuff from Evan Designs but didn't know they had a special stripping tool. I've just used sandpaper and that generally does the trick but it would be way nicer to have a something purpose-built. I'm handy with a soldering iron but a butane match in my clumsy hands would probably lead to a house fire... :)

[@andrewpalm2103]

Another excellent and detailed video, Eric! It is very helpful to show all the steps. Those sign lights don't look at all chunky to me, especially when compared to the commercial offerings. Cheers from Wisconsin!

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Yep, the custom fixtures are much better - thanks Andy, have a great holiday week!

[@kahunatiki6498]

Outstanding video and series Eric! Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Scott

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Thank you Scott, have a great holiday season! All the best - Eric

[@paullindell]

Hi Eric, Merry Christmas and a grate new year. Lighting is like ballasting, they both look good if done properly. The thought I had for making the stansions would be to use a metallic tube of the proper size and make the tube itself part of the circuit. I have a 5 story plastics plant that is similar to your project. I'm still a long way from the wiring aspect of it. Something I thought of that would look good near doors is a red LED to simulate the red glow of an exit sign when all the other lights are off. I remember seeing that at my old job. 😊😊😊

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Hi Paul, thanks for the message! It's a very interesting solution to be sure. Given the sizing on N scale I don't suspect I'd find tubing fine enough to really look good - the Atlas lights actually come with fine hollow tubing but even that isn't quite right. The 0.3mm brass rod I was originally looking to use was itself a bit chunky. At some point I may just be getting overly picky as lots of things in N scale are oversize relative to the prototype (couplers, rail heights, handrails, etc.) so it's really just a matter of picking battles I think. Merry christmas to you and your loved ones!

[@paullindell]

@ChicagoCrossingRR I found a company called Ngineering. The tubes I have are .018" and .042" O.D. They are stainless steel. The product numbers are N2018-2 and N2042-2. I have a third pack I can't read but the product number is N20252-E.

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

@@paullindell The .018 is around 0.45mm - so pretty close to the rods I was using. I can actually think of quite a few uses for that in any case - thank you for sharing, I'll probably be picking some up!!

[@jimmccorison]

@@ChicagoCrossingRR 0.018" is 2.88" IRL. It may be a touch beefier than proto, but it would look fine. Ngineering says the 0.018" tube will accommodate 4 #38 wires. It is too late for the present lighting, but it is something for everyone to keep in mind.

[@melkitson]

An excellent video which also highlights the need to plan ahead when building structures for a layout. I had similar fun lighting my n gauge signals. Fingers are too big, tweezers are not sensitive enough. One question arises, the leds come with a resistor attached, did you reattach the resistors or do a bulk attachment? How did you reattach if you did so. The wires are so difficult to strip and work with.

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Absolutely Mel. The difference between this building (fully constructed before I'd considered LED lighting) and the bakery I built 5 years later with consideration of adding these features is night and day. It can be done, but never easily. At this point I've gotten used to working with this gauge of wire or even smaller, and soldering in resistors, etc. isn't terribly difficult. JustPlug light hubs have onboard resistors, but I still add them to my individual buildings once I've got them set up as further protection. At that point I prefer to set up a single ballast resistor in series with LEDs of the same type. For instance, in this building, I'll need two resistors (so far).

[@CharlesGallo]

Interesting question. If I remember correctly, you railroad is set in 1992. Wouldn’t the lighting be more likely Sodium Vapor(yellow) or if old,, Mercury Vapor, which is green white

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Pretty close Charles, 1997. Most lighting in Chicago was of either variety.

[@danielfantino1714]

What a bright subject that need brain illumination to accomplish. I don´t know if modeler have tried optic fiber. There is 2 types. The usual well known that carry lights/color up to the end. The second one may be less known let some lights pass through its entire lenght. Depending on thinnest size, they could be useful to mimic lighted letters, symbols or logo. A group of them tied together to a led or lamp. Don´t know if different color ink at the tip close to the led would bring flashy colors along the way ? You don´t necessarily have to hide wiring. After all, in real life, pipes will have to carry wires along the wall then through the roof. We all know that led last almost for ever but in tidy application like here, if very thin optic fiber can be use, they won´t burn.....just be sure that they won´t break.... in real life a burn light isn´t replace the same day. Even a burn one will be prototypical. Lucky guy you are to model in the past. Today you should add security cameras.... Thanks Éric for that kind Christmas gift you offer us. I wish you and your family and followers, a good one. And may 2025 be healthy with many more videos sharing made at your own pace. And they´re never too long. Have a good one😊😊

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Thanks Daniel, hope you have a great holiday. I've considered fiber optics for some applications, they're always worth exploring!

[@danielfantino1714]

​@@ChicagoCrossingRR Well, writting "beer" in red color with a blue oval around on your tavern window....would be quite a challenge in N scale..... Nah ! Easy peasy for a guy making cardboard boxes....😅😅😅

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

@@danielfantino1714 oh super easy. I make my own waterslide decals and prints - the laundromat on my layout has authentic signage on the windows from a Chicago business.

[@danielfantino1714]

@ChicagoCrossingRR Yes dear but not self lighted....ok, try z scale. Cheers

[@donaldkormos5529]

@@danielfantino1714 For HO scale simulated neon or LED window signs ... like a beer sign ... I use small color TFT displays (1.14 inch IPS, 240x135 pixels) that are very cheap ... couple bucks each. The sign basically fills in the window space. An Arduino or similar microcontroller can then display the sign on a black background that has been shrunk to a prototypical size with your favorite graphics program. The signs can blink on and off ... and with sprites ... different elements of the sign can be animated. Lots of fun cause there are hundreds of signs possible. For N scale, it would be interesting to try.

[@gabrielgolden4336]

Aha! A fellow La Croix pamplemousse man. 😊

[@ChicagoCrossingRR]

Only the finest in sparkling water for this model railroader…😄