7mm Heybridge Basin

[magmouse]

Yes, having a ‘ceiling’ over the layout and bouncing the light off it will really help reduce shadows (or at least, greatly soften them, so they look like natural ones on an overcast day).

 

[Alan]

Iain Rice mentions it his Cameo layout book and has a section on LEDs entitled Lead on Kindly LED

 

[NHY 581]

My layouts have the inner side of the roof the same colour as the backscene. It makes it really pop.
As Alan said earlier, I also use the Rice approach and both my Cameo layouts have three rows of lighting.

The first overhangs the front of the layout by some 4cm (Pretty certain Iain advocated 4 inches ). This makes sure the front of the layout is properly illuminated. The second is bang on halfway whilst the third is right up against the backscene to remove any shadows.

Rob

 

[RichardG]

This is the roof on my shelf layout. The whole assembly slides out below the strip of white-faced board, so the front overhang can vary between nothing and about 80 mm.

This was in November 2019. I suppose that in a way it was a proof of concept for me. A lot of my models at the time were. Putting a roof on a layout does seem to keep the worst of the dust off.

The first overhangs the front of the layout by some 4cm (Pretty certain Iain advocated 4 inches ). This makes sure the front of the layout is properly illuminated.

I would have bought my copy of Iain Rice's book on cameo layouts in 2020. He did suggest an overhang of four inches, he was writing in the context of fluorescent tubes at the time. 40 mm sounds fine to me. The book took me to build my lockdown layout, which ultimately failed to work for me and I broke up a few months ago. So "Heybridge Basin" now follows this shelf layout in my chronology of layouts I have kept.

 

[Willl]

My latest layout follows Rice practice of having the lighting rig set forward about 3-4 inches. This does avoid shadows at the front of the layout (which Rye Sands is pretty bad for, as the lighting has no overhang), but the back of the layout is a bit gloomy - I think Rob's idea of having a second / third lighting strip nearer the rear is probably necessary if you're going to do the whole 4 inches overhang.
Will

 

[Osgood]

Lux? Lumen? It’s all empirical to me!

I took some good advice from a couple of WTers a while back to get me into the right ball park, then got some gear and had a play (7m x 0.75m viewing area, rail level 1.1m, high back scene, no top panel).
I set the continuous lighting bar directly above the front edge of layout, i.e. forward of the viewer, at 2m high.
As I was unsure how much light would be needed I went for potential overkill on the basis you can always turn the light source down, but not exceed its capacity.

Conclusions:

If the light source is a little above the viewer, the shadows created by it will not be visible by the viewer.​

The light source does not need to be above or behind the viewer, but the further forward it is the more screening it will require to shield it from the viewer.​

With continuous output (COB) LED tape there are no side shadows as sometimes seen with spaced LED tape.​

Be prepared for any scenario of natural / artificial light on the exhibition battlefield, so make provision for high-powered lighting that can be controlled down to whatever level is required.​

If you wish to eliminate any shadows caused by ambient (natural or artificial) light, you will need to provide layout lighting that is stronger - if that makes the layout too bright, the solution is to screen the layout from ambient light.​

Install a powerful natural (4000k) tape and a tri-colour variable warmth tape - both with dimmers. This allows you to adjust base light level using the 4000k tape and to then adjust warmth using the variable tape. (tape specs incl. power outputs TBA when I can find the file). The tri-colour tape will add additional base light too if the 4000k tape can’t quite do it.​

​

Hope that helps a little.

 

[timbowales]

Life was so much simpler when we just had tungsten filament bulbs or fluorescent tubes

 

[RichardG]

I think all of the conclusions by @Osgood will be helpful to anyone planning a new lighting installation of renewing an existing one; and so to try to wrap this up for now I offer a few more of my own:

​

The output of a COB tape is indeed through most of 180 degrees from side to side, but putting the tape into a purpose-made extrusion will make this beamwidth narrower. This narrowing has helped me, because the quadrant extrusion lets me direct the light down towards the layout and not horizontally into the eyes of an operator behind the layout.​

​

A diffuser is of limited benefit to the lighting effects created on the layout, and it will reduce the intensity of the light too; but it does make reflections in nearby windows (and again, incidental eye contact) easier on the eye.​

​

An aluminium support for a tape will provide a heatsink and help the tape to last longer.​

​

Installing the rig just above my own head height lets me add scenic details or stock and see what they will look like straight away, without banging my head or carrying the baseboard outdoors into a better light.​

Above all, I suppose, we really have never had it so good in terms of the lighting equipment out there to buy. There ought to be something for every layout, taste and budget.

Bonus conclusion: if you are thinking of putting some COB tapes under kitchen wall cupboards to light up the work surfaces, you need 8W/m tape. Absolutely definitely nothing brighter.

Finally, thank you to @Yorkshire Dave for his suggestion on adding project boxes to tidy up the connections.


I worked this up this afternoon. It is just (just) sufficiently lightweight to let the lighting bar continue to hang vertically.

 

[RichardG]

I am so glad the ballasting and the lighting are done. Both are an open invitation to failure, and both are about as much fun as pulling teeth. Yet somehow, the results make it all seem worthwhile. My progress on Heybridge Basin probably seems funereal to many but the layout has got better over the last eleven months.


9 April 2024


9 March 2025 (lighting rig on, shadows from sunlight coming through open doorway and window blind!)

I want to leave the water in the basin until I have some kind of boat to pour it around. This leaves the backscene as the last major item and I will defer this until I have more of the modelling done. The magnolia is gentle on the eye and it fades to nothing in colour photos turned to black and white - good for period-style photos. The layout is in a good state to let it rest and indeed enjoy while I make things to glue down onto it or build more stock.

 

[timbowales]

Those photos show how delightfully small the layout actually is

 

[RichardG]

Those photos show how delightfully small the layout actually is

Thanks Tim . . . I think I can make it look bigger than it is in my photos, because there are several different viewpoints.

Years ago I decided the ideal small layout I wanted to build would be 5ft long. This being just enough to extend beyond my peripheral vision at a usual viewing distance, and just about bearable to carry around in one piece. But 7 mm points are so long, I needed more. I mean, I started with the 1.2 m baseboard and then added the 0.4 m sections at each end, and the total of 2 metres is just about right. It is at the very limit of what I can pack into my car and the minimum which will satisfy me at home.

I do sometimes feel I could be building a layout twice the size in precious little more time, but at least with the backdrop and the fiddle yard done I have set the boundaries. It won't grow again until after I have finished it.