Day 28- Interior Lighting Part 1

Let there be light!  Interior lighting can absolutely enhance a structure.....or kill it.  Number 1 No-No:  naked bulbs that you can see!!!  This is one of the reasons why I put in the printed paper detail with spaces between.  I'll install the bulbs in between the sheets where they can't be seen and will backlight through the paper to give a nice even glow.

First we need some bulbs.  I really like incandescent lamps over the LED because they don't require a resistor and have a nicer warm color.  Now all you LED fans don't get your pannies in an uproar!  I also use LEDs to light structures - it's just that all of my LEDs are packed away.

My preference is for Miniatronics 14 volt long life bulbs and I use them on 12 volts or less which increases their life even more.  I use difference size bulbs with different brightnesses depending on what I'm doing in the structure.  Here are the 5.5mm diameter units that are pre-tested and rated for 10,000 hours.

Here I've got some smaller units that are 2.4mm - also pre-tested and rated for 16,000 hours.  The process of figuring what lamps to put where in the structure  is mostly trial and error.

We'll need power for the lamps so I dig out my box of "wall wart" plug in transformers.  Note that I had a brain storm and clearly labeled each one with a white pen marker.  I did this when I finally got tired of digging through and reading each one.  By the way, many of these power supplies are from broken equipment that has since been thrown away.  I'd hate to think about how much $$$$ that represents!  You can also pick up these things at thrift stores (like Goodwill) for about a buck a piece.

I've selected a nice 12VDC unit here.  With in incandescent lamps you can use AC/DC, there isn't any polarity, and you can use voltages lower than the maximum - not true with LEDs.

Next I cut off the plug (leaving enough wire to use the plug elsewhere) and cut one wire shorter than the other before stripping the wire.  Why did I cut one wire shorter than the other?  Well, my old Daddy taught me that when you do this you are less likely to short the stripped ends of the wires together.  Why the knot? - because I always tie a knot in the positive wire - which isn't necessary here but a habit.

Fast forward and here you see that I've glued the bulbs in place (using hot glue) and installed "buss bars".  If you look at the item I pointing at with my pointer stick you can see them.  They are made out of 3/16" square wood pieces wrapped with copper foil tape (like the kind used in stained glass).  I've found that it's much easier to solder wires to a buss then trying to solder them together in a big old bunch.

I've run out of time, so no soldering today!  Next up will be to install a main feeder wire, route it through the bottom of the structure, and solder all of the wires to the buss.