Lighting a town

[WhiteHexagon]

I'm moving house next year and I've already made sure I'll have space to rellocate my LEGO town! I'm even thinking to venture into some rail for the next town since I'll have around 3m2 extra space! Although it's 20+ years since I last had any rail, and looking around at todays offerings I can't say I'm very impressed, but that's another discussion.

Anyway, while I was day dreaming of the new layout, I decided I'd really like to light my town. I don't just mean spot lights, although advice there would also be appreciated. But I'm thinking more about things like street lights and lights inside some of the rooms of houses. So I'm looking for advice/tips on options available. The only thing I've come up with so far is a DIY system of very fine wire and LED lights. Are there any ready made solutions out there? besides xmas lights which seem to have really bulky cables. Anyone doing anything similar. Normally I'm quite a purist when it comes to my LEGO, but I think lights would make such an improvement I don't think I can resist :)

Peter

[Captain Zuloo]

I would recommend using ebay for the rail and get some 9v.

In regards to the lights, I think you have it downpat. There are dolls house lighting kits avalibe, but they are quite expensive. I think the LEDs and fine wire (fibre optic?) would be your best bet.

[simonwillems]

Nice idea to lit up a town, it gives that beautiful Christmas-felling.

Of course you can buy some leds with small cables, but you can also stay a purist and stick to Legolights. I did something like that with my town last year: I bought a lot of 9v legolights and cables off ebay and placed them in the houses and on the streets. It was a quite a mess of cables running through the layout to a train speedregulator for power, but it was very satisfying and I can certainly recommend it!

I placed a link here. In many cases I just hung the lights from the ceiling of the buildings, using the traditional 9v Legolights with these reflectorpieces.

Good luck and I hope this helps!

[Minifig Lecturer]

This is very interesting topic.

I too would be interested in lighting up a town. I have tried xmas lights but as was pointed out they have way too much bulky cabling.

I might try a model train shop for ideas. You know those Hornby style shops..

if I get any I will let you know

[Minifig Lecturer]

I'm moving house next year and I've already made sure I'll have space to rellocate my LEGO town! I'm even thinking to venture into some rail for the next town since I'll have around 3m2 extra space! Although it's 20+ years since I last had any rail, and looking around at todays offerings I can't say I'm very impressed, but that's another discussion.

Peter, let me suggest eBay. You will find old classic rail sets there.

[WhiteHexagon]

Thanks for the tips all.

re: trains - I'm a bit ebay shy about buying lego, I like everything to be new :) but maybe it's gonna be my only option, I just can't face the thougt of these IR based sets. Although I seem to remember my old rail had two metal strips down the center? and the 9v I saw on ebay was metal along the track? is the modern track stuff ok? because I can see the track is still on s@h at least for now. so i guess i'd just need some engines from ebay or the like, and a regulator of course. I seem to recall my origional train sets had signal switches too? that was great fun, two trains waiting on collision course and flipping the signals to see which survived! (I was young!) Are there signals for the newer 9v too? Maybe I should do some research

re: lighting - I like the idea of fibre optics, should be possible to get some very fince strands and possibly sit them between the road plates around the town, since there is normally a small gap. Even tempted to drill out a few lamp posts (shock! I never though I'd consider to intentionally damage a lego part). Not sure how flexible the fibre is for tight corners, ie ground to up inside a lamppost, would probably need a small elbow joint if such things exist. Well I'm gonna do some more investigating, maybe pop into Zürich and check out the model shops and electronic shops for some ideas.

[Squeaker]

LifeLites. That is all.

[WhiteHexagon]

lifelites looks good, is anyone using them? I also found some optical fibre options that might be more suitable due to the very fine fibres that I could probably sit between the base plates. Plus it seems quite cheap since I can light many models from just a couple of LED's. Also saw some model train type lighting in the toy shops here, but again the cables were still a bit bulky.