Lights for model makers: technology and techniques

Welcome to my writeup on lighting models.

You've come to the right place if you want to learn more about illuminating scale models of various kinds – spacecraft, railways, dollhouses, cars, and so on.

And I don't mean shining external lights on the model, of course. I'm referring to the technology to make tiny light sources that appear to-scale with the model itself.

LEDs are where it’s at

But let's get straight to the point. When it comes to illuminating miniatures of all types, LEDs are the tool of choice these days. Most other tech doesn't really make any sense.

So you probably want to start with chapter II, as most of this article is about LED technology and some automated ways to control it. However, chapter I is a brief tour of some other forms of electric lighting for completeness.

Text or pictures?

Right now this writeup doesn’t have much by the way of illustration. There are two reasons for this.

First, I use Google Sites since it’s essentially free, but its handling of graphic inserts is absolutely awful. So I haven’t got around to the time-consuming process of sorting that out. I might at some point, since obviously an article on lighting could benefit from suitable illustrations and photos.

Second, this writeup is for people who read words, anyway. Not for folks who want clickbaity short attention span videos. The latter market is already well served.

I:     Non-LED lighting

II:    LEDs (light emitting diodes)

III:   Powering LEDs

IV:    Installing and using LEDs

V:    Controlling and automating LEDs

Contact

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