Lighting systems for models
There are several methods now available for lightng the interiors and exteriors of models.
When putting larger lights inside the hollow bodies of plastic kits (such as buildings), it can be useful to paint the interior surface to try to stop light shining through the body of the plastic. The preferred choice of paint for this is usually a metallic silver to produce maximum blocking and minimum heat absorption. This will normally need to be done before a model's construction is finished. Another (more extreme) approach for internally lit models without visible interiors is to glue aluminium foil to the inside of the model – the refectivity gives greater light levels for a given amount of power, but the "foil" approach also means having to be careful to make sure that any exposed wiring doesn't short out against the foil.
Traditional incandescents
The 1930s saw the popularity of small "pea bulbs" that could run off 1.5 Volts, suitable for use in 1:43 model car headlights, model railway layout street lamps, and for adding internal lighting to model houses and dollhouses.
These were basically miniature versions of normal domestic incandescent lightbulbs, gave a yellowish glow, and were dimmable just by reducing the voltage. You could also run them over-voltage to get a brighter light, at the expense of a reduced lifespan.
LED lighting
LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology is slightly wierd. While an incandescent lamp is basically a high-resistance heating element that gets so hot that it glows, and is easly controlled by simply changing the drivng voltage, LEDs are different.
A diode acts more like a floodgate. Push the gate in one direction, and nothing happens. Push the gate the other way, and to begin with' nothing happens, until you apply a certain amount of push, at which point the gate flies wide open.
Similarly, with an LED, try to send a current through it one way, and nothing happens. Reverse the leads, and try to send a current the other way, and nothing happens until the voltage reaches about 1.2 Volts, at which point the LED suddenly starts conducting and emitting light, with a low resistance, and amassive current flows through the LED until it or the driving unit burns out. To avoid this, it's usual to put a current limiting resistor in series with the LED, but they don't normaly come with one built-in.
"LED-Plus" lighting
Because calculating the values for series resistors is faff, some sellers supply individual LED lights, with convenient black and red connection wires soldered on, and with the correct current-limiting resistors already soldered in place, depending on whether you order one for use with 5-Volt or 12-Volt systems. These can be used pretty much as simple replacements for little incandescent pea-bulb lights.
LED strip lighting
Another variation is LED strip lighting, which usually consists of a reel of self-adhesive plastic tape with circuitry and LED elements pre-attached, plus a driver unit, power supply and infra-red remote control. These are avilable in colour and white versions. While primarily designed for domestic lighting (they can be unobtrusively run around window frames and under kitchen cupboard units), they are also useful for lighting model scenery, especially since the colour versions allow you to adjust the mixture of red, green and blue light to similate the harsh white light of a snowy winter morning, or the warm orange glow of a sunset.
Fibre optics
An optical fiber consists of a thin fibre of ultra-pure flexible glass or plastic whose surface properties cause light to be totally internally reflected. This makes optical fibres excellent as light guides.
Developed by the telecommunications industry as a way of sending digital signals over many kilometres with low signal losses as pulses of light, a side-effect of commercial mass-production was the sudden appearance of cheap optical fibre for "niche" products such as novelty domestic lighting (fibre-optic lamps).
In model-making fibre optics allow a model's surface to have many tiny points of illumination, without having to embed tiny lamps or deal with the resulting electrical wiring. Instead each point tobe iluminated has a tiny hole drilled through the the model's interior, and has one end of a fire=optcal cable pushed into the hole, usually so that the cut end of the cable is a "flush fit" with the surface. The other ends of the fibres (perhaps tens or even hundreds fo them) can then be gathered together and trimmed o create a single surface that it is pointed (at close proximity) towards a single internal lightsource. High-intensity light from a single bulb is then chanelled by the cables to all the multiple points on the surface. The intensity of fibre-optic illumination is brighter even than having a simple hole giving line-of-sight to the bulb, because light within the fibre doesn't reduce in intensity with distance according the the usual inverse-square law.
Other light-guides
Corgi model 437, Superior Ambulance on Cadillac Chassis (1962) supplemented its central roof flashing light with flashing corner-lights, which were actually channeling a portion of the central bulb's light using moulded clear plastic rods as light-guides.
There are several methods now available for lightng the interiors of models.
Traditional incandescents
The 1930s saw the popularity of small "pea bulbs" that could run off 1.5 Volts, suitable for use in 1:43 model car headlights, model railway layout street lamps, and for adding internal lighting to model houses and dollhouses.
These were basically miniature version fo normal domesting incandescent lightbulbs, gave a yellowish glow, and were dimmable just be reducing the voltage. You could also run them over-voltage to get a brighter light, at the expense of a reduced lifespan.
Fibre optics
An optical fiber consists of a thin fibre of ultra-pure flexible glass or plastic whose surface properties cause light to be totally internally reflected. This makes optical fibres excellent as light guides.
Developed by the telecommunications industry as a way of sending digital signals over many kilometres with low signal losses as pulses of light, a side-effect of commercial mass-production was the sudden appearance of cheap optical fibre for "niche" products such as novelty domestic lighting (fibre-optic lamps).
In model-making fibre optics allow a model's surface to have many tiny points of illumination, without having to embed tiny lamps or deal with the resulting electrical wiring. Instead each point tobe iluminated has a tiny hole drilled through the the model's interior, and has one end of a fire=optcal cable pushed into the hole, usually so that the cut end of the cable is a "flush fit" with the surface. The other ends of the fibres (perhaps tens or even hundreds fo them) can then be gathered together and trimmed o create a single surface that it is pointed (at close proximity) towards a single internal lightsource. High-intensity light from a single bulb is then chanelled by the cables to all the multiple points on the surface. The intensity of fibre-optic illumination is brighter even than having a simple hole giving line-of-sight to the bulb, because light within the fibre doesn't reduce in intensity with distance according the the usual inverse-square law.
Other light-guides
Corgi model 437', "Superior Ambulance on Cadillac Chassis" (1962) supplemented its central roof flashing light with flashing corner-lights, which were actually channeling a portion of the central bulb's light using moulded clear plastic rods as light-guides.
Wireless lighting
Induction technology
Induction coil power transfer is fairly new as a consumer technology, and was developed as a consumer technology primarily as a way to provide contactless charging of mobile phones. The charger has a flat panel hiding a transmission coil, and another coil is embedded in the mobile phone – the receiver coil is designed to resonate at the same standard frequency that the transmitter coil is driven at, and when close enough together the two coils "couple" inductively. The result is that the AC current driven through the transmitter coil creates a similar AC current in the receiver coil, which can be rectified and smoothed, and used as a power source. The ccmbination of two inductively coupled coils is sometimes referred to as an "air gap" transformer – it can be treated as broadly equivalent to a conventional two-coil power transformer, but with (inefficient) air rather than (efficient) soft iron as the intermediate coupling medium.
Induction lighting
Induction lighting is a spin-off of cheap mass-produced induction coil technology
A single transmitter coil is placed under or in the model, and used to power little wireless LED lights, around 4mm diameter, that each have their own tiny little inbuilt receiver coil.
iBrix
iBrix was a kickstarter project that bundled a set of these little lights, pre-installed inside transparent Lego bricks, with a Lego-compatible baseplate that incorporated the driver coil and electronics.
... from scratch
Kits of the "raw" wireless LED lights, ready to be popped inside a Lego 1×1 square or round brick, along with a driver coil and board, are available at very reasonable prices. However, these usually have a coil that's only about 72mm in diameter, which limits you as to the size of the object that you want to put lights on. While the usual width at coil level is about 80mm, the "zone of effectivess" tapers off away from the coil plane in a roughly conical shape, so not only might you not be able to place lights around a very wide building, you might have trouble getting lights to work at the first floor ceiling.
