Lights for a Hanging House

Adding More Lights to the Hanging House

 Spurred on by my visit to the Modern Art Gallery of Qld to see the display 'We Miss You Magic Land' and the fact that my book is being reviewed at the moment so I am at a loose end and bored I have decided to add more lights to one of my hanging houses. Below is the first house I'm adding more lights to.

 

Pebbles Cottage - Details

Detail. Detail, Detail. It's all in the detail.

This is still under construction. I have to resize images.

As promised I have supplied (below) some images of The Kitchen of Pebble Cottage. Please note that ALL images (that are my property) on this site are copyrighted and can only be used for your own personal use and NOT for any commercial use unless authorisation is given by me.

Wiring pattern

Lighting - Wiring Diagram

The bane of my life, when it comes to building these models, is lighting. After all these years you would think I would have it sorted but no.

There came a day, at the Gold Coast Show, many years ago, when one of my plastic grapes, with a rice bulb inside, started sending up smoke signals. This, as you can imagine, is NOT a good thing. Since then I've looked at how to lessen the risk of fire.

Some time back a friend asked why my models where not run by battery! Now why didn't I think of that?

So that started me on my road to change ALL the lights (and that's a lot!) to LED's. I was told they use very little power and have no heat. This is not so. Contrary to belief LED's do actually generate heat but it is miniscule also there are heaps of different types of LED's which is reflected in the price. Some cost $6.00 each!

You would not believe how many ways there are to wire lights. It's mind boggling and its not just light bulbs. Its voltage of power and the ohms of resistors which change depending on the type of LED and the amount (voltage) of power you are using. I have found that the list Jaycar supply in their catologue invaluble as it lets you know what resistor you should have for what light depending on the power supply. I have also found that checking what voltage goes through the LED and the resistor is a good thing to know. You do this by using a multimeter. The value of the resistor depends on the voltage (power) you are going to use. In my case either 9v or 12v batteries.

I have supplied you with an diagram of the wiring that I will now be using for all my models.

I've been told that with this design the power only has to travel 1/2 the distance. This design is used even if you are using just one battery.

I suppose an explanation would be good.

1. Flashing bulb's and UV LED's are on there own separate wiring system and battery pack with their own switch (this is because I wanted it that way)This not necessary BUT DO NOT have a flashing bulb on the same wiring system as your indoor lights as they will flash as well.
2. No matter what anyone says each LED needs it's own resistor.
3. Power only travels one way in LED's.

This what an LED looks like and how I used it.

4.   You can blow the LED bulb if it DOES NOT have an resistor soldered to it.
5.   Use heat shrink tubing to cover any bare wire.
6.   Solder ALL joins and ensure they are a strong bond by pulling on them.
7.   Use the same colour for negative lines and a different colour for positive. I have sometimes got these mixed up and it takes ages to sort it out because of course one of the bulbs won't shine because the power is going the wrong way. You do not need (for this job) a special wire for negative and a special wire for positive. Wire is wire. It is a road for the energy to flow along. The colour of the outside of the wire is there to make it easier for you to know if you are dealing with a negative flow or a positive flow.
8.   When dealing with lots of LED's and all the wires end up in the same place it is a good idea to use different coloured shrink tubing on each pair. I have spent hours, days, just checking for one light that ended up having the wrong colour wiring on the the wrong leg.

ie; blue and blue together, red and red together etc. One blue goes on a positive wire and one blue goes on the corresponding negative wire for that one light. This WILL make your life much easier.

Wiring of a Model

This image shows the gourd lamp shades I am dealing with. The white one comes from the bathroom. The brown one comes from the bedroom.
I have shown the clear plastic tubing that will eventually hold the wiring and how I have started wrapping the tubing in bandages.

I have decided to add blue LED's to the centre of each of these flowers as each of them have four 'stemens' created out of gold coloured wire with a matalic blue seed bead on top.

I have decided to add a yellow flickering LED into these three (and there are another three 'plants' somewhere else).
The plants have been created out of ornamental gourds, which are thin shelled, small, round and light in colour. I then painted glow in the dark lines down their sides. I had to try lots of different glow in the dark paints until I found one I was happy with. Even though, saying that and as you know, the glow in the dark paint does not last for long when the lights are out so ... I cut the top off the gourd, removed the seeds and filled it with silicone and then placed the little white flower stamens in the top. The flower stamens have come from the centre of boganvillia silk flowers. Now I am going to place the yellow flickering LED in the base of each one so that only a tiny amount of light can be seen.

I purchased several different thickness (10mil & 6mil internal width) of clear plastic tubing and then layed the thicker of the two over the top of my model to see where I would want my 'vines' to be placed.


This image shows how I have re-stuck the three round gourd 'plants' that now have the yellow flickering LED's in them and how I have used a piece of large clear plastic tubing to hold the six wires. Each set of wires (2- black (positive) - white (negative) have been taped with a different colour electrical tape at each end of the wire. This is so that I can see which 'plant' belongs to which set of wires. This is just incase one light blows. I will be able to tell which wires I am dealing with.
To the left of that tubing in another thinner tube, where the bandges are wrapped around it, I have added a 'branch' of another set of wires.
In this image I have cut a hole in the piece of clear tubing. This allows me to add a branch if necessary (which can be seen in the next image) or if necessary when I have a long piece of tubing to allow me a new vantage point from where I can push the wiring to the end of the tube.

I use a silicone that is acid free (in my case I use Selly's Glass silicone sealant - clear. It is suitable to use for fish tanks).  I then wrap bandages around the silicone and the 'branch' tubing and tie it off with fishing line.

This is the completed circuit for four flowers. You can plainly see the different coloured tags on the sets of wires. Red to red, blue to blue etc.

To wire LED's I do it thus:- I suppose at this point I should put a disclaimer in. "I am wiring this model up myself and even though I am letting you know how I have done that I take no resonsability if you copy my technique and something goes wrong as I do not know what you have done."
There that should do it.
Now:-

LED's are polar, that is the current goes in one end and comes out another.
Now this business with LED's, resistors, omes ect are complicated to my mind which has enough trouble doing my tax let alone this stuff.
I strongly recommend that you look to the web and youtube sites to help you out.

What I have found out is that EVERY LED light needs a resistor. The problem comes when I want to know what size resistor I need. The un-mathical brain that I have struggles as if it is being smother by an averlanch of snow to understand this stuff so luckily for me I met a man who said, "Here just use these." and then he handed me heaps of little blue five banded resistors. So I have. Sorry I know its not much help.
Now you can see in the image above that I have soldered the resistor to the positive side of the LED.
The positive side of the LED is the longer of the two 'legs'. Sometimes I find it difficult to tell so I trim the negetaive side in half. I also trim the tails of the resistors so they are just over 1cm long.

The image above is the LED for the white gourd lampshade. The piece of balsa wood that has been placed just under the bulb is there only to 'space' the bulb within the lampshade. So it stays central.

Now once I have soldered both lengths of wire. Choose which colour wire you want to use as positive and negative. use 18 gauge wire. Use the same colours throughout and make sure the same colour is used for the negative and the same colour for the poitive.
One (white - negative) on to the shorter leg of the LED and the (black - positive) on to the end of the resistor that has (itself) been soldered onto the longer leg of the LED I then slip over the entire section a piece of heat shrink tubing. This is to insulate the electricity that will be passing through the LED. I have also found that it is most important that the tubing be pushed up to the extreme end of the LED bulb so that NO 'leg or metal' is showing. I had a short in that one of my ''leg's (it made no difference which one) had 1mil showing and one of my gold coloured stamenes touched it and the light would not work untill I removed the stamen.

In this image it shows that I have used white heat sensitative tubing on the white gourd lamp shade. I have then added four tops of the pods from the Yates tree as the 'pole' to keep the lamp straight. The Yates is an Austrlaian native tree.