This tutorial series delves into creating captivating LED installations to infuse interiors with a unique, mesmerizing ambiance. The main advantages of using LED lighting are energy efficiency, longer lifespan, durability, and versatility. LED lights consume significantly less energy and offer a variety of options for both sophisticated and bold effects.
In this blog, we explore ten creative ways to incorporate LED lighting into your interior design, adding style, ambiance, and visual interest. If your home or car looks glaring during the day but gloomy at night, there are no shortage of unique ways to brighten your space. LED projects are a great way to add style to your home decor.
This instructable shows how to wire up one or more LEDs in a basic and clear way. If you’re new to LEDs and don’t know how to use them, companies like Headlight Revolution can help you create an interior kit for your specific vehicle.
LED strip lights are one of the cheapest and easiest mods you can do to customize your ride. In architecture or interior design, LED lighting helps create environments with a wide variety of designs and unique effects. A simple DIY to upgrade 80 of the interior lights to LED is provided.
In conclusion, LED lighting offers numerous benefits, including energy efficiency, longer lifespan, durability, and versatility. By incorporating LED lighting into your interior design, you can create a unique and mesmerizing atmosphere that enhances your home or car’s appearance.
📹 How to Install Car Interior Led Lights Hardwired In Any Car
This video demonstrates how to install car interior led lights hardwired into any car which I’ve done on my current project a …
Do LED lights work indoors?
LED lights are a significant improvement over traditional lighting for indoor and outdoor safety. They are energy-efficient, healthier, and better acoustically. For instance, replacing old fluorescent tubes with LED lights improved pupils’ concentration and reduced noise levels. It is recommended to consider using LED lights in both private and public spaces and check installation standards and recommendations to ensure a high-quality, sustainable lighting solution and create a safe environment for all.
Can I change my interior lights to LED?
An LED upgrade can be applied to any incandescent bulb within a vehicle, including those in the dome light, glove compartment light, and trunk light. However, it is not necessary to replace all bulbs simultaneously.
What is LED in interior design?
Interior LED lighting is a more effective and versatile alternative to traditional lighting, allowing for a wider spread of light and a variety of designs. It can be used in bulbs, strip lights, and neon lights, and comes in various colors to match design schemes. When purchasing LED strips, consider factors such as the intended use, protective waterproof covering, adhesive backing, and the number of LEDs per strip. The higher the number of LEDs per strip, the brighter the lighting, while too few can create a spot-like effect.
Other factors to consider include brightness, strip colors, color temperature, and color rendering index. Realistic color rendering is crucial for displaying the true colors of your interior space, while less expensive LED light fittings may not be as effective.
Is it OK to sleep with LED lights?
While darkness is generally conducive to sleep, the continued illumination of bright lights throughout the night can have a detrimental impact on sleep quality. This is due to the blue light emitted by household LED lights, which has been shown to suppress melatonin secretion.
How can I light a room without LED lights?
Maximizing natural light can enhance a room’s ambiance, especially during daytime hours. Sheer curtains or adjustable window treatments control daylight, while strategically placed mirrors amplify light. Battery-operated LED lights provide localized lighting without wiring, while rechargeable lamps offer flexibility in design. String lights or LED strip lights create a warm, inviting atmosphere by draping along a mantle, around a window, or behind a headboard. These lighting options can be adjusted to create a unique, comfortable atmosphere. Overall, optimizing natural light can create a more inviting and comfortable space.
Is it safe to leave a LED lamp on all night?
LED lights are safer than traditional filament bulbs and offer a long service life, making them a cost-effective option for homeowners. However, proper usage and energy consumption are crucial for making informed decisions. It is essential to understand how to use LED lights safely and make informed choices about energy use and associated costs. Indoor use of LED bulbs is safe and comfortable, but proper knowledge is essential for optimal use.
Can you change normal lights to LED?
Replace incandescent light bulbs with LEDs for an easy and cost-effective solution. LED bulbs are compatible with conventional light sockets, reducing electricity consumption significantly. The same intensity of light can be achieved using less power. For example, a common light bulb with 800 lumens and 3 hours of operation can be replaced with LEDs, resulting in a significant decrease in electricity usage. This can be achieved with a fixed electricity tariff of 0. 173941 €/kWh at any time of the day.
How are tiny LEDs made?
Semiconductor wafers are layered into chips, which are then packaged into individual LED packages. These packages hold the chip, bond wire, and phosphor layer, allowing the LED chip to emit bright white light. The packages are mounted onto a printed circuit board and integrated into the product. The most common LEDs in homes include pendant lights, flush ceiling lights, and spotlights. However, the opportunities for integrating LED lights into products are endless.
Manufacturers can market products with smart functions, increased design opportunities, better quality lighting, longer lifetime, and improved energy efficiency, providing significant value to consumers and the environment. LED lighting is a popular choice for homes due to its high energy efficiency and innovative technology. Common types of LED products include streetlights, exit signs, traffic signals, TV screens, dashboard buttons, and message displays at railway stations and airports.
Are interior LED lights safe?
Interior car LED lights are safer than incandescent and halogen bulbs due to their electronic circuit components, diodes that glow as they rectify AC current into DC current. LEDs produce less heat, reducing fire risk and breaking less frequently. The safety of LEDs depends on their usage. Dispersed LEDs around the floor or on seats below the driver’s sight line can make the interior safer by making it easier to see things. Bright strip lights affixed to seats, windows, or roofs can be distracting and reflect off the windshield, making it harder to see outside.
Are LED lights safe for human eyes?
Blue light, a high-energy, short-wavelength light, can penetrate the retina, the inner lining of the eye, leading to digital eye strain and potential retinal damage. Overexposure to blue light from LEDs and other artificial sources has been linked to these risks. Understanding the role and impact of blue light emission is crucial in assessing the safety of LED lights for eye health. Despite their energy efficiency and lifespan benefits, concerns have been raised about the potential impact on eye health due to the high levels of blue light emitted.
📹 Interior Lights Easy, Reliable & Low Cost – Detailed step-by-step tutorial
Installing interior lights in passenger cars can be a djungle, both in terms of available parts and methods of assembly. In this video …
Very nice article, thanks. One comment though: @3:19 and @4:39 the power pick-up spring IMHO should be placed in between the axle and the boogie, rather than under the axle as it is shown here. You remove simply one of the wheels, then insert the pick up spiring and then you refit the wheels. Thus the wheels keep the spring in position. You do not need any glue.
Hey Martin, Great article – as always. Just one addition to the circuit. If you have a number of these lit cars running and switch on your layout all capacitors want to charge with the highest possible power available. Your digital system will see this as a short circuit and will turn of power straight away. To prevent this you have to put in a charging resistor to limit the power consumed while charging the capacitor. This resistor is put between the positive pole of the rectifier to the capacitor. Usually a 100 Ohm resistor is enough. Cheers, Klaus
Hello, when you glue some passengers with fastsetglue, do not close the car immediatly. If you do, some emanations from the glue will change the color of the plastic windows… (that becomes yellow …personnal experience…) let the car open a night and that will be OK. Thank you for your beatutiful tutorials ! Regards Pascal
Hi Marklin. I’ve recently gotten in to model building and painting with a strong focus (currently) on Star Wars models. I’m a recent subscriber and your articles are so fun to watch and learn from and that’s predominantly because of your infectious energy, your presentation, and obvious love for the medium. I’m about to start designing my first (small) diorama for an AT-ST walker that I built, painted, and weathered recently and will be using techniques from your articles to help develop the project. Thanks for being a little source of happiness and positive energy in these strange and crazy pandemic times. 🙂
Great tutorial Martin!! Could you please tell me what is the model number for the pick-up shoe which is not shown in the article? Do I need only one spring and pick-up shoe for the entire passenger cars? With the couplings the positive is fed to all other passenger cars and on each passenger car would I need to mount a spring, bridge rectifier, capacitor, resistors and led strips? Could you please give details on the bridge rectifier which is required? Million Thanks!
Brilliant! This could not have come at a better time as I was trying to find a way to light some Passenger car kits I am finishing up…. I’d like to say thank you very much! I have followed your instructions and have perfectly lit/zero flicker cars! I love your articles, can’t to see what’s next! Best regards from Florida, John
Martin, thank you for this. I have rewatched this multiple times in recent months, and this inspired a coach lighting project of my own (modern European 2-rail, mostly Roco). Question….how did you determine the 10K Ohm as the resistor value? I know the basic formula for resistance, but what are the values?? I assume Marklin MFX puts the same voltage on the rails as other DCC systems (28 volts) and a warm white LED is rated at 0.0025 Amps (I think)….correct? I’m currently trying 12-20V DC, and with a 4.7K ohm resistor, the light seems too dim (and only really seen in complete darkness). Another question, how do you get the capacitor to keep the lights on for 10-12 seconds? I’m using 1000 or 2200 mF 25V capacitors, and the lights gradually die off over 5-7 seconds. Logically, they should stay on for longer than yours. Is there a specific to wire them into the circuit? Have been greatly enjoying your articles over the course of the pandemic! Looking forward to becoming a Patreon soon!! 🙂
Hi Martin! Nice article, thanks. Just a little suggestion: instead of glueing the copper springs to take the current under the bogie, why not first take the wheels of, then place the springs without glueing and put the wheels back? That’s what I do on all my (2 rails DCC) cars and it works perfect. Since I don’t have Marklin rolling stock, I use generic metal springs I buy on eBay, but the principle is the same I guess.
Cool. One thing one might consider as an improvement is to control the LEDs with a microcontroller and use PWM instead of resistors. This will reduce power consumption and increase the time car lights survive an outage. It would also enable the ability to use blinking taillights. Adding an ambient light detector or even a decoder would make it even more fun.
Sehr schönes article was du hier gezeigt hast, hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Meine Wagons muss ich auch noch alle mit Licht versorgen. Was ich bei deiner Umsetzung nicht so gut finde, das die Wagons immer leuchten. Aber so ist es natürlich die schnellste und günstigste Variante die absolut super ist. LG Tino
This actually works! I’ve used this method to add interior lighting to a couple of caboose on my layout. I used 2 3v nano LED’s with a 420 ohm resistor on each LED. Works like a charm. I don’t have any issues powering up the layout as some suggested might happen either without an additional resistor on the capacitor. The hardest part was getting my Trueline Caboose apart and back together again. Thanks for posting the article brother. 👍
Hello, what kind of bridge rectifier do you use? I am trying to make a white/red lights on my Roco commuter control cab coach. I have 12V LED diodes, 3 white, 2 red. I am going to swich between the lights via a dumb three-position switch. I know it’s a bit rudimentary, but I keep it simple. I use digital.
Hello Martin. Love this article. Watched it several times as I try adding lighting effects. Question please; how can you add electrical couplers to a Marklin 4167 coach. Many of coaches like this one have an unusual coupler fitted the I’m having problems finding a coupler to replace it with. Can you please help. Thanks.
Nice. The more expensive LED strips have 3M tape on the back. I have used these in many many Jewelry displays over the years, NEVER had any come loose. It is important to clean the surface with Alcohol or the likes to clean off the grease. I generally mount them on Aluminium Flat bar, usually 10mm wide by 1.5mm thick. for commercial applications, for cooling.
Nice article but 2 things I don’t understand. 1: you glue the spring in the boogie, but when you take out the wheels of the boogie, you can put the spring in the boogie and then put the wheels back. No glue is needed than. The spring fit in the boogie and with the weels above, the spring can’t move. 2: both side’s of the car have a hole, but you decide to pull the cables under the coach. But isn’t it better to put the cables through the closest boogie hole and pull the cable under the interior of the car. The cables are then completely invisible. Marklin has also the sets 72020 and 72021. With the parts in the set you don’t have to solder a wire on the koppeling
Those cars look great. I will have to see if I can find a way to do that with my Walther’s Classic Heavyweights set. They already have the contacts installed and light kits that can be bought but I’m not impressed with those, only thing is the roof is what is removable from the car before the interiors so having to find a way to suspend them might be tricky. If you have thoughts on that, let me know please!
I think it may be cool to have certain areas that are rocky or rundown where lighted cars would intentionally flicker. I thought you might be able to do this with a microswitch (normally closed) in the car and a piece of piano wire (very stiff) bent into a corrugated/serrated form that would hit the microswitch and cause the lights to pulse on and off making the appearance of a bad connection due to rust and dirt buildup
Nice job there, again … Perhaps if I can add a hint for future projects, I would suggest using a function decoder for digital layouts, so you can switch the lights on/off using the digital controller. That works wonders and in some cases even adds possibility to dim the lights and switch rear signal lights separately. Great stuff, man !
The design you implemented is missing one key element- a resistor between the rectifier and the capacitor. The purpose of that resistor is to limit the current flowing into the capacitor to a known level rather than the super high current you get otherwise. The reason is if you have a layout with several trains and all cars are similarly illuminated then the combined current of dozens of capacitors charging all at once may look like a short circuit to the control system.
Two notes: the choice of the colors of the cables is not so happy, brown and black are difficult to distinguish. If you use superglue, it has to outgas first. If I use superglue in a passenger car and then put the case on, the gases from the glue make the window glass opaque and almost white. my own experience.