Working Street Lights - HO scale
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- Опубликовано: 4 фев 2025
- Make your own working street lights using simple techniques with the Woodland Scenics Just Plug Lighting System as the main power source. They add an amazing level of detail and interest to any model railroad or scale model diorama. Easy to follow and with some basic soldering techniques anyone will be able to improve their layout lighting.
The lights can also be made as dummy lights that doesn’t illuminate to simply add detail and interest to you model railroad scene.
I continue to choose the Woodland Scenics light system to power my lights simply due to the ease of use and versatility, the dimming function if nothing else is reason enough to use the Woodland Scenics lights.
The only down side is Woodland Scenics don’t sell individual plugs however it’s easy enough to use the plugs from the connecting cables to connect your own lights.
I would like to thank you. I've been buying 1/32-1/36 scale modles for years. They have never been put together. But you have inspired me to start making them again.
Great video Luke, as always love your work. I finally have some form of a layout, also a few videos up now. Many thanks for sharing Luke. Cheers Andy
+BlueMountainsModelRailProject No worries Andy, I'll have to check out your videos.
Cheers
Luke.
I can't stop watching!
Tyler Hensley I hate you
Good Lords man, this guys skills are insane !!!! His project's are just one better than the other.
Great tutorial! I have built my own street lights for my model railway also.
+ModelShow TV Cool, it's no too hard and the results make a massive difference, thanks for the great comment.
Cheers
Luke
You are very talented and gifted Luke!! 😀
Thanks Allan, glad you enjoyed watching 🙂
Great looking lights Luke! And they looked easy to make as well- I'll definitely have to give them a try!
+Mitchell Thomas You won't be disappointed, they are very easy to build, the toughest part is threading the wire through! Takes a little patience.
Cheers
Luke.
Nice looking lamps Luke thanks for all your great tips greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Luke.
+Chris Grixti Thanks mate, glad you like the video :)
Another outstanding segment! Great looking light poles and seems pretty easy to do. Thanks for sharing as always!
+ChessieFan2 Thanks Matt, they are quite easy but require a small amount of patience especially when it comes to threading the wire through the pole.
Cheers
Luke
Thanks for another great tutorial as always Luke, and nice work on those lights! Cheers, Dan
+TheMisterdan01 Thanks Dan, always good to get great feedback.
Cheers
Luke
Luke, you have some mad skills...
Dioramas on iconic movie scene or games! 👍
Something I'm considering... I like the idea :)
Luke Towan Cool! can't wait for that! it will be epic!
Sinlo Kemp i
If you are doing from a game, please do *Skyrim* or the Blood and Wine expansion from *Witcher* 3.
Well Done Luke!
Job well done Luke....thanks for sharing !!!
Cheers,
Danny
+Danny Laguer No worries Danny, thanks for the great comment.
Cheers
Luke
This reminds me of when I was a little kid during October I would go to Menards and look at the Halloween dioramas you can and be amazed by the detail and the little lights and moters that would make little dime sized people in the houses dance and witch's flying broomsticks on wires around the little houses, oh it's all just great.
Once again Amazing vid Luke, Very impressed with how you made these. Well Done.
+chris dav Thanks Chris, glad you enjoyed the video.
Cheers
Luke
Very goods Luke. I particularly like your use of the led leads as part of the lights metal structure.
+cbcdesign001 Thanks mate, the only precaution is to be careful bending the wires close to the LED base, I haven't had any issues yet but others have mentioned to be cautious.
Cheers
Luke
Thanks for showing us your great ideas. y videos are very informative and easy to follow. cheers Phil
Fantastic Idea... Thank you Luke👍
+Basam Alshaqha No worries, glad you like the video.
Cheers
Luke.
Great idea. I´ve been making some for wargaming (Warhammer 40K) with 5mm bagfeet that I can only just fit 5mm LEDs into. Great result. I put them on separete bases and hide button cell and cell holder in a small terrain feature. Thanks!
You inspire me Luke, i'm giving this one a shot myself right now!
nice one, good luck building 😀
I'm glad I discovered your channel, you rock!
+vf12497439 Thanks :) I'm glad you managed to find me as well, always good to get new views and people to interact with.
Cheers
Luke
Luke, Well done! Thanks for sharing your great techniques.
+Rick Wade No worries Rick, glad you enjoyed the video.
Cheers
Luke
Another great tutorial. Saving this one for sure. Nice design as well.
+Peter CPRail8748 Thanks Peter, it's a little fiddly but the results look quite good!
Cheers
Luke
just AWESOME. thx for your great work sharing with us!
+19scamps92 Thanks mate, glad you enjoyed the video, plenty more like this are planned.
Cheers
Luke
You always come up with amazing ideas. Thanks a lot for sharing. RT
+retrainrun No worries mate, glad you enjoyed this one. I'm not sure where the ideas come from but there seems to be a lot more floating around in my head! Just need to be motivated to put them on video.
Cheers
Luke.
As always Luke very interesting Build. Well done.
+Phillip wyman Thanks Phillip, this was a fun build for me, nice and easy yet very effective.
Cheers
Luke
Oh yeah, DEFINETELY going to use this idea, but on larger scales. Thank you.
lol, no worries. I'm glad you're enjoying the videos :)
as always...another amazing idea from your amazing mind...you and your videos are awesome...
+nick grandy lol thanks Nick, I really appreciate your fantastic comment. Glad you're enjoying the videos.
Cheers
Luke
Looks really nice. Good job!
+JC Mac Thanks mate :)
Another outstanding video Luke. Great ideas and thanks for sharing!
your channel is absolutely fun to watch!
Glad you're enjoying the videos Allen 😊
Luke Towan beyond enjoying. I can see myself really getting into this. I am watching all of them. ever need gun advice , I'm here. lol.
Very cool lights
Been too long since your last post. Great video as always. Cheers.
+Snappleton S True! I'd like to post videos more regularly, sometimes my day job gets in the way though... Maybe one day if this gets popular enough this could become my day job?
Cheers
Luke
What a great idea, thanks for sharing.
Regards Robert
+Ocean City Thanks Robert, glad you enjoyed the video.
Cheers
Luke
it would be cool to do lighted billboards or signals crossing lights with this technic:) great job Luke!
+40belowful Thanks again, that's a great idea. I'll have to do some experimenting.
Cheers
Luke
@@BoulderCreekRailroad Did you ever figure out how to light up billboards and signs??
Awesome, that's a very nice craft. Your videos are very enjoyable.
Thank you :) glad you liked it
Great Luke. A nice easy way to make platform lights. By the way I saw the photo of your shed in the Model Railway Hobbyist free on line magazine today.
Ken
+Ken Kaef Cool, I got a message a while ago that said they might use my photo. I plan to build a freight depot and use these lights around it. Should look quite good. I'll have to try organize to come over to a club meeting again soon.
Cheers
Luke
Yet another great video.
your are all diorama design & work really nice & beautiful
another informative video luke , your channel always supplies interesting and useful tips , your the man
+boltuss2006 lol, thanks heaps for the great inspirational comment :)
Cheers
Luke.
Excellent idea!
Cool lights. Rob
+Rob McCrain Thanks Rob, always good to get positive comments.
Cheers
Luke
A great simple creation :)
+Matthew Snowden True, and it makes a huge difference to the look of the layout in low light as well as under full light.
Cheers
Luke
Thanks Luke!
Now this is the stuff that should be on youtube.. I would have learned nothing like this in school, not just in this video but the wide range of videos you show. What ever you are going you are doing right so keep it up.!
Is there a setting to make the light flicker? Like a semi broken light? Something you'll see down a dark back ally.
Thanks mate, glad you've been enjoying the videos and thanks for all the great comments! There's no setting to make it flicker but I'm sure with a little bit of tinkering it's something that could be done... I'm practicing with electronics for adding hazard lights to vehicles so I'm sure it will translate to this quite well. I really love the idea of a flickering light! Thanks mate 😀
haha awesome! Looking forward to more of your videos.
Maybe using self flickering LEDs?
brilliant so simple yet very effective!!
thanks Craig :)
that's looking so nice! keep your work!
Thanks mate 😀
Thanks for another great how to!
+John Dilley No worries John.
Cheers
Luke
Great video. Thanks.
once again, very well done, an inspiration, cheers :)
+Rok Lobsta Thanks mate, glad you found some inspiration.
Cheers
Luke
Nice video
+Lachlan Brown Cheers mate.
great idea
+ptudor63 Thank you :)
Great job.
Suggestion: If you want to give your wood light poles an aged look, hold a razor saw blade perpendicular to the pole and scrape along its length and circumference. It will cut grooves into the styrene that mimic a well-aged utility pole. Once you cut the grooves, paint the light pole your preferred color. An india ink wash can also highlight the grooves.
Seriously make a Half Life 2 scenery.. I started watching your videos a few days ago, and its so entertaining and relaxing to watch... Please make a HL2 scenery asap! :)
lol, I'll see what I can do. Glad you enjoyed watching :)
Nice! Awesome looking lamp, easy to make!
One needs to be careful though bending the wires so close to the LED case. Sometimes it damages the LED, even though everything looks intact. Better test it every step of the way.
Small correction: the resistor was 5600 Ohm (5.6 kOhm, green/blue/red marking), not 5200 (would be green red red marking, very uncommon value).
+LANE Boys RC Cheers mate, thanks for the great advise about testing the LED's each step of the way. I haven't had any trouble yet with them but I could see that it wouldn't take much for it to break and stop working, would be a huge letdown should you finish making the lamp only to find the LED isn't working!
And thanks for the resistor update, you obviously know your resistors well :)
Cheers
Luke
In sure you can make street lights in o scale do you have a material list available in o scale fantastic video very useful and informative thank you
Hello from UK, I love to watch your tutorials, sadly I have nowhere to put even a small scale train layout as i sha re a flat and have no room, do you know of Marklin of Sweden another enthusiast who like yourself does amazing tutorials for layouts scenery, weathering etc, and also the Hornby Centre in southern England which sells the product and has it`s own exhibition, keep up the great work bye from UK.
Thanks for the video helped out a lot. I was hoping you could do the same thing but with a review on the new electric conducting ink pen so there are no wires or something similar
sounds interesting! I'll have to do some more research because it sounds like a perfect application for modelling.
Cheers
Luke
Awesome!
+Michael Stitz Thanks mate :)
So cool
you are the freaking man!!!!!!!!
+model railer lol, thanks mate, hope you're recovering well after that massive storm! I burst out laughing when you got hit by that snowball while you were trying to film the video... :)
Cheers
Luke
Luke Towan haha yup my wife and daughter where hitting me the whole time I was filming.
You see I'm looking for more of small cylindrical bulbs that flicker occasionally like they're broken like in a dirty old subway terminal
www.allelectronics.com/index.php?page=seek&id%5Bm%5D=pattern&id%5Bq%5D=led-4
A shipyard building tutorial would be fine.
Hey Luke, so far I have made 6 of these and I find if you feed the wire from the top down, it is so much easier and faster. I also only used a 1K resistor and when I run them all together, I use a dimmer to control the brightness. I do have a question though. what size is the styrene tube you used for the base?
Again, great video!
Thanks
Now that you've established the interior diameter of the styrene, I wonder what the outside diameter is. Also what diameter would one use to go over the sttyrene to strengthen the very bottom of the pole light. Inquiring minds want to know. I'd hate to order a bunch of styrene tubing that would not be beneficial to the project at hand. Thanks and keep the videos a comin'. --Rusty
super nice. you can also use LED from a broken phone.
like the blue tack tip
+John Ang Thanks again John, glad you picked up a tip
Cheers
Luke
Just watched six of your videos and I noticed what looks like a 1963 FB Holden UTE in every one of them am I right or wrong.Garth of Cairns.
Thanks Garth :) yes you are right, it's from 'Road Ragers'. they do a selection of Aussie HO scale cars.
brilliant
Wouldn't painting the inside of the shade with some reflective paint like chrome make the light brighter?
hi, i am just wondering. what is the tool you use on 3:07
Hi, is there a way to combine all the wiring of the lights to a single plug? I'm planning on installing more than 3 lights and thought if there is an easier way than having to connect 3 plugs. Thanks btw :)
very nice do u need so big boxz to control only 1 light or can u put in more lights?
I can add 4 lights to that box 😃
Great info video. I found quite a few bag feet sizes on eBay for sale. What size do you recommend for HO gauge?
Thanks for all the vids. Maybe a dumb question, but what keeps the bare wires from touching and shorting out inside the tube?
look at answer to moparguy
If you paint the back of the LED with a carbon-based paint you will short the leads. Brush on a layer of Glosscoat to insulate the wires first.
Maybe a stupid question but why don't the bare wires in the tube cause a short circuit?
What's Bag Feet?? I have been using wire from old computer mouses or keyboards. It is very thin and flexible. Using magnet (enameled) wire would be handy to use as support if needed.
It's AMAZING and you're making this looks simple. But in my place, it's hard to get thoose "bag-feet". Maybe i'll find another alternative to replace "bag-feet" part..any idea? Oh, one more things, are thoose two pieces wires inside touching each other? it is stick together?
+scale64 if you listen carefully at around the 2:30 mark, you will hear Luke say he uses 0.4mm INSULATED wire.
+Stuart Ellison Yes he said that, and i know it must be insulated, but the thing is the wire that Luke used, at a glance, not like the insulated one...but it's clear now, thanks.
+scale64 yeah the wire looks plain but it actually has a very thin coat of insulation. When the guy at the electronics store told me it was insulated I almost didn't believe him! You should be able to find bag feet on eBay, most people ship overseas but postage price can often be the biggest hurdle!
Cheers
Luke
Thx for reply Luke, acctualy...i'm using "pen-edge" for this, it's quite similar to bag feet, and it just need some drill on the hole, to match the 3mm LED, the rest "how to cook" is already in this video :). I think, it's another cheap solution for now, the size is suitable for small scale.
Cheers and keep posting...
Kevin.
Thank you for your ideas. can these ideas work for N Scale. Thank you.
Hi Luke! Why don't you use some SMD LED's? Those are super tiny! Some even come with wires attached to them, in packs :)!
Greetings from France!
Where did you get them Luke ? the ones I got from Spotlight here in Melbourne seem rather big, probally ok for O scale..... but not for HO.....
I actually got them from Spotlight, they had 2 sizes. I think it was 12mm and 15mm ones. I used the 12mm ones for the video. They looked ok for HO scale.
Cheers
Luke
thanks Luke.
Thanks for the video. Very timely for me--but what is a bag clip in US vernacular?
+Annette Yasin Hi Annette, I put a better description of what "bag feet" are on my website, hope that helps.
www.bouldercreekrailroad.com/scenery.html
Cheers
Luke
Hello Luke. I would like to know what wattage is your soldering iron?
THAT is bloody brilliant mate!!
Would ultra fine magnet wire work for this? I haven't seen the thicker wire you used in my corner of the US...
I suppose even 36 gauge DCC type wires should work as well.
Anyhow, I've GOT to give this a go!
Cheers
Yeah I'm positive the 36 gauge wire would work. The thinner the wire the better I'd reckon. Thanks for the fantastic comment mate, you're always giving me great feedback :) really appreciate it!
Cheers
Luke
+Luke Towan Thanks for the great ideas!
What are "bag feet"? They really make excellent lamp shades! I'm going to try this as soon as l learn what bag feet are!
+dep92 I've got a few people asking that question, to make it easier I put a detailed description on my website here: www.bouldercreekrailroad.com/scenery.html
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Luke.
Thank you!
How long that led lasts? How to select leds for greater life, say 3 to 5 years.
I might use this on my layout also were do you get the copper wire?
+Lachlan Brown It's very easy to do, the wire is from Jaycar which is an electronics store in Australia.
Cheers
Luke.
What is styrene, please? Which hardware store/Home Debot aisle will I find it in? thanks!
Luke THANKS for another great video!!!! One question though, what size bag feet did you use?
Thanks in advance
ratled
+ratled1 Hi mate, in this tutorial I used 12mm bag feet. Thanks for the great comment :)
Cheers
Luke.
+Luke Towan Thanks!!! Parts ordered
+ratled1 Cool, good luck. I'm sure you won't be disappointed. The toughest part is threading the wire! I have a specific technique that didn't get portrayed that well in the video so I'll do some drawings and a better description on my website on how to thread the wire.
Cheers
Luke
Are the pups still for sale?
Also, the wire you used is that magnet wire? thanks again
+maxanddad1 I'm not 100% sure if this is magnetic wire? What I do know is it's from Jaycar which is an Australian electronics store and it has a very thin layer of insulation around it which can be filed away. This one was .4mm but it also comes in .2mm however when the wire gets very thin it is possible for the wire to heat up and cause a possible issue depending on the current you put through it.
Hope that helps
Cheers
Luke
Hey Luke what size bag feet did you use? I'm finding different sizes online. Thanks
+maxanddad1 Hi mate, I used 12mm bag feet on this tutorial, I also put some additional info on the website in regards to bag feet.
www.bouldercreekrailroad.com/scenery.html
Cheers
Luke
Where can you buy the best resisters?
What size bag feet were you using?
Hi Luke, great videos and web page, I new to all this and want to build your design but don't want it to be in vain and have them fail when I power them up. How do you work out your resistor values I have used online calculators and with figure of 12v supply, 3v led voltage 15mA, single LED and keep getting 620 Ohms I have used various online calculators with same results.
lol... I just guessed to be honest 😀 I knew that 6.2k ohm resistor would be safe and then I worked backwards from there until I got the LED to a brightness that I was happy with. Resistors are very cheap so I just bought a bunch on different strengths. I find I use about a 4.7k or 4.3k ohm resistor most of the time but really it will depend on how bright you want the LED.
Sorry I couldn't give you a more scientific explanation 😀
how would you do a light that is supposed to be hanging from a chain or rope?