[Tom_C]

Not sure where to post this, move this as necessary.

My wife purchased a new train station for our holiday layout: https://www.amazon.com/Lemax-MAIN-T...rds=lemax+train+station&qid=1572644761&sr=8-1

It's got colored Christmas lights pre-installed, and they are the tape LED strips. Has anyone seen these available in rolls?

I know there are LED strips like these, but they are 24 volts. Would be great to find the microdot colored LEDs that use 4.5v or 12v. https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/1...MI45KDsf3J5QIVFWyGCh2MtAC8EAQYASABEgIhUfD_BwE

 

[T-Man]

LEDs on a roll are normally twelve volts They are just a bunch of segments and can be cut to suit. they are in any color and can be found on ebay.

 

[T-Man]

They are the most expensive LED items I have ever seen.

They do cover multiply colors , power supply and the circuits to change them.

I would not suggest that you click the link. The advert comes up everywhere.

I understand an ad blocker would help but for those who don't. beware.

A tag search for LED ribbon will help.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

You can get individually addressable multi-color LED 5 meter reels with a controller in the $15-20 range on eBay.

 

[wvgca]

i don't know about LEDs on a reel ... i have always bought individual LEDs, from medium i guess [pirana (sp?) in tail lights], to 5mm, 3mm, 1.8mm, and nano [smd] ..
so i really can't say anything about reels ..
but with the individual ones, it's much easier to get even amounts of light out of them just by varying the current limiting resistor a little bit .. i think it would be harder to adjust when you have to do 'groups' ??

 

[Tom_C]

Thanks. I've seen all the strips with the controllers, but for the purpose of cutting up the strips to install on small buildings it's not really what I'm after.

Seems there are various sizes of both LEDs and tape (tried to post pictures, but it posted the URL, and I know people are click shy)

3528 is the smallest in generation 1, 5050 is the largest.

2835 appears to be generation 2 LEDs, and then there is a 3014 strip that is .13 inches wide.

If you're interested, just google 3528 v 5050 LED and you'll find a bunch of comparison pics.

 

[Tom_C]

Here is a youtube video showing the size of the 3528 v 5050 strip. These are white. I'm still looking for colored strips, RGB or other multicolored combinations, in a narrower strip.

And another:

 

[Lemonhawk]

What GRJ is talking about as "Individually addressable" means that you control each led on the string as an individual LED, each LED can have its own color and brightness. I use an Arduino to set up the control. Each LED gets its own 24 bit control word, 8 bits for each red/green/blue LED. You get much better control of the brightness than you can achieve with resistors! These come in strips, wired strings and individual LED's, as in Christmas tree lights (those really great chasing light displays). Also on Amazon. As an experiment I had a string of 24 that I set up to chase or slowly chase color, while in the middle 3 LED's I set up a Welding shop simulation! The only connection to the string was power and a single data line from the Arduino to the first LED on the string. The wiring is really simple! These are not the 5050 type strings. Look for WS2812 controlled light strings.

 

[Tom_C]

Got it, thanks.

For my holiday layout, I'd be interested to find black tape, as narrow as possible because this is for small Lemax type buildings, and multicolored in that each LED is either red, green, yellow, blue or whatever and they are all just wired up so they come on at the same time which would make it easier to get the narrowest tape possible.

I suppose if I were smart I'd just use a glue gun and glue on the little multicolored LED light strands to the buildings, but I've never been accused of being smart.

 

[T-Man]

The 5050 strips are bright enough for under the counter lighting.

You could just find some micro lights and hang them. Lemax sells power supplies too, to over ride the battery.

 

[Stan D]

Sorry I'm late. Try here;

https://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/collections/hobby-leds

 

[Tom_C]

Thanks Stan, that will come in handy sometime for certain!