The Bottom Line
Pros
- Everything is included (except a 9 volt battery in Quarter Scale or Room Lighting Sets)
- Easy to assemble, easy to use. Good tips for adjusting lighting levels and colors in instructions.
- Great for small stand alone displays, or projects which are hard to light with regular scale lights
Cons
- Only available in 'warm white' but this is closest to standard light bulbs.
- Thru wire led's sit on various size bases, some of these are sometimes hard to disguise.
- Best for indirect lighting, hard to fit into scale effect 'light fixtures'
Description
- Easy to set up sets of battery operated, cool running LED's for small scale building lighting.
- Long life for battery size used. Mini light sets run off slim easy to hide watch batteries.
- Switches and battery cases included, only thing you need for assembly is glue to hold the lights in place.
Guide Review - Easy to Use Battery Operated LED Room Lighting Kits for Several Model Scales
Evan designs have done modellers a service by setting up more easy to use LED lighting kits. Like the flashing LED kits for fires these new roombox lighting kits make using battery operated LED's simple for smaller roomboxes and displays.
The Mini Lighting Kit uses 1.8 mm LEDs with eight inch wires in sets of two, four or six LED's plus shrink tubing, instructions, an inline switch and a watch battery and battery case(included) to light smaller scale (N and 1:144) buildings. The battery can run up to ten 1.8mm 3 volt LED's so you can have lots of 'warm' (slightly yellow) lights, with no danger of heating up. With ten LED's on the circuit, the battery should last for up to nine hours. It will last much longer with fewer LED's. The LED's themselves are rated to stay lit for two years. The LED's used are standard 'thru hole' LED's which can be sanded to spread (diffuse) the light, or painted with a glass paint or acrylics or enamels to tone down the brightness of the lights.
Room Lighting Kits For slightly larger projects, the room lighting LED kit is available with slightly larger LED's on eight or fourteen inch wires. The warm white LED's in this kit are available in 1.8, 3, or 5 mm sizes of thru wire LED's ready for a 9 volt battery powered circuit. The battery case, wired with a switch, five LED's in your chosen size, shrink wrap tubing, and instructions are included in the kit. You must supply your own 9 volt battery or wire these lights to a regulated 12 volt DC transformer. These kits are ideal for Christmas or Halloween village displays that need to run on battery power. The five lights are rated to run for 30 hours on a single 9 volt battery. The LED's themselves are rated for two years.
All the LED's in these kits are grouped together to the lead wire of the battery, so check how close to your lights you can set the battery pack. The lights don't run in a 'string' of 8 or 14 inches between lights, but rather 8 or 14 inches from each light back to the main connector at the battery line. All you need to assemble the kits and get them up and running is an appropriate battery, and possibly a bit of super glue. The mini lighting kit includes the correct voltage and size watch battery, and extra batteries are available. These are probably the easiest lighting sets to assemble for small, portable or short term lit displays, provided you want to use indirect lighting or are prepared to build shades or lamps around the thru wire LED's.
Price and Availability $8 to $13 per kit, available online from Evan Designs (Model Train Software)
