Mall Lighting wiring path (see comments)
Running power to the lights on the Mall is a little tricky and very tedious.
The power comes into a Mall section through the crawlspace at the bottom of the section. The crawlspace is designed to hold all the power and control boards, connectors and wires.
On top of the crawlspace is the ground level, usually a set of 16x16 stud plates. However, if there are a lot of pieces requiring power, I sometimes go to 8x16 stud plates to increase the number of gaps used to run the wires. (wires are run in the gaps between the plates.)
The next level is the elevation of the terrain which is built up by laying a series of plates on top of each other. The trick here is to have as much open space between the ground plane and the top most elevation level. You don't want this to be a solid contruction of plates one on top of the other. First, it's expensive to use that many LEGO parts. Second, it gets to be pretty heavy. And third, weaving wires between a lot of stacked plates is *really* hard to do, and dramatically increases the chances that wire will fail (usually by being cut by a plate edge). In this case, at the highest point on the terrain, there are 5 plate layers through which the wires for the Mall lights will need to be run.
The top-most layer is the finished terrain. The objective here is to have the wires come through this layer as close as possible to the pieces requiring the power. Also look to conceal wires by using the bits on top of the terrain: plants, trees, cars, small buildings, whatever might be available.
Notice on the crawlspace there are power connectors at the exterior walls. Each section is wired independently, but to have the entire Mall powered by a single power source, each section has to be able to pass power to adjacent sections. This is done by using magnetic power connectors.
I use Brickstuff products for all my wiring and power. The advantage to me is that late last year Brickstuff introduced a combined power and control system. Using that system I can not only power all the lights in the Mall, but I can control the power to individual lights. This will allow me to turn on lights to buildings separate from turning on Mall lights separate from turning on streetlights, etc. THIS...IS...HUGE! for this project.
Okay, enough boredom for one day. Go...look at other more interesting builds here on Flickr...or better yet, get to building something fantastic yourself.
Mall Lighting wiring path (see comments)
Running power to the lights on the Mall is a little tricky and very tedious.
The power comes into a Mall section through the crawlspace at the bottom of the section. The crawlspace is designed to hold all the power and control boards, connectors and wires.
On top of the crawlspace is the ground level, usually a set of 16x16 stud plates. However, if there are a lot of pieces requiring power, I sometimes go to 8x16 stud plates to increase the number of gaps used to run the wires. (wires are run in the gaps between the plates.)
The next level is the elevation of the terrain which is built up by laying a series of plates on top of each other. The trick here is to have as much open space between the ground plane and the top most elevation level. You don't want this to be a solid contruction of plates one on top of the other. First, it's expensive to use that many LEGO parts. Second, it gets to be pretty heavy. And third, weaving wires between a lot of stacked plates is *really* hard to do, and dramatically increases the chances that wire will fail (usually by being cut by a plate edge). In this case, at the highest point on the terrain, there are 5 plate layers through which the wires for the Mall lights will need to be run.
The top-most layer is the finished terrain. The objective here is to have the wires come through this layer as close as possible to the pieces requiring the power. Also look to conceal wires by using the bits on top of the terrain: plants, trees, cars, small buildings, whatever might be available.
Notice on the crawlspace there are power connectors at the exterior walls. Each section is wired independently, but to have the entire Mall powered by a single power source, each section has to be able to pass power to adjacent sections. This is done by using magnetic power connectors.
I use Brickstuff products for all my wiring and power. The advantage to me is that late last year Brickstuff introduced a combined power and control system. Using that system I can not only power all the lights in the Mall, but I can control the power to individual lights. This will allow me to turn on lights to buildings separate from turning on Mall lights separate from turning on streetlights, etc. THIS...IS...HUGE! for this project.
Okay, enough boredom for one day. Go...look at other more interesting builds here on Flickr...or better yet, get to building something fantastic yourself.