Lights for Doll's House

[amateur]

My granddaughter has a new wooden doll's house.

I want to fit some internal lights - battery driven.

Any suggestions - even websites?

Cheers

[Dave Liquorice]

Plenty of Dolls House sites out there, with proper scale fittings, wiring accesories, etc.

Or would MES (E10) pea bulbs and batten holders do?

/SC00448?st=mes%20holder

Or high brightness white LEDs, but they tend to be rather directional and I'm not sure how you'd mount them.

[Graham.]

I lit one for my granddaughter last year, I regret not documenting it with photos, but I'll describe it.

The house is one of those MDF ones that have become almost ubiquitous.

I elected to use a good quality 12v wall wart placed out of reach This was plugged into this cheap controller (the mini 24 key variant) mounted on the side of the house. You can switch the floors independently, dim them, and do silly flashing effects.

This gives you three channels for LED lights, ostensibly red green and blue, but I used all white LEDs and the channels are wired to the downstairs, upstairs and attic respectively. I used series resistors

100ohm?

I used thin twisted pairs salvaged from an unwanted CAT5 cable. Hiding the wiring between floors by removing the backplane of the house and tacking the wiring up the edges of the walls. I didn't attempt to conceal the runs from the back to the centre of the ceilings, you may have carpets etc. The lampshades were fun. I used some round coloured shades from a string of Chinese mini lanterns for the living rooms, for the attic rooms I used the clear plastic caps from "Fruit Shoot" drink bottles, sort of round bulk-head style.

[Tim Watts]

Fine wires and a dob of hotglue. That's if you want lighting rather than authentic fittings. I'd try for an edge mount led or a 3mm package, in very warm white and fiddle with the dropper resistor until it looks good.

[damduck-egg]

You can get rolls of self adhesive copper tape that may be easier to apply than fine wires and applying hot glue in a confined space. . It stays flat and can be painted or covered my the wallpapers designed for dolls houses. Naturally this should only be used for low voltage supplies which the OP has indicated he will be using.

I've also used the tape to get connect a door bell push withouth drilling holes in a doorframe. Tape fitted through the small gap between door jam and frame and once painted was not noticiable unless you looked close.

G.Harman

[Peter Parry]

[snip]

With careful spacing you can also solder surface mount LEDs across the copper strips giving a very small but bright light.

[Bob Minchin]

try

Run by a very helpful lady.

Bob

[Harry Bloomfield]

Graham. has brought this to us :

As an alternative to the CAT5, you could use enamelled copper wire, as used for motors and transformers. Get the type where the insulation allows you to solder to them without scraping the enamel off first. That is much thinner than the cores of CAT5.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Lots of battery powered Christmas lights sold off in last few weeks. You might look in Poundland, Robert Dyas, Maplin, etc and see if there are any left.

These could easily be broken up if required and distributed around a dolls house.

I did something similar for my niece, but with couple of minature jewelry cabinets with glass fronts, and semi- concealed LEDs, and a little CMOS circuit to do the toggle on/off hidden push button. Used surface mount LEDs on a length of veroboard.

[Brian Gaff]

Got to be leds, the liittle ones used as indicators and a series resistor on very low voltages is best. Brian

[Graham Harrison]

If you want a ready made solution try

Available from many model train stores both on (e.g. Hattons (Liverpool) and Rails of Sheffield and off line.

[Tim Watts]

Another option to solder would be a dab of silver conductive paint on each joint after gluing the led in place.