Part 6 Hiding the Wires

Hiding LEDs in attic and ceiling of main level:

I have wanted to light the interior of the shop and the attic without having obvious lights as the shop is supposed to be a 1920s era building. So I have set up some hidden lights.

These will be 3 volt LEDs (1.8mm), and each will have its own wires running to the power jack. I’ve also sanded the surface of these lights to avoid the spot-light effect.

Since these lights have arrived with 14" wires, I need to add extra wire in order to snake, via hidden pathways, them down to the power jack. To do this, I began underneath the building. I pushed a red and a black wire (from my spools of extra wire) up through the hole at the back (as shown before).

Hiding them presented something of a problem. Most shops I've ever been in have, in some corner, a stack of wood of various sizes. I made a piece for this set of wires out of channel trim. I glued two pieces of channel (looks like a 'u') trim together to form a hollow piece of wood to stand in the back corner.

I ran the wires all the way through this piece up to the edge of the attic, and then I attached the red wire to the red wire of my 1.8mm LED and the same with the black wires. (Am I boring you? Surely most of you could deduce this part, but for the advantage of some who cannot 'see' this, I'm explaining in detail.)

To connect these wires, one could solder them, but I believe they will be secure enough by simply being twisted together. I slid a piece of shrink tube over each, then twisted the LED red to the red from my spool. I did the same with the black wires. I slid the shrink tube over each twisted connection and held this over a candle flame until the tubing had shrunk over the connection making it pretty secure.

I then taped the wires in place, so I could measure the length. I cut the spool wire underneath the building and stripped about 1/3" of the insulation off the end of each wire. [see: Make wires shorter or longer, strip the wire!  http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/video.html ] 

I tested the connection to make certain that the LED would light. Testing was simple. I held the bare end of the red wire against the positive side of a 3v. battery and the naked end of the black wire against the negative side of the same battery. Yay! That LED lit up.

Next, I put a piece of masking tape on those two wires and marked them as Right Attic and taped them to the bottom of the building. Using Aleene's Tack-it Over & Over (because I want to be able to change these LEDs if one of them should go bad), I glued the wires down along the top edge of the middle rafter and along the attic wall. These wires show, but I intend to paint them tan to blend with the wood and pile some junque in front of the wires to hide them. Every attic has some junk, right?

  

For the second attic light, I bared the ends of the spool-wire, this time before threading them up into the building. I'm learning. I followed the same proceedure. Here, however, I found that my shrink tube connection would end up inside of the channel trim and would not fit. Not wishing to waste the wire, I found a larger piece of channel trim.

In the picture below, you can see that one LED is installed and the second one is at the beginning of being installed. 

Just in case anyone would look in through the attic window, I painted over the wires with white paint. And this next photo shows the black and red wires before they were glued into the larger piece of channel trim.

Below, you can see the underside of the building where the wires to the first attic LED are waiting eventual connection to the power source and on/off switch. You can also see the second attic LED wires in preparation for their being glued down, and marked. 

I tested the new connection and found it worked, so glued and marked the second attic light.

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My next effort will be to provide some indirect light for the main area of the shop. To accomplish this, I have made holes and grooves in the ceiling of the main floor.

Below, you can see the attic-floor/main-room’s ceiling lying on my work table waiting for my order to arrive. I have not yet decided how I will hide the wiring. I want the LEDs and wires to be removable in case the need should arise in the future.

Stay tuned for more.