Rubbing two sticks together - Evan Design's Fires

Evan designs

Five fire kits from Evan designs arrived yesterday.  Incidentally their lighting section is soon to become its own little thing under the auspices of www.LightYourModels.com.  That reference already takes you to the section we mini-folk use.

Thanks to Heather Drinkwater who did a splendid PDF for The Beehive (another good reason to join) I have no qualms about making fires/fireplaces.  I was going to say I can't try my hand until I get home and find which fireplace fits where but I am thinking I might chance it and make one of the Les Roches fires over here and if it won't fit in either of these two projects it will just have to hang about until it goes somewhere.

I think I may have a way round the problem of not having planned for fires in The Gate House in advance of building it, but again that will have to wait until I get home.

The only thing to sort out with these kits is whether three bulbs will be too big for a small fireplace - I suspect they will, but in the grand French fireplace they may not prove to be a problem.  These are 1.8mm bulbs as opposed to the chip I used for the lighting and are therefore bigger.  This isn't insurmountable as the lovely Heather says she has used one orange flickering bulb very successfully in a fireplace so that will be the answer I am sure.  Oddly, looking at the kit, they all look clear????

Since getting these it has kicked off delusions of grandeur and I am now dreaming of making a property with about thirty bulbs for lighting and four fire places - making another twelve bulbs, so am considering a much more sophisticated system of lighting it.

Basically I reckon the 42 (two times) wires will go to a connecting strip like this one

This is way too big and has switched connectors but gives an idea of what I mean

This then goes to a 3V single switch 1 amp adapter, which then plugs in to the mains.  You can have several switches in this system in various places depending on what effects you want; for me it is a case of all on or all off.  Pretty much only I look at my stuff and I would want it all lit to look at it properly.

Right now I am in correspondence with the terrific Evan's to check out stuff like can the flickering fires and lights run through the same connecting strip - I think they probably can't.  Incidentally if you have candle or (early) gas lit houses you can definitely run them all together however you connect up to your power source (like using the 3V batteries) because the fires will make your lights flicker just as they would have done.

When I have a definitive wiring plan I will draw it up and post it here even though its not for this project.  The project it will go in is not even 'found' yet.