Pre-wiring the Diorama
The Medieval Village Diorama

This is part of the medieval village diorama tutorial You can go to that main page here

In this diorama I want to have some special effects in most of the buildings. Mostly just lights, but the Flour Mill will have a water wheel and I might have another thing or two. This does mean that I have to run a pair of wires to each building.

The important thing to think about at this stage of the game is getting all the maor wiring done while the diorama is still just a basic shell. Doing it now saves a lot of work later. If you have the terrain made and you try to add wires it can be very difficult.

This picture shows the completed pre-wiring of the diorama. There is a length of wire coming up out of the surface. A building will sit over each one of these. So, I had to first lay out the buildings so I could mark where the wires would be.

It's a matter of drilling all the holes under where each building will sit and then running wires through those holes and then to a central location. This central location will be the box with all the switches and the power supply so we can operate everything.

This next picture shows you how all the wires come out of a hole I drilled in the front. This is where the control panel and the power supply will be. I recommend you label all these wires if you can. This way you know exactly where each one goes on the diorama.

Recommended wire - Well, this can vary quite a bit and it will also be determined by how much voltage you are going to apply. But I do all low voltage stuff so I use telephone wire. It works great, is easy to work with, and each cable has four wires in it so you can actually run two things off of it. So, technically I could have two different things in each building.

Telephone Station Cable 100 ft. 4 Conductor R/G/Y/B 22Ga. This is the exact stuff I use. And this is a terrific price on 100 feet of it.

The New Scenery Tips & Techniques (Model Railroader) Looking for a good book on how to make Diorama scenery? This book is not just for railroaders. It is perfect for the diorama maker.

How to Build Dioramas - Looking for a good book on how to build Military dioramas and how to paint the models, tanks, airplanes and other things? This book is terrific. I own it and love it.

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