Lighting your dolls house using the Copper Tape Method
Lighting your dolls house can be one of the most rewarding aspects of building and owning a dolls house. The use of working lights, fires and even televisions can really add life to your house and make it a centre piece of the room in which it is housed. The use of copper tape to light your dolls house is just one of the methods that can be used (others will be discussed in future articles).This method uses thin strips of self adhesive copper tape to conduct electricity around your house. The first stage is to decide on the location of your dolls house lights. The socket should be removed from the end of each light and a small hole drilled to allow the wire to pass through (in this case to the back of the house). For ceiling light the hole should be drilled through the ceiling into the room upstairs and then out of the back of this room. This way wires can be covered over with carpeting etc. For wall lights that are not on the back wall these too can be trailed up the wall and then out to the back from the room above (small groves can be made in the walls to hide the wire and keep a smooth surface for decorating).
Next we need to decide on the position of the copper tape. For a front opening dolls house this would be the back of the house. The copper tape is laid down in two strips that run parallel to each other (they must not touch or they will short circuit). Where the copper tape overlaps use masking tape between the two tapes to insulate. Tape should be positioned so that the lighting wires can be easily connected and so that the wire creates a circuit. Once the light has been installed the wire on the outside should be cut to the appropriate length to allow connection to the copper tape without lots of excess wire. To connect the wire to the copper tape separate the wire into two strands, strip the plastic coating off and solder one to either side of the copper tape circuit taking care that the copper cores do not touch.
Plug in the transformer and check that each light is working as you go - don't wait till the end to try a figure out which light isn't working!
While creating lighting circuit for your dolls house is relatively straight forward it should be remembered that we are working with an electrical circuit and must follow safe practices. Remember to always use the correct transformer for the job and NEVER connect straight to the mains.
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