Layout room lighting?

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rayman14085

New Member
I am starting to put up new walls in my new layout area, I am just wondering what would be my best bet for lighting. My room measures 22 x 10. Any suggestions? Thanks.........
 
whatever you chose, use lots and lots of it.....and then use more!

Mine isn't that large but I use halogen track lights so I can adjust the angles. Halogen is really really hot but also really really bright. I do a lot of photography so I chose halogen based on that. The downside of tracklights is the multiple shadows it makes.

Efficiency wise, long tubes of daylight-balanced flourescent would seem to be the most economical and practical.

Hint: use multiple lighting circuits/switches so that you can turn on only certain areas when you don't need to light the entire room. I used a dimmer on one circuit for twilight running.
 
I use 4-8ft fluorescents & 6-4ft fluorescents. I have seperate switch's for 2 of the 8 footers on one side of the room & 2 on the other. All of my 4 footers are wired seperately w/a switch for each one. My building is 24 by 40 ft. & I have plenty of light.
I tried track lighting a few years ago & didn't like the shadows between the lites & I think it was because the ceiling is 14ft high.
 


I have fluorescent and also halogen track lighting. I mostly use the fluorescent during work sessions or if it is just me, but fire up the halogens when I want to show-off or during op sessions. Yes, the halogens are hot...nice for getting the chill off in winter. Ha-ha!:D
 
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I use track lighting with six 50 watt halogen bulbs directly over the layout and two 8 foot fluorescent fixtures towards the rear of the layout behind a valance. The combination seems to give an even light on all parts of the layout and is really bright. My layout is not very large and I still have to add portable lights for some spots when I take pictures. As Ken said, get as many lights that you'll think you'll need and then double it. The halogens are nice because they are dimmable so it's easy to change the "time of day" by dimming down the bright lights.
 
Heres a thought on lighting.....Visit a Aquarium Store! I got several fish tanks, the new lighting that has come out is designed to recreate natural sunlite! they have verious light wave lenghts so you can get it the way you want!
 
Chris, I looked at that an option but those bulbs are really expensive. It would cost me about $300 to get enough aquarium fluorescent bulbs and fixtures to cover the same area as the two eight foots that cost me about $60 total. I'll bet it would look good though.
 
Chris,

I have all recessed cans in my drop ceiling. I recently went to the 65W daylight fluorescent bulbs that fit into cans. Initially, at my wifes request I purchased them for our kitchen, however while they make everything brighter, they take time to get to reach their full luminosity. The ones I have do not dim, but now I understand that they make a model that does. I put them in my layout room and have finally gotten use to them. While the photo with the new lights look darker however,the room is actually brighter. The light coming from the new bulbs is not as yellow.

I have not had a chance to experiment with many camera photos and how the new light reacts in the captured images.


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New Bulbs in ceiling


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Old bulbs in ceiling





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I have the same lights in my kitchen can fixtures too. They do take a while to warm up but the results look much better than the standard cool whites. With a drop ceiling, it looks like the daylight florescent floods in can fixtures is an ideal solution.

The only issue I have with the dimmable florescents is the unbelievable amount of radio interference they create. They basically wipe out any frequency below 30 MHz. Probably only matters if you are a ham or shortwave listener but I wonder if the RF harmonics of the dimmers could interfere with radio throttles?
 






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