Question about table lighting

DogsPlayingPool said:
Well, I went back to Home Depot and Lowe's today. It appears the high output stuff is a specialty item. They had some HO bulbs but no 4 footers. And I would have to special order the fixtures.

So I'm going with the standard T8's. They are actually pretty bright and with four bulbs right over the pool table it should be good. After all this is the set up the light had before and it was in one of Jay Helfert's pool halls.

I looked at the colors and I'm going to start out trying the daylight. According to the descriptions of the various colors, this is the one that produces truer colors and I think that's what I want. The daylight is also about the brightest of all of them so it should be plenty of light. They also had a color called "natural sun" that I may try just for the ducks of it.

Thanks for all your help, I really appreciate it as I want to get this right. I also appreciate the quick assistance as I need to get this handled since the table and light are scheduled to go up Friday.

Rep to all you guys. :thumbup:
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I use daylight and think its the nutz.
 
Rob_jerrylee said:
This is my home table and I went to homedepot and got the cool white for my lights . It's not too bad but it works for now .
:thumbup:Lower the lights to 40" above table with chain or aircraft cable!
Table looks great!
FYI Most of the offices and schools have cool whites !!
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One thing I would like to do is when I finish the ceiling is to build a box around the light and lower it like a Diamond light or I could always just switch things up and when I have the money just buy a Diamond table with a light and save me the trouble .

Gotta have money first lol . But I like what I have for now plenty of light and good playing conditions . But before I had this light I had just a two blub shop light with Day light blubs and like those better then the cool white and when I switched the blubs for this light I had to buy the Cool white because they where on sale .
 
Darth, good to hear from someone in the trade confirming my choice of the T8's. No one at Home Depot or Lowes explained all that other stuff to me (tar leakage, bulb problems causing other problems etc.). All they ever mentioned was that the T8's used a little less juice. I knew there had to be more to it than that. I also noted when I went back that except for the cool white color, the T8's provided more lumens than the T12's. And from the display at the store the T8 just seemed brighter.

Ray, I see the Diamond light uses the HO bulbs. Still, since all the gear isn't off the shelf-easy to obtain stuff, I'm going with the standard T8's. I will have a 4 bulb set up inside a a commercial pool hall shade so I'm pretty confident the light will throw properly on the table and I will have plenty of illumination. If not, I can always step up in class and go HO.

As Majic stated, it looks like there is a lot of different opinions as to which color works best for table lighting. 4 bulbs are only around $10 so I'll just play around with it to find the one I prefer. It seems like the two most popular choices are either the daylight or cool white, so I'll try both of those. I might also try the soft white but the yellow tinge reminds me of incandescent lighting and I don't think I'd care for that. But again, experimenting with different colors is not that cost prohibitive. I will also make a note of any eye strain with a particular color when I play long sessions, that's a good point.
 
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Rob_jerrylee said:
One thing I would like to do is when I finish the ceiling is to build a box around the light and lower it like a Diamond light or I could always just switch things up and when I have the money just buy a Diamond table with a light and save me the trouble .

Gotta have money first lol . But I like what I have for now plenty of light and good playing conditions . But before I had this light I had just a two blub shop light with Day light blubs and like those better then the cool white and when I switched the blubs for this light I had to buy the Cool white because they where on sale .
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I went to Drexeline today and they have 2-4 tube T8 fixtures in each light box
the 8 T8 tubes are cool white
bottom of Brunswick light box to top of table 51"
no complaints!
 
Well, I successfully wired the thing, so I've got that going for me. It seems to be putting out a lot of light but of course I won't know for sure until I get it over the table and see how it throws.

The inside of the shade was spray painted flat white. I was thinking of going to a gloss or enamel to perhaps rebound more light, but I'm afraid that may just produce glare. Any opinions?

Any other ideas for magnifying or rebounding what light I have, like reflectors etc.?

Thanks.
 
Here is my light

DogsPlayingPool said:
Well, I successfully wired the thing, so I've got that going for me. It seems to be putting out a lot of light but of course I won't know for sure until I get it over the table and see how it throws.

The inside of the shade was spray painted flat white. I was thinking of going to a gloss or enamel to perhaps rebound more light, but I'm afraid that may just produce glare. Any opinions?

Any other ideas for magnifying or rebounding what light I have, like reflectors etc.?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Here is a photo of my fixture that I built. I painted the inside gloss white to reflect the light and used chrome reflective honeycombed lenses just like the ones in the Diamond fixture. You can get them at Home Depot for around $25.00 and change each. It will take 2. To cut them to size I used a pair of angled wire cutters and cut one square at a time. My fixture is mounted 48" above the playing surface.

 
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