Table Lighting Battle

Thanks for the ideas. When the wife realized I wasn't giving in and we needed a dedicated light, she folded. Not a full-on LED but a 4 light lamp with LED bulbs. The final Gold Crown setup is nice.
 
OK, here's my unpopular input.

Does your wife have a job? If no, tell her to deal with whatever you decide.
If she DOES have a job, tell her she can design the lighting in the kitchen and laundry room if she wants.

OK, to be more serious, you can do an AMAZING job with some flat panel LED lighting. Flush it as close to the ceiling as possible. Then add a nice frame around it with some baseboard moulding or similar. This will let the fixture flow into the natural ceiling, yet be it's own entity.
Since the light is over the table, FOR the table, it will not look out of place. And since your wife is probably not 7 feet tall, it won't interfere with the space in the room.
 
Thanks for the ideas. When the wife realized I wasn't giving in and we needed a dedicated light, she folded. Not a full-on LED but a 4 light lamp with LED bulbs. The final Gold Crown setup is nice.
Awesome, sounds similar to mine. Lets see a pic of the final setup!
 
Thanks for the ideas. When the wife realized I wasn't giving in and we needed a dedicated light, she folded. Not a full-on LED but a 4 light lamp with LED bulbs. The final Gold Crown setup is nice.
Look for those flower bulbs, you'll want the extra coverage
 
Can I get away with recessed lighting surrounding the outside of a 9ft table? We have a low basement ceiling and my wife is pushing back on installing a hanging table light. We have recessed lighting all over the ceiling and there would be 6 lights around the table (about 1 ft from the edges). Can I use stronger LED reflector bulbs (thinking BR40-100W-4000K) or do we need to go the traditional, 4 light, fixture? We want a quality setup and will use it frequently, but aren't pro players.

Doesn't matter about being "pro" players .. you need to be able to SEE the balls on the table without shadows .. that's why the companies that make and sell pool tables .. sell lights / fixtures that have at least 4 * 48" led tubes in them. Check out Diamond Billiard Tables light .. they give the recommended tubes to be used .. at roughly 1800 Lumens per tube .. around 7200 lumens .. in a fixture with a diffuser to get an even flow of light .. to light up the playing surface without shadows. I just put an addition on our home .. with an 18' * 20' room for a pool table .. I have 6 recessed cans for ROOM LIGHT ... and they are dimmable. For the POOL TABLE .. I have a box light fixture with 4 * 48" inch LED lights giving 7200 Lumens. Play pool .. use the BILLIARD LIGHT .. doing something else . use the recessed cans. This is a shot testing the light box before we had power to the addition. Table to be delivered in 2 weeks.
 

Attachments

  • Testing light box at night.jpg
    Testing light box at night.jpg
    123.4 KB · Views: 151
Here's a couple pictures of my flush mount Diamond light. I have a 7 ft ceiling. 9 ft table.
There was one tricky part to flush mounting this on a drop ceiling. I used all thread that is through bolted through a 2×6 cross pc spanning between studs. I hung it. Ran the nuts up so it just touches the ceiling slightly but didn't lift it.
I have a super low profile "drop" ceiling too btw.
Plastic track. Thin vinyl panels. No wires. Saved another inch or so. It all helps with an old house! The light is 8" deep and it's 44" from the bed of my table to the light.
Good luck!
**Says file was too large to attach.
Will try the old Photo Bucket method later. Sorry.
 
Here's a couple pictures of my flush mount Diamond light. I have a 7 ft ceiling. 9 ft table.
There was one tricky part to flush mounting this on a drop ceiling. I used all thread that is through bolted through a 2×6 cross pc spanning between studs. I hung it. Ran the nuts up so it just touches the ceiling slightly but didn't lift it.
I have a super low profile "drop" ceiling too btw.
Plastic track. Thin vinyl panels. No wires. Saved another inch or so. It all helps with an old house! The light is 8" deep and it's 44" from the bed of my table to the light.
Good luck!
**Says file was too large to attach.
Will try the old Photo Bucket method later. Sorry.

You big tease.

I'll PM my email address if you want to email it to me to resize.
 
And for the record, I would call that flush mount vs recessed. Either way, looks good...👍

EDIT: And nice room.
Thanks! Thanks for the posting the pics too! Yup. Definitely flush mounted. Took some careful layout before the table was there.
*Side note. Dummy me scheduled the table delivery the day after new years! Long story. Lol
*Surface mounted! Ya got me lol
*One more edit. Wife says flush and surface is the same like a ceiling fan or other light!😂
Whatever. Good luck with yours everyone!
 
Last edited:
Since I had lots of time last year, I tried my hand at building one. I built a frame around a drop-in 2'X4' LED panel from SuperBrightLEDs. After a few iterations, it came out like this.

Light.jpg


The frame is made from crown molding with a shelf made out of quarter-round molding on the inside, so basically you surface-mount the frame then drop in the light (or feed it up through the bottom like I did). The light is both dimmable and color-adjustable from 3000K to 5000K. It looks more like furniture and less commercial, and 2'X4' is plenty to light the whole surface without shadows. Here are some more pictures.

LightAndTable.jpg
5000K.jpg
3000K.jpg


The last two images are 5000K and 3000K, respectively. My phone does some color adjustment to the photos and 3000K looks more like 5000K and vice-versa, but you can see the difference color temperature makes. The light cost me about $100 and the supplies for the frame cost me about $100 (but you can make a frame for less than half that, I just wanted the fancy pattern).
 
Since I had lots of time last year, I tried my hand at building one. I built a frame around a drop-in 2'X4' LED panel from SuperBrightLEDs. After a few iterations, it came out like this.

View attachment 586340

The frame is made from crown molding with a shelf made out of quarter-round molding on the inside, so basically you surface-mount the frame then drop in the light (or feed it up through the bottom like I did). The light is both dimmable and color-adjustable from 3000K to 5000K. It looks more like furniture and less commercial, and 2'X4' is plenty to light the whole surface without shadows. Here are some more pictures.

View attachment 586341View attachment 586343View attachment 586344

The last two images are 5000K and 3000K, respectively. My phone does some color adjustment to the photos and 3000K looks more like 5000K and vice-versa, but you can see the difference color temperature makes. The light cost me about $100 and the supplies for the frame cost me about $100 (but you can make a frame for less than half that, I just wanted the fancy pattern).
Nicely done!! Looks like you used a fancy crown moulding for your frame .. great idea. I built one simply using 1*6" pine boards and installed a fixture with 4 * 48" LED tubes. Unfortunately the LED fixture has a hum like a ballast hum .. so I ordered a new fixture that has LED strip lights in it and 7200 lumens. Will swap the fixtures in the box and trim my excess chain (hung it with 1/8" anchor chain from an escutcheon I made from red oak).
 
One thing that should always be a consideration.
When you not shooting, when your seated, the table light should Not be in your eyes.
Also, any over the table, hanging light fixtures with bulbs, set your ht. off the slate (36''). 4 fixture light for a 9 foot table....the end fixtures should not get in your way of your head when racking or breaking the balls, or doing a masse' at either table end.
 
Ultimately the light bottom should be 5'6" from the floor (adjusted for home use dependent on owner height).
The purpose for this would be to stay out of the way during shooting, allowing for masse, but not glaring onto the eyes of people around the table.
The light source should be 6-8" above the "shade" of the light.
The light shade edges shouldn't protrude closer than 8" directly above the bumper edges and the light should spread evenly to the edge of the table, not just the felt.

This is an OLD set of guidelines I remembered from when my dad was installing pool tables for a local furniture company.
The general rule was the table light should never be the room light. The table should be brighter than the room when playing.

The hard part is getting enough light on the table, to eliminate shadows, without adding so much light as to blind the player.
 
Back
Top