best lighting for detailing in garage ?

[93zder]

I'm looking at getting some better lighting for my garage since i can't see if there are swirls in the paint. Will Halogen or flourescent lights be enough?

thanks

[bufferman71]

Halogen would be better than flourescent, although flour is cheaper and more readily available. The best way would be metal halide, but that gets pricey

[ZaneO]

A combination of T8 Flourescent and MR16 Halogen. The flourescent gives you tons of illumination, and the halogen gives you the ability to see defects.

You can't have enough light.

[Accumulator]

I always contribute my $0.02 and then some when it comes to lighting. Having mostly silver cars, I've taken great pains to find what lights work for spotting defects. With the right light, silver can show marring just as well as black (clear is clear); the trick is to find the right light.

Yeah, don't expect fluorescent to show defects. My cars look nearly perfect under fluorescents *before* I polish out the marring. Look OK under halogens too. But if I turn out all the other lights and then turn on the incandescents, at just the right illumination/viewing angle they look like a horrorshow- the previously invisible marring suddenly appears very bad.

I find that regular (but high wattage) incandescent lights work even better than halogens for really fine inspection. Even though I use halogens when I polish, I always do my final inspection with incandescents.

IIRC, when Mike Phillips tested Metal Halides for Meguiar's, he was less than impressed with them. I don't recall the specifics, but the discussions we had about it persuaded me not to bother with them. Not like they aren't very good or anything, but for me it's a matter of functionality. I can see what I'm looking for or I can't, and I don't see any reason to spend money unnecessarily any more than I see any reason to skimp on lighting and miss seeing something.

Before you spend/budget a bundle on Metal Halides, get enough light to cover the basics- be sure you have enough fluorescents for general illumination (including some on the walls) and some portable halogens (so you can direct light where/how you want it) and at least an old-fashioned incandescent troublelight for careful swirl-spotting.

[ZaneO]

Accumulator - do you have any links to the incandescents that you use?

[Accumulator]

ZaneO- No, I've never seen them on the 'net. They're basically just "industrial" lights, metal shades and metal grills to protect the bulbs, that will accomodate higher-than-normal wattage bulbs. My electrical contractor came up with them when I built the "new garage" where I detail. Metal Halides weren't commonly available then, BTW. If I were doing it today, I dunno, knowing me I'd add the Metal Halides to what I have now as opposed to using them instead of something. I sure wouldn't give up the incandescents to have something else!

I have 300W bulbs in mine, with three of these over the area where I detail, two covering the middle of the shop (where I *don't* detail bescause of the trench-drain) and another three on the other side of the shop. They're mounted between the rows of fluorescents and each "row" of lights is individually switched.

Sometimes using the ones on the other side of the shop give a certain illumination angle that makes things more visible than they are with more direct illumination. It's sorta funny what shows/not and when. That's why I like the old trouble light so much, it lets me postion it any way I want. I have (IIRC) a 200W bulb in it.

I sure agree with you about never having enough light!

[Bill D]

I only find fluorescents to be helpful with my white paint, better at spotting defects than my halogen work lights or an incandescent trouble light. But for anything else, definitely halogens and lots of varieties of incandescents.

[Accumulator]

Bill D- Interesting about the fluorescents working so well on white. It's been a while since I had a white car, but now that I think about it I *did* see things pretty well in that case. I'll try to keep that in mind the next time this comes up; people are always asking about lighting.

[Bill D]

Only thing they seem to be good for when it comes to defect inspection though. Right now, I'm doing good identifiying imperfections on black with the 1000 watt halogens and a basic trouble light