Best type of lights bulbs to use on the ceiling?

dsms · 07-07-08, 08:31

Im placing 4 light fixtures on the side walls of my garage so I can have a brighter workspace and view paintwork better. Now I dont know what bulbs to use in the fixtures. Somebody reccomended daylight bulbs but I dont know if there best. I need something that most mimicks sunlight im assuming. Also im having 2 large ceiling fans installed on the ceiling and they come with light fixtures in them as well. Any suggestions on what bulbs to buy?

EisenHulk · 07-07-08, 08:53

If you can afford them, I'd go with sodium halide. They are COMPLETELY unforgiving.

Accumulator · 07-07-08, 10:38

Is it *sodium* halide or *metal* halide (and/or is there a difference)

If you're talking about fluorescents, I've never found any that really work well for spotting (light) marring. OK for spotting the really awful scratches, and good for general illumination, but just lousy for the kind of marring I care about.

I turn out my fluorescent tubes (all of 'em, and that's dozens) and use ceiling mounted incandescents for most of my inspecting. I also have a hand-held incandescent trouble light that I use, a cheap thing that works better for the final inspections than either my halogens or my 3M SunGun.

BlueZero · 07-07-08, 11:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Accumulator

Is it *sodium* halide or *metal* halide (and/or is there a difference)

.

There might have been a typo there. I've never heard of sodium halide. But I've also been wrong before.

There's Sodium Vapor and Metal Halide.
Next time I get to work with a lighting designer for work I should ask them about lighting for detailing.

salty · 07-07-08, 11:40

Low pressure sodium are the orange street light you see.
High pressure sodium are yellow light.
Mercury vapor are a white light, not as efficient as Metal halide, another white light. Though companies are coming out with different color spectrums.

I'm thinking about a couple of these for my shop, in the Metal Halide version. RAB HID EZFlood 35w-175w

Though the Mercury Vapor are much cheaper and can be bought off the shelf. Something like this. RAB YLM175 Mercury Vapor 175 Watt Yard Light

EisenHulk · 07-07-08, 11:49

Whoops!!!! I meant metal halide. Sorry about that.

Great catch, guys.

D&D Auto Detail · 07-07-08, 11:51

I agree with Accumulator. The only thing I use the fluorescents for is lighting up the garage. They dont work well for inspecting the paint. Incandescent bulbs do actually work great for spotting defects. The final inspection should ALWAYS be done in direct sunlight IMO.

StrutMotors · 07-08-08, 03:08

If you want high quality lights in your shop you need to look at the bulbs CRI, and need to find a product with at least an 80 but preferably an 85 rating as used in body shop paint booths.

CRI is the color rendering index and it measures the bulbs similarity to natural sunlight, which is around 6000 kelvin at 100CRI.

My suggestion would be to look for a T8 fixture with BlueMax bulbs, or to consider manufacturers that market full spectrum bulbs.

In addition to ceiling mounted lights, I've worked in shops with a wall mounted fixture and it made things so much easier.

Accumulator · 07-08-08, 11:50

StrutMotors- It's not so much a matter of the CRI, but rather of the specific type of *contrast* provided. (E.g., my 3M SunGun is terrible for spotting marring.) That's what makes this whole light selection thing so tricky.

I've inspected known-to-be-lightly-marred materials under a *LOT* of different light sources, and not all show the marring regardless of how well they simulate natural sunlight.

Salty- Ah, thanks for explaining. Sure wish I'd known more when I had my shop built

D&D Auto Detail- Other than holograms, I still spot some stuff better under incandescents than even under natural sunlight! It could be just a matter of the paint in question though, as I'm always working with metallics.

Greg Nichols · 07-09-08, 01:06

This is the type of set up you need! However I agree that natural sunlight is the best for scoping out halos.

David Fermani · 07-09-08, 02:26

Spotting swirls and seeing defects in a paint job are 2 totally different things and require different light. Has anyone ever been inside of a really nice paint booth or a paint mixing room? That's about the most color correct and clean light you can be in aside from being in direct sunlight. Sunlight is great for detecting swirls, but close to impossible to spot tiny defects like acid rain etching.

kwiker · 07-12-08, 06:33

Great post, i was just wondering about this the other day. I have a silver car that has some weird damage to the paint (sand i think, az car) and i can't see it anywhere except in a parking lot/gas station with this type of lighting. I feel so glad that i know what they are called now b/c i couldn't remember to save my life.

Now, to find out where to buy them and how much they are going to set me back.