Detailing Lights, what are you using?

armoredsaint

armoredsaint

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I'm looking for twin LED or halogens on a stand, good to go?

any brand you recommend, especially if it's from amazon.com or cheap shipping?
 
Many places sell the dual 500W halogen set ups but Home Depot sells some Husky that are dual 700W for extra light.
 
I've got the Husky dual halogen setup myself. It's the one that has 2x300W halogens in each light and you can switch them individually for 300/600/900/1200W of light.
 
im looking into getting some halogens but i dont want something hot, so i may get a halogen stand, and two 100w metal halides or high pressure sodium flood/security lights. both should be less heat then a halogen that's for sure. just don't know what would be better for defects a cool(MH) color or a warm color(HPS). right now i have a rolling light i made that has 4 26W compact fluorescents, works pretty good and gives multiple spots on one area to check defects.
 
I got the 500w Utilitech's from Lowe's however I'd advised against getting these...they are terrible. The bulbs burn out after about 8 hours. I'll be taking these back AGAIN! I am looking to get a single Kobalt halogen for the floor and maybe the Craftsman 500w dual halogen from Sears. FYI the single Kobalt halogens come with an outlet built in them to run other tools.
 
opie_7afe said:
right now i have a rolling light i made that has 4 26W compact fluorescents
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CEE DOG said:
105 W CFL's (5000-6500 Kelvin= daylight)
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Since in a lot of instances LED's are tricky to work with, I'd go with a CFL solution of some sort. The halogens have too many problems as noted in this thread (heat, bulbs not lasting/fragile). Hopefully at some point the LED's will improve (it's really the construction of the housings/reflectors) so the light distribution will be better.
 
I've seen some work lights similar to halogens that use plug-in CFL's, and that was at Lowes a few years ago. I'm not sure what CeeDog was referring to, but I'm sure Opie is talking about the curly-cue lights you get at the supermarket. My issue with the LED's is it's still a buzz-word, with a lot of crap (look at the cheap LED flashlights from Energizer, etc., that are terrible).
 
Home Depot has this rechargeable LED light that sounds good. Someone said in the review that the charge only lasts 3 hours though.

180 LED Portable Work Light-955-998 at The Home Depot


So do all halogen lamps burn out fairly quickly? The bulbs from the firs set of Utilitechs burned out way fast. This new set I got I had the bulb burn out after about 8 hour.
 
Currently using Fenix TK35 for hand held checking (not much that escapes 820 lumens) and various halogens and fluorescent to work under.
 
alko said:
Home Depot has this rechargeable LED light that sounds good. Someone said in the review that the charge only lasts 3 hours though.

180 LED Portable Work Light-955-998 at The Home Depot


So do all halogen lamps burn out fairly quickly? The bulbs from the firs set of Utilitechs burned out way fast. This new set I got I had the bulb burn out after about 8 hour.
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I don't know about that Husky--3 hours on a charge is actually excellent, IMO, I have found LED lights like that to be highly directional--you have to get them pointed JUST right. I think the reason the halogens burn out so fast is if you move the light while they are still hot...and if it falls over while it's on, forget it (and those tripods all stink).
 
Yeah I try to be really carefull when moving. Plus if I move them I always unplug them. But the bulbs suck!!! I have yet to use LEDs for checking my work. My pops has a hand LED wand that I may test out this weekend just to see how it reflects off the surface.

Is there such thing as a light being too bright or flood too much for machine polishing?
 
What about using a CFL "curly q" light with one of those portable lights? You know, the kind where a single light bulb plugs in and it has a hook on it so you can hang it under a hood, etc. It allows you to move the light easy to get the angle you need. And it's cheap. Except, you have to keep picking it up and moving it around. But, it allows you to get at just the right angle every time to view.
 
bigez said:
What about using a CFL "curly q" light with one of those portable lights? You know, the kind where a single light bulb plugs in and it has a hook on it so you can hang it under a hood, etc. It allows you to move the light easy to get the angle you need. And it's cheap. Except, you have to keep picking it up and moving it around. But, it allows you to get at just the right angle every time to view.
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There's plenty of CFL drop lights, but you can put a screw-in CFL into an incandescent droplight, sure. A lot of people use the halogen tripod light stands...but as some of us have been noting, the tripods are rickety, they get really hot, and the bulbs frequently don't last very long.

There seem to be some worklights that are similar in construction to the halogen ones that use a 65W plug-in CFL panel, but that apparently only gives about 60% of the light of a 500W halogen.

As I noted previously, IMO the shortcomings of the LED lights is the optics...in some cases many small LED's are required to produce the required amount of light, which means the reflector can't be optimized to a single point...I guess what I'm saying is if you think of an old incandescent flashlight bulb, the light discharged all around the bulb and was collected and reflected by the reflector into a coherent beam. The LED is more like light coming out of a tube--and doesn't lend itself to the same kind of reflector, etc.
 
the problem I see with that is when trying to illuminate the panels. Where would you hook it to? You dig?
 
That makes sense Setec...

My thoughts are running wild with this subject....

So I plan on putting in some Fluorescent lighting in the garage as its really dim with the two light bulbs. Being as I have little knowledge of the various light sources, does fluorescent reveal defects differently than say Halogen?
 
alko said:
So I plan on putting in some Fluorescent lighting in the garage as its really dim with the two light bulbs. Being as I have little knowledge of the various light sources, does fluorescent reveal defects differently than say Halogen?
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Yeah, I want to do that in my garage, too. I thought 8' strips along the edges (sides of the car) and 4' strips at the ends of each bay. There is at least one good thread on it here...I figured, hey that's a lot of lights, I can just go with the standard, but people were advocating the HO lights. I'm too lazy right now to look for the thread.

A lot of people say that fluorescents aren't as good as halogen or incandescent for viewing defects. So it may be that even if you go with a lot of lights on the ceiling (or walls?) that you might still need a portable light source for viewing defects.
 
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