Better lighting than halogens?

D

drew.haynes

New member
Halogens have worked great on all the dark cars I've done, but lately I keep working on silver or light metallics with alot of flake and the halogens are ALMOST worthless. At JUST the right angle I see the swarms of imperfections, but tons of heavy swirls are almost invisible in the glare of the flake.



What is a better setup for hard to see swirls?
 
Had a pure silver Mini once before . It is definitly harder to see.



Try putting the lights at a severe angle at the same height as your eyes. Like, let's say I was doing the door panel. I would put the light almost against the front fender, almost paralell to the panel. Look down at the light shining on the door panel from the opposite end, or in back of the door, with my head almost against the car.



No other ways or neat tricks I ever found.



Love my new British Racing Green MCS much better. I got that color specifically to show it off when it is all spiffed up. The results are truely gratifying for me.
 
[Note that Accumulator has numerous silver vehicles and is a fanatic about marring.]



The best thing I've found for inspecting silver is incandescent light in an otherwise dark shop (there are some good threads about this that might be worth the dreaded search). Still takes a lot of time and much monkeying around with the illumination/viewing angles. It is *NOT* a matter of brighter light or of direct viewing angles; those are often what you *don't* want.



If you have ceiling mounted bare incandescent bulbs, those usually work great (trouble is they require moving the vehicle a lot). My local Lowe's sells a cheap hand-held incandescent work light that works OK but is also inconvenient. I recently bought a 3M SunGun that I'll be experimenting with...my previous experiments with one at my painter's shop weren't too promising, but we'll see how it works in *my* shop.



When I'm doing the polishing, I use the halogens, but then I turn 'em out to do the inspecting. Having the shop dark, other than the inspection light, is very important. It's a matter of a specific type of *contrast*...something to do with "distant point-source" illumination ( the other PC once posted something very informative about this).



I'll typically spend around five minutes (and that's an *eternity* when you're actually doing it ;) ) inspecting a panel each time; as I spot residual marring I mark it with a dab of polish so I won't have to search for it again. After more polishing, I repeat the process over and over. And I'll often *still* miss *something*, *somewhere*. Getting our silver minivan perfect took me forever, and I spent far more time inspecting than I did polishing.
 
rydawg- One of these days I'll figure out *just* the right light and I'll try mounting it on the halogen's tripod.



Metal halide, sodium..it's hard to know *just* what to get and I don't want to waste my money on the wrong one.
 
Sodiums are what they use at gas stations and are great for spotting defects too, but are an outside light.



If you have enough T5 HO's, you will be able to see everything 10 times more than halogens.



Finding the perfect light for everything is really a tough battle. I was thinking of setting our shop up with all different ones and putting them on different breakers.
 
rydawg said:
Sodiums are what they use at gas stations and are great for spotting defects too, but are an outside light.



If you have enough T5 HO's, you will be able to see everything 10 times more than halogens.



Finding the perfect light for everything is really a tough battle. I was thinking of setting our shop up with all different ones and putting them on different breakers.
Click to expand...



I'm having that problem right now in my garage. The genius electrician that did my house put all the outlets in the garage on one 15 amp breaker. And what's really strange, is that instead of putting one GFCI in the circuit to protect all the outlets (which is what they normally do), he put a GFCI type plug-in outlet every place there *is* an outlet. Seeing this the first time, I thought cool, there's four breakers serving my garage outlets! Nope, only one. Now I gotta figure out how to run another circuit to the garage.
 
All garages, outdoor, bathroom, and anywhere it is damp or wet will have GFCI outlets if they are up to code.



I always see garages in houses with only 15 amp breakers. It is a pain with 1500 watt halogens and a buffer at the same time. My house is the same way and it is only a year old.
 
rydawg said:
All garages, outdoor, bathroom, and anywhere it is damp or wet will have GFCI outlets if they are up to code.



I always see garages in houses with only 15 amp breakers. It is a pain with 1500 watt halogens and a buffer at the same time. My house is the same way and it is only a year old.
Click to expand...





Yes, but only one GFCI per circuit protects the entire circuit... for example, i have one GFCI in the halllway, and every outlet in the bathroom is protected by that one GFCI. As long as the outlets are on the same breaker, they are protected by one GFCI. This guy put in a GFCI outlet everywhere, regarless if they were on the same breaker.



When we first bought the house, I was out of town, and the outlets in the bathroom stopped working. Turns out the GFCI that had tripped was down the hallway from the bathroom.
 
I may try one of those trouble lights, since I have a couple and I can see how they work without spending any money yet. I feel like being in pitch black dark in the garage would help the most, but my parents really seem to be working against me when it comes to keeping the garage empty enough to work in!
 
drew.haynes said:
I may try one of those trouble lights, since I have a couple and I can see how they work without spending any money yet. I feel like being in pitch black dark in the garage would help the most, but my parents really seem to be working against me when it comes to keeping the garage empty enough to work in!
Click to expand...



I thought I was alone. Our garage is packed full of crap and I barely have a foot of clearance on the sides and about 2 inches on the front and back. I can't do anything at night cause I have to leave the garage open and all the bugs fly in and die on the car. Maybe ill get them to do some spring cleaning.
 
rydawg said:
..If you have enough T5 HO's, you will be able to see everything 10 times more than halogens...
Click to expand...



This is where it gets confusing for me...some people swear by lights that simply don't work well for me :confused:



An art gallery I patronize uses the T5s. While I couldn't pull a car in ;) I have inspected lacquered items under their lights and I wasn't impressed, I just didn't see light marring all that well :nixweiss



Sodiums are what they use at gas stations and are great for spotting defects too, but are an outside light.
Click to expand...



Thanks for confirming that the gas stations use Sodium lights..that's *exactly* the situation I've been struggling to duplicate with my incandescents. Wonder how tough it'd be to DIY a sodium light onto a halogen's tripod :think: indoor/outdoor might not matter all that much as long as I was careful around it (famous last works there, huh?).



Finding the perfect light for everything is really a tough battle. I was thinking of setting our shop up with all different ones and putting them on different breakers.[/
Click to expand...



Yeah...sigh..it sure *is* a tough battle.



Upgrading/changing my shop's lighting would be prohibitively expensive and that's *if* I could find a contractor to do the work (the guys who wired it new said they don't want to tear it all apart to redo it, for *any* price). The way they built the shop simply makes it *VERY* difficult to make any big changes. At least I have the fluorescents on four separate circuits and the incandescents on three of their own.
 
Now that I think of it, not only do I have two old incandescent trouble lights, but I also have a small fluorescent trouble light that I haven't used in a long time.



What is it you DO Accumulator, if it's ok to ask. I've gotten the impression you are not too limited when it comes to cash flow :grinno:
 
I'm with Accumulator on this one. Nothing seems to be more "illuminating" of paint defects that when I pull under the lights at a gas station at night.
 
Rob Tomlin said:
I'm with Accumulator on this one. Nothing seems to be more "illuminating" of paint defects that when I pull under the lights at a gas station at night.
Click to expand...



+1



I don't know how many times I have :cry: when inspecting the vehicle at a local meet close to a gas station. It reveals EVERYTHING.



It was motivation to do learn how to perform correction properly.
 
Metal halide are also what show defects also and are just like the sodiums at gas stations. You just need a tall ceiling and clearance room for them.



I have worked under Metal halides plenty of times and they do show everything perfect.
 
Here is a picture with just metal halide showing off of it. The light is about 20 feet high.



F350andHarley047.jpg
 
I used Metal Halides in my Saltwater Aquarium!



They can put out a ton of light.....and heat!



Rydawd- is there a certain color temp for the halides that you find works better to show paint defects?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top