Better lighting than halogens?

I always enjoy lighting discussions, even though they make me :hairpull about what I coulda/woulda/shoulda done when I built my shop :o





drew.haynes said:
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...
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Stick with the incandescents for marring-spotting..swirls/etc. disappear whenever I turn on fluorescent lights.



What is it you DO Accumulator, if it's ok to ask...
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I'm retired. Last job was teaching Computer Programming at the local U.



rydawg said:
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.
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Ah, great pic! Heh heh, we need a "sodium vs. metal halide" shootout :D



That tall ceiling makes me wonder (and yeah, I have one but as mentioned tearing the shop apart isn't really an option)...IIRC the whole thing as a matter of "*distant* point-source lighting", which provides the proper type of contrast for swirl-spotting. I bet that the lights have to be a bit of a ways away for this to work optimally :think:



Rob Tomlin said:
I used Metal Halides in my Saltwater Aquarium!
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Could you dismount it and try it for swirl-spotting?
 
Sorry to hijack but rather than start a new thread, I need a stand alone light I can use in my very dim garage for detailing that will show the lil deftects and so on??????



I have a Craftsman handheld one that gives off a very white light and is perfect but I can not hold it and detail at the same time so I need a larger one that can sit or stand on its own but I dont want to spend a ton of money!



Thanks!!!

:D
 
chuckstang- My incandescent trouble light from Lowe's has a spring-clamp instead of a han dle, so I can clamp it on [whatever]. It's not really user-friendly, but it works.



I got the high-wattage model and I use ~300W bulbs, but I suspect a lower-wattage one would work just as well.



But if your garage is very dim, you're still gonna need halogens/etc. to provide general illumination while you work.
 
Could someone post pix of what the light actually looks like that all these different bulbs look like? Sorta like how you see posts of peopl showing the difference between halogen and xenon and so on.



Or is there a thread allready where they have done that?



Halogen I always thought was very yellow in color and hense why cars switch to HIDs and so on? I already have a big ol light that gets very hot and provides general lighting but really it just blinds you and does not show off the imperfections in the paint. Sorry not sure what type of bulb it uses, Im ignorant to this all
 
chuckstang95- I don't think we have any pics of lighting comparisons.



It's not so much the color of the light, or even the brightness; it's a matter of a certain type of contrast that makes marring show up.



Metallics are tricky because it's easy for the light to be too bright and just dazzle you with the metallic effect.



Try moving the light around and also varying your viewing angle. I might spend over five minutes inspecting a "perfect" panel (consider just how long that really is: it's a freakin' *eternity*) before I suddenly get things just right and discover that my "perfect" panel isn't so nice after all.



I'm a broken record on the need to use different lighting sources: halogens, incandescents, natural sunlight, etc. seems like *every* type of light shows things a little bit differently. Until you have your process so nailed down that you *know* how things are gonna turn out, you simply have to spend forever doing the inspection using whatever you can to cover all the bases.
 
Not sure if i seen this vid on here or from an email but thats what they do in the VW glass factory, use many different types of light to check for imperfections before the cars are passed. Very interesting vid if you haven't seen it before.



YouTube - VW Glass Factory
 
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