Lighting question- tall vehicles

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imported_hockeyplaya13

New member
What do you do for lighting large vehicles? I have a dodge ram 1500 and lighting for the roof and hood has been quite a pain. Regluar halogens work for al the side panels, but aren't tall enough to light the hood/roof. I plan to get a brinkmann soon, but that's really only good for checking the paint after the fact. I need some way to light the paint while I'm polishing.



Any ideas?



Thanks,



Scott
 
The halogen twin lights I have also have a ~7 foot stand, havent had any issues with tipping or not being tall enough yet, something similar to this....but i suppose those rams are taller than hell, so that might not even be tall enough.



Amazon.com: Designers Edge L-14SLED Home Light Two-Light 1000-Watt Halogen Work Light with Tripod: Home Improvement



You could deck your work area out with HID lights mounted to the ceiling :hifive:



I really think It would be cool (in my situation, which is in a two car 10 ft. ceiling garage) to mount a couple of those Halogen lights to the ceiling and wire them to a switch, maybe 6 of them all the way back on the ceiling and a few more on the walls, it would definitely be bright!!
 
I use the squeeze-clamp handles on my incandescent trouble lights to attach them to various things, from electrical conduits to ceiling mounted HVAC vents.



Plus, well....I have the ceiling-mounted incandescents, but I'm guessing that those aren't part of the mix here. I'd *MUCH* rather have those than ceiling mounted halogens, as I always turn out the halogens and do my serious inspecting with the incandescents (and/or the SunGun these days ;) ) anyhow.
 
OK. I forgot to mention, I'm in the works of setting up a mobile business, so I'm not thinking of just my truck. It'd have to be something portable. Just trying to be prepared for SUV's and such.



S&S, I'll have to check for that. My current halogens suck, the lights keep blowing out, are only 500 watts each, and the stand is like 5 ft. As for your ceiling mounted halogens, that would be pretty cool, but depending on how many you had, it'd be hot during the summer!



Accumulator, do you find that the trouble lights show defects well? I've only used halogens for detecting swirls/marring.
 
hockeyplaya13 said:
Accumulator, do you find that the trouble lights show defects well? I've only used halogens for detecting swirls/marring.
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Yes. I rely on incandescents *FAR* more than on halogens for this. Incandescents let me get colors like silver flawless under *any* lighting conditions and that's almost impossible for me to do with just halogens.



My inspection routine (leaving the SunGun out of it) is to turn out all the other lights and inspect with incandescents; this almost *always* leads to finding some residual marring that I couldn't see before.



They work a lot better for me than the Brinkman too ;)
 
Accumulator said:
Yes. I rely on incandescents *FAR* more than on halogens for this. Incandescents let me get colors like silver flawless under *any* lighting conditions and that's almost impossible for me to do with just halogens.



My inspection routine (leaving the SunGun out of it) is to turn out all the other lights and inspect with incandescents; this almost *always* leads to finding some residual marring that I couldn't see before.



They work a lot better for me than the Brinkman too ;)
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OK, thanks. Do you use incandescents while correcting too? Or just for final checking?
 
hockeyplaya13 said:
OK, thanks. Do you use incandescents while correcting too? Or just for final checking?
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I leave 'em on while correcting, but I want different/brighter light when doing the correction than I use for inspection.



For me, there's a big difference between being able to see what I'm doing and being able to spot marring (esp. light marring).



When I inspect, I have the shop as dark as possible, with only the inspection lights on. Yeah, I have to go throw switches/etc. back and forth and it *is* a hassle.
 
Accumulator said:
I leave 'em on while correcting, but I want different/brighter light when doing the correction than I use for inspection.



For me, there's a big difference between being able to see what I'm doing and being able to spot marring (esp. light marring).



When I inspect, I have the shop as dark as possible, with only the inspection lights on. Yeah, I have to go throw switches/etc. back and forth and it *is* a hassle.
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OK, cool. Do you ever have to worry about overloading the circuit? I've done it a couple times in the middle of a detail, just from have twin 500w halogens running while using the PC. Really annoying to have to stop what I'm doing to go reset the breaker. And since I'm gonna start doing this mobile, I really don't want that to happen.
 
hockeyplaya13 said:
Do you ever have to worry about overloading the circuit? I've done it a couple times in the middle of a detail, just from have twin 500w halogens running while using the PC. Really annoying to have to stop what I'm doing to go reset the breaker. And since I'm gonna start doing this mobile, I really don't want that to happen.
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Eh, I have a purpose-built shop, so my situation probably doesn't relate to what you're doing. Sorry...



But the incandescents don't draw all that much.
 
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