Has anyone used one of these for their marquee lighting?

[darktemp]

I was planning to use an 18" flourescent black light for my marquee but while looking for a good price on one I stumbled on to these:  http://www.svc.com/v12inch2ccflkits.html

It comes with 2 12" tubes (which should just about perfectly span a marquee) in various colors which could be powered by the mame pc through a molex power connector.  It also claims a 30,000 hour lifespan.  Does anyone have any experience with these?  I would be interested in any opinions.

[simplygriff]

I do not have any experience using one of these as I have not bilt my first cabinet yet but i was thinking about using USB lighting like these.  THe ones I've seen are iLuminate Mini LED tubes.  I found them at CompUSA for like $15 each.  I was originally thinking about having a simple apple logo as my marquee and using the small tubes set right behind it, but that was before I realized how expensive it would be to run a mac in my cabinet.  I'd be interested in seeing how bright these or the USB ones are because now I'm going to have a full size lit marquee.

[pointdablame]

I have a dual CCFL set in my computer. They work great and are fairly bright.  They disperse a fairly even amount of light too, so if you put one on the top of the marquee area and one on the bottom, you would probably get a nice even amount of light, especially since the marquee is only a few inches tall.  You'll just need to extend your Molex connectors to light it, as buying enough extensions to reach your computer is probably a waste of time and money.  Just cut the wires an inch below the connector, solder on an extension wire for each one and you're good to go.  I've had mine on almost 24/7 for about a year now I guess and they are still very bright. Plus, SVC sells replacemnt bulbs for 2 or 3 bux if I remember correctly.

Also, SVC is a great company, I've ordered from them before, and I can't say enough about them.

[darktemp]

Thanks for the input Pointdablame.  Sorry to bump such an old thread but I'm still thinking about this one.  Would UV light such as this illuminate a marquee nicely?  http://store.yahoo.com/svcompucycle/v12inch2ccflblack.html
I'll probably be ordering a 120mm fan through them for exhaust anyway and figured I would add this on if it would work.

I was thinking about attaching it to a wooden riser so both 12" lights would run 24" across, halfway up the marquee.

Any more thoughts on this?

[pointdablame]

UV light would glow at a similar rate to the colored light, so in that respect there isn't much difference.  It would probably look pretty good on the marquee.  One thing to think about however is that UV light will affect artwork over time.  UV light will affect art just like long exposure to the sun will, so your art will eventually fade and lose its color vibrancy.

[AlexSledge]

If you are trying to backlight the marquee, just buy a set of the plain white super bright ones, they're only $6 or so, and if they suck toss em. Simple enough. If you're trying to do some "fancy" Tron lighting on the exterior with UV reactive paints, then try the blacklights. As others said, UV will give you fading over time though, but you could add a separate toggle switch somewhere to disable the UV lighting circuit when not needed to impress.

[darktemp]

Thanks guys.  I went ahead and ordered the white ones, I'll let you know how they work out.