Marquee light, too....white?

[Onji]

Hey guys, I did a search on this but didnt find any definate advice. I have a standard 18" 15w florescent fixture/bulb for my marquee, and ive never liked it. It just doesnt make the marquee look good at all. Its either too much white, or washed out or something. My question is, what type of bulb/fixture did you use to light your marquee? Does blacklight work best? I'm just stumped here. My entire fixture recently went completely out, so now is a good a time as ever to go ahead and get something i'll like. The marquee is from mamemarquees.com and its awesome, i just need to light it correctly.

Here is a pic of the cab with the lights in the room off, you can see what i'm talking about:

[Gameboy.au]

I used a 16" workshop light that runs off a 12V car battery, and then changed the fluro to a 'cool white' colour.  It's a slightly blue white light and does the job for keeping the colours accurate nicely, however, It's not bright enough for my liking.  

From looking at yours, I assume that you don't like the fact it's too bright.

It's an interesting one.  I might ask a couple of arcade repairers (1 is just up the road from work) and get back to you.

[Onji]

I used a 16" workshop light that runs off a 12V car battery, and then changed the fluro to a 'cool white' colour.  It's a slightly blue white light and does the job for keeping the colours accurate nicely, however, It's not bright enough for my liking.  

From looking at yours, I assume that you don't like the fact it's too bright.

It's an interesting one.  I might ask a couple of arcade repairers (1 is just up the road from work) and get back to you.

Yes i believe too bright may have been the description i was looking for, and light not distributed evenly. I would love to keep the colors accurate. I would like something i can just plug into a powerstrip, using a car battery doesnt really sound that appealing
I appreciate the offer of asking a repairer, that would be great, thanks!

[pointdablame]

Why not take some paper and cover the back of the marquee a bit so that it diffuses the light and dulls it slightly?

You could use a thicker or thinner paper or multiple sheets until you get the brightness you need, and could use colored paper if you wanted to give the light a slight tint.

[Onji]

whoa, i never thought of this! i'll give that a shot and see how it turns out, thanks man

[Ken Layton]

Commercial arcade game light fixtures are standardized on "Cool White" fluorescents. Don't buy anything else like those 'warm white or daylight, etc as they just don't look right.

[mred84]

My cabinet has a Philips TLD 15W color 33 (coolwhite) as a backlight.
It came with the cabinet.

Its best to use a TLD in stead of a lightbulb. A lightbulb shine's fine in the center but it goes dark aroung the edges. With an TLD the spread of light is even.

[papaschtroumpf]

home improvement stores sell sheets of diffusing plastic (it textured, like frosted glass) used in suspended ceiling fuloescent fixtures (about 4x2 feet). They work wonders for that purpose.
Not sure about the price because mine came of a broekn one that I got for free.
Of course this became a moot point after I put a "black light" (UV light) fluorescent bulb behind the marquee. It looked 100% and didn't have a bright spot anymore (I removed the diffuser with the UV light).

[REBIRTH]

A couple of thoughts:

1)  From the picture (may not be true) it looks like the light is much smaller than the marquee - it looks like the middle of the marquee is too bright, and by the right/left sides it isn't lit enough (too dark)?  If so, get a florescent light as long as the marquee so the whole thing will be an even brightness

2)  As for the middle being too bright - most of the earlier replies are right on, get a light diffuser of some sort (either a real plastic light diffuser, or paper, etc.).  My marquee is printed on backlit film, and when I lit it up from the back originally I had the same issue - it was washed out.  I had extra backlit film attached to the printed marquee (from Kinkos) so I cut a second sheet out, same size as the marquee (blank part, just white backlit film) and placed that behind the marquee and now it looks perfect.  This is the same idea as a diffuser or paper.

Good luck

[RayB]

I don't know why, but both my generic cab and my Galaga cab have regular house lightbulb fixtures (for regular incandescent lightbulbs). Weird eh?

[Tailgunner]

I don't know why, but both my generic cab and my Galaga cab have regular house lightbulb fixtures (for regular incandescent lightbulbs). Weird eh?

Not as weird as you think. My Ikari Warriors cab had an incandescent fixture in it. Dynamo built that cab, so there's a fair chance they used them in lots of cabs.