Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Arcade Collecting => Miscellaneous Arcade Talk => Topic started by: GameOver on August 25, 2006, 09:38:08 pm
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I'm taking the dive - I'm having the local carpet place come out to put in some blacklight carpet in my basement. My basement is already finished, so really just replacing the existing carpeting. My question is for those who already have blacklight carpeting - how many blacklights are enough to get a good blacklight effect? The room I'm doing is about 12' x 19'. I'm thinking two fluorescent fixtures, each with two 4ft blackligh tubes should do it.
Can anyone who has blacklight carpeting comment on their setup as far as lighting goes? If I'm going thru the expense of having the carpet done I sure as heck want to be able to see the glow but don't want to over do it either.
And are there any other blacklight solutions other than fluorescent tubes? I saw some 'blacklight cannons' on the internet...not sure if something like this would work too.
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There are also blacklight lamp-bulbs but they work a lot less then tubes.
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The carpet guy came to measure today. After he finished I went to the carpet shop to look at the pics of their choices again and the guy whipped out blacklight carpet SAMPLES! There were about 7 of them, each 6" square. I was so excited! OF course I stopped on the way home from work and got a black light to properly test these suckers. My eyes LIT UP when I held the black light over the samples - they were BEAUTIFUL! It was tough picking between them, but I settled on this one. It gave me the best 80's vibe....and looked awesome under the blacklight... ;D
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I did a *lot* of reasearch on this when I put in mine, in a similarly sized room. I went with 2 fixtures, with 2 4' tubes each. Use the tubes, don't use the bulbs.
I get a nice reaction from the carpet, but it's not extremely vibrant. If I really wanted to draw it out, I would use 2 fixtures of 4 tubes each (total of 8 tubes instead of 4).
HOWEVER -- prolonged black light exposure may be bad for the eyes, possibly seriously. If I still have them bookmarked at home I will post the discussions I found about the topic. It concerned me enough that I decided to go for a lighter blacklight touch than originally planned. I decided to use the 2 fixtures of 2 tubes, combined with regular lighting on a dimmer, along with the ambient lighting from the games. It looks great, you instantly get that "I'm back in the 80's" feel, but you *don't* get that back-of-Spencer's total black light immersion.
I'll look for the links I found when I'm home. I could be entirely wrong about the risk, but decided to be better safe than sorry.
--- saint
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It's also bad for your games' artwork. Talk about accelerated fading.
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I get a nice reaction from the carpet, but it's not extremely vibrant. If I really wanted to draw it out, I would use 2 fixtures of 4 tubes each (total of 8 tubes instead of 4).
HOWEVER -- prolonged black light exposure may be bad for the eyes, possibly seriously.
Too bad there's no way to 'floor light' the carpet with the blacklights so you could get a really good pop out of the carpet without potentially destroying your eyes.
But with all the games in your room, you'd have to have the blacklights mounted to the bottom perimeter of the cabs themselves to really light up everything, I'd guess.