Arcade Lighting Question, Looking for input

Guru-420

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We are currently remodeling our arcade (actually moving into a commercial space) and we are considering our lighting scheme. Due to cost, we are forgoing the black light reactive carpeting, but are still considering doing black lights to react with our wall designs. We currently have 50 single 48" fixtures around the perimeter, as well as another 50+ running though the center of the space. (pics are of the entire space, there is a wall going up to section off 1/3 for shop/storage).

The walls are being painted now, and the drop ceiling tiles will also be painted. There will be carpet, but not black light carpet.

Wondering if there is such thing as too much black light? Anyone experiment with the colored tube covers (not looking for BLB effect from these, just light/color variation)? Will the 2 light types mix OK as long as the normal lighting isn't overpowering the BLB effects?
 

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There can be such a thing as too much black light. I'm running five, 4 foot double bulb black light fixtures in my arcade with T12 bulbs. It looks cool, but anything more then this for my space would be overkill. The monitors on some games also react poorly to black light. Like when I had my centipede it left the monitor all washed out and blacks were "grey", but that's mainly due to the proximity of where the row of bulbs were and that row of games .

The real pain in the ass is swapping the bulbs out for regular bulbs when I want to film or work on a project. When I do this next time in my next place I'm going to double up on the fixtures and have one bank for regular daylight bulbs and another for the black lights, both on separate switches. Maybe even splitting the black lights over multiple switches too.

One other thing that has been really helpful was putting multiple outlets up in the roof for other fancy moving lights, neons, and the occasional time I need to plug-in power for a camera or lighting rig to film a game/restore.

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We do plan on having some white light available for when we are cleaning and such. ChanceKJ, I think your pics tell me exactly what I needed to hear/see, there can be too much and you probably should have a lot of black light reactive items or it looks a bit out of place. Besides, it doesn't look like pure black light really does well when folks are taking pictures.

Does anyone have any experience with the gel tubes you can get to make your fluorescent bulbs look colored? They are significantly cheaper than BLBs, and I think they'd look decent if done properly, but I'd like a 2nd opinion.
 
I don't know where to get them, but we used those color covers at my grandparents place. they're also an MF to put the bulbs in the fixtures with them lol

message me later
 
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