Arcade Lighting ???

dr. mr. pants

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hey all,
so after finishing the shitty wood floors i have, priming the walls, painting the ceiling etc, and organizing the game room to v1.1 now its time for lighting...

for the most part the arcade marquees keep it bright enough to function, but once in a while a game is too dim or maybe the monitor is at an angle that does not help show the controls. maybe that area of the arcade is too dim to keep the control panel totally visible, like in the case of my asteroids or tempest games.

anyways, i want to have the vibe of an darker arcade, but bright enough that you can read all of the instruction cards or whatever other text easily.

comfortable, functional, no glare!, and dim enough to feel like an 80's mall arcade...

what can i do? black light a bit? overhead globe style lighting with a rheostat? lamps?

if you have any ideas please help!
thanks.
 
Guess it all depends on your budget, available electrical setup, and taste. ALot of guys here have installed blacklight fixtures to some degree to help give off the arcade vibe, but blacklight is sometimes not the best solution if seeing finer details is your goal.

Out in my garage, I already had three shitty lightbulb sockets up in the ceiling. I needed to make my gameroom feel somewhat more classy and less grungy, so opted for replacing the standard light bulb sockets for some cheap pendant lights. They were like $25 each at Lowe's. I also changed the light switch to a dimmer switch so I could adjust the amount of light if would give off in the room. This was a must in order to play my pinball without being in the dark, or getting too much glare.

I occasionally would just put in three blacklight bulbs in for parties.
 

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budget wise, i guess i would like to just get it right for having people over. i have spent the time getting the power were it needs to be etc. i feel like its the icing on the cake.

in your picture, it looks very close to what i'm thinking, as far as the amount of light. looks really clean too!

when you have done the blacklight thing does it seem like too much, i mean, too over the top, or do people just do some black light around the top of the wall to make more of the cpo's etc glow?

i just saw that post that talked about the EL wires, that looks amazing and cool, but could be used in a cheesy way too.
 
hey all,
so after finishing the shitty wood floors i have, priming the walls, painting the ceiling etc, and organizing the game room to v1.1 now its time for lighting...

for the most part the arcade marquees keep it bright enough to function, but once in a while a game is too dim or maybe the monitor is at an angle that does not help show the controls. maybe that area of the arcade is too dim to keep the control panel totally visible, like in the case of my asteroids or tempest games.

anyways, i want to have the vibe of an darker arcade, but bright enough that you can read all of the instruction cards or whatever other text easily.

comfortable, functional, no glare!, and dim enough to feel like an 80's mall arcade...

what can i do? black light a bit? overhead globe style lighting with a rheostat? lamps?

if you have any ideas please help!
thanks.

I like like that is reflected off the ceiling, put florescent tubes behind wall mounted holders that only shine up. That way you won't get the glare on your screens.
 
i think thats right. my friend painted the ceiling with a dusting of silver paint, so that might make it throw the light pretty nicely. as long as it is diffused enough.
thanks for the help!
 
i think thats right. my friend painted the ceiling with a dusting of silver paint, so that might make it throw the light pretty nicely. as long as it is diffused enough.
thanks for the help!

Depending on the type of silver and how much was applied it will definitely throw it further than standard paint will. It will act similar to a photo flash reflector disc. You should be able to control it pretty well with a bit of creativity in mounting/masking to hit just the right balance.

*e*Also true UV blacklight will only "light up" bits that are UV reactive so yeah, depending on what you want to light it may or may not be the way to go. Standard warnings about being careful how much of a UV light winds up being directed at a person's eyes apply, as it's a wavelength our eyes can't handle and in extreme examples can cause nasty headaches. The ones mc300baud linked are BLB, which are more purple than anything, so those shouldn't be an issue, though they won't make things glow as much as a BLW will.
 
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I have an LED black light, but also had the same issue you're experiencing with my dart board. I wanted just a little bit of location light while keeping the rest of the room dark. I got battery powered LED touch lamps and they do a great job of just lighting up one small area of the gameroom without making it too bright. I left one on and can verify they run about 3 continuous days on 2 AA's.

The light is very diffused and you can put it in an area above the cab to prevent reflection in the bezel. Also, they are just held to the ceiling with a little patch of velcro so if you re-arrange your games its easy to move/remove the lights.

A two pack of these was under $10. I guess the only obvious disadvantage is that you have to be tall enough to reach them on the ceiling.
Room is actually darker than it looks in pic, I had camera set up to try to capture as much detail as possible.

allon3.jpg
 
I have an LED black light, but also had the same issue you're experiencing with my dart board. I wanted just a little bit of location light while keeping the rest of the room dark. I got battery powered LED touch lamps and they do a great job of just lighting up one small area of the gameroom without making it too bright. I left one on and can verify they run about 3 continuous days on 2 AA's.

The light is very diffused and you can put it in an area above the cab to prevent reflection in the bezel. Also, they are just held to the ceiling with a little patch of velcro so if you re-arrange your games its easy to move/remove the lights.

A two pack of these was under $10. I guess the only obvious disadvantage is that you have to be tall enough to reach them on the ceiling.
Room is actually darker than it looks in pic, I had camera set up to try to capture as much detail as possible.

allon3.jpg


WOW nice carpet!
 
If you want to 'sample' blacklight for super-cheap, go to a Walmart and in their section that sells florescent tubes, they have $10 24" blacklights. Cheapest I've ever seen. I bought 4 for my 10x11 room and it lights the place up perfect. But that's 4 of them... Start with one, and add more as needed.

They give off a lot of UV without being too bright, too.
 
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