Lighting Your Game Room

D_Harris

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I'm about to pick up some bulbs and was curious as to what others here use to light their game rooms, outside of the the conventional incandescent and unconventional black light.

There may not be a perfect solution, but it would be nice to have an option with a good color temp and is efficient, even if expensive on the front end.

It seems that there are disadvantages, no matter what you go with. Bulbs are wither energy wasters, put out poor lighting, or are hard to dispose of without having to wear a Hazmat suit.

I'm considering getting some CFLs. Specifically the "Daylight" versions I saw over at Home Depot, and I was interested in recommendations. (I'm even wondering if the bulbs that simulate "daylight" or "natural light" will increase the rate of cabinet artwork fading). :D

I guess Halogen is out, but I'm also looking into LED lighting. I just don't recall seeing those bulbs in any stores.

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
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As I am in the garage, I don't have fancy fixtures like others with "shops", basemements, or interior gamerooms. However, making do with what I had, and using only basic lightbulbs, I decided replacing the crappy lightbulb sockets with a some pendant fixtures gave it that swanky feel that shifted the garage's look from industrial to inviting. Depending on the mood of the party, I've used color-changing LED bulbs in there, black light bulbs (shown in pic), or standard. Whatever color or style of bulb you use, I highly recommend installing a dimmer switch, especially if you have a pinball.
 

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Home Depot and Lowes carry LED bulbs but they are not cheap. They can be dimmed easily though and compared to CFL's, need no warm up of course.

In my gameroom, I run pot lights with incadescents, but I also have a neon sign and a gas pump display case that give off more then enough light. So my pot lights are usually dimmed way down with everything including the games on.
 
I'm realizing I have over thought my game room lighting.

With all my games on, I already have enough ambient light from the monitors and marquees.
 
i will post a link to a youtube video that shows mine.. its second hand office lighting. THe 4 foot type.. 4 lamps per light. 3 light units total in my arcade. THe nice thing about it is theres a ballast per 2 lamps, so i have the ballasts wired seperately, and have 2 blacklight lamps and 2 regular lamps per light. THis allows me to have blacklights on, or regular lights on, depending on what im doing all just by a flip of a switch.


edit: here ya go

 
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I have so many games with huge marquees and flourescents (cough cough virtual on and pokemon catch cough) that the room is bright enough to read in with no extra light. So I just keep them switched off unless I'm working on a game.
 
i just used some basic accent lights from walmart. bought some red bulbs and set em up behind the tops of the games. the walls are painted red, the red lights gives it a cool satans hollow feel :)

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Ok, I gather from the responses that not many are concerned with bulb efficiency.

The biggest issue with me is how much cheaper it is to use the CFLs over the incandescent bulbs.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
Go get a Fiber glass clown head,put a cfl in the head,hang it above the seating area,DONE!
 

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Go get a Fiber glass clown head,put a cfl in the head,hang it above the seating area,DONE!

That's downright freaky. Someone take a baseball bat to that thing.

BTW, CFLs are on average a factor of 4 cheaper than incandescent bulbs. If you can live with a slow startup time (especially in a cold garage), your electric bill will thank you for it.
 
That's downright freaky. Someone take a baseball bat to that thing.

BTW, CFLs are on average a factor of 4 cheaper than incandescent bulbs. If you can live with a slow startup time (especially in a cold garage), your electric bill will thank you for it.

CFL's are nice in that they use much less valuable amperage too. Good luck trying to run x number of games and 500 watts of incandescent lighting on the same circuit...

My gameroom utilizes 12 separate lamp sockets throughout. If I ran 60watt lamps throughout that is 720watts or approx 6amps...Considering a standard 15 amp circuit running at 80% maximum continuous load comes to 12 amps, 6 amps is 1/2 the circuits available power... If replaced all 12 60w incandescent with 60w equivalent CFL's, that is 13w x 12 for a total of 156w or about 1.3amp... I personally wanted something "less bright"... though some of the lamps have colored bulbs...

6 colored bulbs x 13w = 78w
6 non-colored 40w equivalents x 7w = 49w

Total: 127w or just a hair over a single amp. 6 amps vs 1.05 amps... just switching to CFL's enables 3 additional 1.5 amp games to be powered from the same circuit.
 
This is from a 2009 article based on bulb costs of $.34 per incandescent (seems about right) cfl for $1.24 (i don't think you can get them for that) and an LED bulb at $119 (obviously cheaper now) and electricity based on $ .10 per kw hour.

Thus, the total cost of a 60 watt incandescent bulb over a 30,000 hour lifespan is $187.82.
Thus, the total cost of a CFL bulb over a 30,000 hour lifespan is $43.65.
Thus, the total cost of an LED bulb over a 30,000 hour lifespan is $144.49.

Standard incandescent bulbs The CFL used here has a lifetime of 1,300 hours, so we would need 23 bulbs over the period of this study. I was able to purchase a single incandescent of this type for $0.34, so our total cost for bulbs over 30,000 hours would be $7.82.

As it uses 60 watts, over a period of 30,000 hours, an incandescent bulb would use 1,800,000 watt hours, or 1,800 kilowatt hours. At the current approximate price of $0.10 per kilowatt hour, you would have to pay $180.00 to run an incandescent bulb over this period.

Thus, the total cost of a 60 watt incandescent bulb over a 30,000 hour lifespan is $187.82.

CFL bulbs The CFL used here has a lifetime of 8,000 hours, so we would need 3.75 bulbs over the period of this study. I was able to purchase a single CFL for $1.24, so our total cost for bulbs over 30,000 hours would be $4.65.

As it uses 13 watts, over a period of 30,000 hours, a CFL bulb would use 390,000 watt hours, or 390 kilowatt hours. At the current approximate price of $0.10 per kilowatt hour, you would have to pay $39.00 to run a CFL bulb over this period.

Thus, the total cost of a CFL bulb over a 30,000 hour lifespan is $43.65.

LED bulbs The LED bulb used here has a lifetime of 30,000 hours, so we would need only one bulb over the period of this study. Unfortunately, that single bulb has a cost of $119.99.

As it uses 7.5 watts, over a period of 30,000 hours, an LED bulb would use 245,000 watt hours, or 245 kilowatt hours. At the current approximate price of $0.10 per kilowatt hour, you would have to pay $24.50 to run an LED bulb over this period.

Thus, the total cost of an LED bulb over a 30,000 hour lifespan is $144.49.
 
I have been researching a lot on the topic of LED's since I run 6 - 100W floodlight bulbs.

Two things I found out. The theoretical 30,000 hour rate for the LED bulbs is laughable the power supply circuit burns out way before the LEDs and in many cases within a few months. Just google it.

Second thing is that the LED's are being advertised as drop-in replacement for 100W bulbs. While they may fit in a 100W slot, they do not yet replace a 100W bulb. You biggest concern is Lumen output, which is how much light a bulb puts out. LEDs typically only put out half as much light as other bulbs. This is a concern for me since I have a large area to light. Cutting that light output in half would not be acceptable.

That being said, I light my gameroom with the 6 - 100W floodlights on a dimmer circuit. About the games I have equally placed neons and lighted signs for additional lighting effect When I wired the gameroom, I put the lights on a separate circuit breaker from those the games are running on.
 
i just used some basic accent lights from walmart. bought some red bulbs and set em up behind the tops of the games. the walls are painted red, the red lights gives it a cool satans hollow feel :)

018-4.jpg

Off topic comment: That is a sweet row of Powell Peraltas. The McGill was my first skate deck. we went to Woodward together
 
The theoretical 30,000 hour rate for the LED bulbs is laughable the power supply circuit burns out way before the LEDs and in many cases within a few months. Just google it.

Really? I replaced all of my upstairs can lights with these about a year ago, and my family loves them. Mostly because they don't have to listen to me bitching about turning the lights off anymore. I think I worked out a 5-year payback, and I like not having to replace bulbs. They look better, and they're actually a little brighter. My wife hated CFLs - she wants a light to turn ON.
 
I think I just shat myself. What the hell is that thing and why haven't you killed it with fire yet. Just kidding......a little bit. Nothing says says scary as hell as a clown. I think fear of clowns is the second most common phobia right after the #1 phobia of being killed by a clown. ;)

And just to be helpful to the conversation. If the area is large, black lights with black light reactive carpeting is hard to beat. Me personally, I think recessed can lighting looks awesome if the area has drop in ceilings that are about 10 feet high with at least 3 feet above them for the cans. It gives a very art studio feel to it if done properly.

Go get a Fiber glass clown head,put a cfl in the head,hang it above the seating area,DONE!
 
I like those Powell-Peralta decks on the wall! Looks like a mix of old and new?


i just used some basic accent lights from walmart. bought some red bulbs and set em up behind the tops of the games. the walls are painted red, the red lights gives it a cool satans hollow feel :)

018-4.jpg
 
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