# black light- flood lights



## Lilly

Has anyone ever used black light flood lights ? they are 75 watts. do they light up good , how far away can you set them from objects for good lighting?


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## Beepem

yes i have.

100% dissapointed in them. they are a purple lightbulb. lol, i do not suggest them.


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## nicole

get the flourescent lights. they work much better, and walmart sells 18" with the fixture for like $12.00


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## THeme ssaGE

ya the fat bulb in the flood light sucks, your way excited when you plug it in and then its just like nicole said theres a purple light bulb.


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## Lilly

ok cool thanks for the info


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## turtle2778

Thank god you asked that ? Lilly. I just purchased 10 fo them for 5 bucks each. They are sooo going back. I had heard that if you use a blue light or green it works much better, any thoughts on that one guys. If i used a plain one and just colored it blue do you think that would work???


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## Beepem

5 bucks each? you got riiped off bad! some people......

turtle that makes no sense to me, those would only produce blues and greens in the visible spectrum. for real blacklight you need a fluorsecent bulb which will give off non visible light in the ultraviolet area of the spectrum

and painting lightbulbs makes for an easy fire


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## Lilly

You are talking flood lights right turtle? just buy the colored ones dont paint them, they shine whatever color the lense is, and yes u can use those for lighting instead of blacklight just gives different effect. mix or match.

I guess i will be going with the standard blackilght tube theory if i go that route.


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## turtle2778

Yeah, i am talking about "blacklights" I got them at Factory Card Outlet. They are supposedly blacklight floods. I was trying to get a larger area so i went for the floodlight, after seeing this ill just return the ones i have and go get blue or green colored floods. I didnt check to see if it was true UV reflective so ill never know. Thanks again for helping me out.


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## SpectreTTM

Those Purple Bulbs "are just that" purple bulbs.

Here are a few Links to black light Floods .

Day ain't cheap.

http://www.blacklight.com/blacklightfixtures

http://www.cheaplights.com/catalog/01_info.php?sec=118

My 2 cents

Wal-Mart fixtures or mini UV spots that people sell from time to time on prop boards. 
If I remember correctly Zombie-F has a how to somewhere. Not sure about the how 
to but I know he is pretty versed in their construction.


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## Beepem

theyre not cheap but theyre also an amazing wattage

bu i suggest using the 24" fixtures


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## DeadSpider

Lilly said:


> Has anyone ever used black light flood lights ? they are 75 watts. do they light up good , how far away can you set them from objects for good lighting?


WWAAYY sucky. Hate them. They get very hot, and do not work.

Only buy true BLB(blacklight blue) Blacklites. These dark blue bulbs have a filter built in to them that will prevent most of the white light from being transmitted.

The past season we bought compact flourescent BLB blacklites, they are spiral in shape. They work great, and best of all you can use them in standard lite sockets.


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## Kaeleb

*Day late...dollar short*

I wish I had seen this forum sooner. I got taken for $5.99 x 2 for cheap, crappy "blacklight" floods. All I got were purple bulbs, like the above posters said. Looks like I'm going shopping again.
Anybody use the free standing 48" flourescent blacklights that Spirit Store sells? They look pretty decent..

My first post! Waaa-Hooo!:jol: 
~K


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## kerryike

I bought a black fixture at Halloween 2 years ago with dual 48" flourescent tubes (and included 2 light duty chains for hanging). I bought it for less than $20 at Big Lots It has great output! The Big Lots store around here closed last fall...but I should have bought more.


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## ScareySuzie

when you guys say flouresent lights, do you mean like what they have in the store (in the ceiling) Just those regular long white flouresent bulbs?


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## halfcracked

ScarySuzie
The lights they are talking about work under the same principle as the long white ones EXCEPT there is no flourescent coating on the inside & they are often colored purple. There are also "compact Flourescent" blacklites they are a version of the regular blacklite flourescent bulb that is wound around itself.

what we mean by a "Blacklight" is a light source that emits primarily UltraVoilet light. 

The reason Incandescent BL bulbs suck so hard it that they are full spectrum light sources that have been filtered to block wavelenghts outside of the ultravoilet. That means up to 95% of the light energy produced is blocked. It also means that all that blocked light energy has to go somewhere & transforms into HEAT energy. That's why Incandescents run so hot.

Flourescent bulbs on the other hand work by arcing electricity through a reactive gas. When the gas is excited by the arc it emits UV light. A normal light up your office flourescent has a coating on the inside of the glass that Flouresces under UV light & that gives off the visible light that is seen. To make a flourescent BL they leave out the floruescant coating & paint it purple (because that's what people ecpect to see and it helps filter the small portion that falls outside the UV bandwith). So you can see rather than plocking 90% of the light out put yu get like 90% throughput with flourescents. They work better & run much cooler (not cold mind you).

There are proffesional BL spots but they actually work like the Flourescent variety. Oh & if you go googling for BL spots be careful; there are some spots that work Beyond the SAFE frequencies & must be used with special eye protection. INTENSE UV light can blind before you realize what's happening.

Best solution for general Haunt use it to get the 4' Flourescent BL's for large areas & the CF BL's for smaller areas. Both will put out a Stunning amount of UV light if all you've ever used is the old screw-in incandescent bulbs. Le incandescent "BL" spots believe it or not to my experience are even worse than the 100 watt bulb variety.

so for UV out put it's like this (from low to high):
1 purple spotlights
2 Blacklight spotlights
3 blacklight bulb (100 watt inc.)
4 blacklight compact flourescent
5 4' blacklight flourescent
6 Profe$$ional $tage Lighting Apparatu$
7 Industrial UV emmitters (DANGEROUS!!!! blinding/3rd deg sunburns)


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## wilbret

I picked up one of these last year for 69 bucks.










It is by far the best light I have, but two 48" bulbs in a shoplight work exceptionally well too. I am at a black light surplus now.


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## Long_Tom

A compact fluorescent blacklight in a round aluminum reflector "clamp-light" or "brooder light" throws a surprisingly large amount of UV for a mere 13-15 watts. That is probably because the reflector concentrates all the light in a single direction.

Home Depot has the big 10-1/2 inch "brooder" reflectors available now for about 12 dollars each (bulb not included) as well as some smaller sizes ranging from5-10 dollars. I picked up three of these this Saturday. They are big and ugly, but they throw the black light where you need it, and hang off tree branches and the like with the greatest of ease.


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## incubus0

Long_Tom said:


> A compact fluorescent blacklight in a round aluminum reflector "clamp-light" or "brooder light" throws a surprisingly large amount of UV for a mere 13-15 watts...


I was just going to post the same thing.

The neighbor kids and I made a specter for an upstairs window last night, and I had picked up 2 clamp-light reflectors for some 15W screw-in type fluorescent black lights, but after hooking it up, I realized we only needed one to make that sucker glow nice and bright. Just clamped one on the windowsill and you can see it clearly from the street.


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## edwood saucer

Its amazing what information comes out of a small thread. Great input from everyone.


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## Long_Tom

One other thing about clamp lights from Home Depot: I have had bad luck in the past with the ones that have the switch built into the socket. I had four of those, and the switch jammed in all of them. My new ones don't have a switch. To turn them off, you have to pull the plug. That's fine with me: one less thing to break.


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## incubus0

Long_Tom said:


> One other thing about clamp lights from Home Depot: I have had bad luck in the past with the ones that have the switch built into the socket. I had four of those, and the switch jammed in all of them. My new ones don't have a switch. To turn them off, you have to pull the plug. That's fine with me: one less thing to break.


The 2 I picked up yesterday have the swith in the base of the lamp portion. It's the type where you push one side and it comes out the other.









And the specter, of course...


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## Long_Tom

Nice job on the specter! 

Good luck with the switches; maybe they've fixed the quality since back when mine were breaking (several years ago).


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## UnderMan

By building a reflector you can direct (or flood) the blacklight. Just use a large cheap plastic bowl, spray paint it with silver paint for plastics, cut a hole in it for the base and voila. Well you may need to do a little modification to give it some stability near the base, but otherwise, instant blacklight floodlight.


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## Gory Corey

halfcracked said:


> ScarySuzie
> so for UV out put it's like this (from low to high):
> 1 purple spotlights
> 2 Blacklight spotlights
> 3 blacklight bulb (100 watt inc.)
> 4 blacklight compact flourescent
> 5 4' blacklight flourescent
> 6 Profe$$ional $tage Lighting Apparatu$
> 7 Industrial UV emmitters (DANGEROUS!!!! blinding/3rd deg sunburns)


You forgot to add UV LED bulbs which fall depending on LEDS involved between 4 and 6, are very affordable, and last up to 100k hours


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## Scary Godmother

Does anyone know if the compact fluorescent blacklight (twisted type) bulbs are in any stores? I know I can get them online, but would like to grab some quickly this weekend so I don't have to wait for shipping.:jol:


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## Gory Corey

I saw some mentions of folks buying them in some other threads, so I would think so.


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## Sickie Ickie

I'm still not convinced of their strength over incandescents


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## Gory Corey

Sickie Ickie said:


> I'm still not convinced of their strength over incandescents


CF blacklights over those lame incandescent "blacklght" bulbs?
No comparision!

I use the CF lamps (both power twists from 23 watt Damar and 13 watt Feit, and 20 watt circline from LOA) at trade shows to show off the MinionsWeb WebStix product line.
You can see the glow without trying under house lighting in convention halls.

Those incandescent blacklights (round and "flood") are just finger burners with nearly no output.


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## Revenant

Sickie Ickie said:


> I'm still not convinced of their strength over incandescents


Those incandescent "blacklight" bulbs are worthless, Sickie; always were, always will be. There is no way an incandescent could ever compete with a flourescent bulb, ever, because they produce only the tiniest trace of UV. Go back to page 2 and reread halfcracked's post, it['s all explained. The only reason the incandescent "blacklights" were ever invented at all was for people who didn't have flourescent lighting fixtures and needed something that would screw into their regular lamps. Well, someone finally invented flouros that screw into regular sockets, so there's no need for those crappy incandescents anymore. They're obsolete and a waste of money; I wish they'd stop making them so people stop getting ripped off.


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## Sickie Ickie

The only one I was referring to was the twisted ones. I've seen them in action at menards and they had no real UV power, similar to the crappy incandescent ones. I agree the latter is a bad buy, hence the comparison.


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## Gory Corey

Do you remember which brand that cruddy one was?
Be a good thing to know and be able to avoid them.


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## Sickie Ickie

Well Gory, to be honest- everyone here may be convincing me to re-evaluate my previous thought.  If everyone thinks it works well, I'm thinking one of two things- either the bulb I have seen doesn't have much life in it anymore, or the other light is washing out the effects of the blacklight. I just may gamble and pay the $7 to find out myself.


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## Gory Corey

I know some people will make coffee can reflectors for them on the light stakes.

And as far as light washing out glow goes, I know it can be a pain.
There are 6 street lights within 300 feet of my front yard, it kills me.


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## JustMatt

Last year I had one of the 48" blacklight tubes, five of the 12" blacklight tubes, one of the mini blacklight loops, and a couple blacklight floods. Looked good, but "lots" of power and about half of my outlets just to make things glow - sortof. I think I'll have fewer of them this year.

Pictures here: http://schie2k.com/08bc2580.jpg
More pix here: http://schie2k.com/id15.htm


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