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I have a 4'x8' table in a dark basement. Are there any good floor lamps to light such a monstrosity?

Look at lighting options for pool/snooker tables?

Or alternatively, those into aquatic hobbies (marine fish or those wishing to cultivate live aquatic plants in freshwater) use metal halide lamps suspended from the ceiling.

I wouldn't think floor lamps would be the way to go, personally, unless it is the only option, as they will present a trip hazard while moving around the table, and you will continually get into your own light.

Any reason you can't install some good ceiling lamps?

one or two of these should do the trick.

I'll second the billiards table lamps (well, ceiling lamp, but you get the idea)

 Cyporiean wrote:
Any reason you can't install some good ceiling lamps?

one or two of these should do the trick.

Cuz I'm lazy?

 malfred wrote:

 Cyporiean wrote:
Any reason you can't install some good ceiling lamps?

one or two of these should do the trick.

Cuz I'm lazy?

These things are stupidly easy to install, took like 10 minutes to put 2 of them up in our garage and made a world of difference in the lighting.

 Cyporiean wrote:


These things are stupidly easy to install, took like 10 minutes to put 2 of them up in our garage and made a world of difference in the lighting.

+1. Easy to install and can be tucked up into the ceiling joists. You definitely want a couple of them (or a four lamp fixture) but they are cheaper than floor lamps and are completely out of the way.

T

The other option, which I have in my man shed, is LED lighting fixtures, they are a bit more intensive (requires about one and a half hours work for 4) but provide really good lighting, which can be dimmable.

The halogen floor lamps will work. They do tend to heat the room they're in though. I used to have one that was great lighting for painting all by itself.




Hmmm... you might want to find one used. I just looked at Lowes.com and they're ridiculously expensive for some reason. They used to be ~$50.

Maybe they've made them safer over the years?

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-09-20/business/0709180287_1_halogen-lamps-torchiere

 malfred wrote:
Maybe they've made them safer over the years?

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-09-20/business/0709180287_1_halogen-lamps-torchiere

Warning: Construction Nerd - TL : DR potentially ahead.


I know you can't buy true halogen's open topped lamps in MA anymore, where i live. The ones available either don't have an exposed bulb (which probably means the higher cost as noted), or aren't really halogen bulbs.

Mostly they are safe if you clean them regularly. The danger with them is that the halogen's obviously run very very hot. Dust particulate in the space that is disturbed gets airborne, and collects in the halogen pan and on the bulb itself (along with insect carcasses, which is nasty). This provides a source of combustion and thus presents a fire hazard. In particular i wouldn't use one of these in a semi-finished /unfinished basement, as that particulate will settle and then when you use the space, will be disturbed, kicking up a lot of particulate. You may never have an issue with it (i never did, when i used them), but if you do, you'll regret it.

If you have a drop ceiling (so a lattice network of aluminum grid, with some tiles that rest on the lips of the grid), or even exposed joists in the ceiling, i'd go with the hung fluorescent lamp setup.

Just note that tube fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, so breakage is a hazard, and the expended tubes need to be disposed properly to avoid health hazard to both people and the surrounding environment.

Installation should be ridiculously easy even for people who are not tool inclined - in a ceiling joist setup (so where the wooden floor network is exposed, possibly with insulation between the wooden joists), just drill two eye hooks into the joists so the lamp chains can slip over the hooks - two should do it, but you can triple or quadruple up if there is enough chain and you're paranoid (or the lamp is exceptionally heavy). In a drop ceiling environment, it should still be easy but just make sure that the attachment method hooks OVER the grid lattice somehow, and doesn't just rest on it.

The reason for this is that if it just rests on the grid, over time on the first floor, normal walking, running, and other movement can disturb the attachment, which can cause it to slip and then fall. Which is never a good situation, but for a lamp hanging over a gaming table (possibly with minis on it) is just about the worst case scenario. You want to make sure that under normal conditions this thing has zero chance of losing it's anchor and falling.

Drop ceiling grids are all different, so some will be easier to accommodate lamps like this than others. most do have some method of allowing for small chain and wire to pass through. They're designed to make it easy to get to the sub floor plumbing and piping of the first floor of the house, but also to provide lighting access for the basement beneath.

Final note on drop ceilings: if your house is really old, you may want to avoid screwing with the drop ceiling. Some old ACT (acoustical ceiling tile) can have asbestos and even if they don't have asbestos, they can have other really nasty gak in it. At the least, wear a dust mask when working with ACT. If your house is older than early eighties (to be safe), i'd proceed with extreme caution. Lung cancer is not worth a bitchin' gaming space.

If the ceiling is finished drywall (which i can't imagine it is.... the space is dark / unlit ... usually you only see drywall ceilings in highly finished basements, which means pot lighting, which would make the lighting issue moot), then you'll have to find a joist with a stud-finder, and anchor with hardware to that, through the drywall. Anchoring into a joist can be tricky as they run in such a way that the skinny side is what is facing the floor below, so be extra, extra sure you've hit the joist, and not just through the drywall (which over time won't have enough strength to hold the lamp). A stud finder will help, but using the "knock test" to be sure is good too (knock on the ceiling across a section of a couple feet... when you've hit the joist the sound of the echo of the knock will have more "meat" to it and sound less hollow).



If you tell us a bit more about the space, we might be able to offer some more useful solutions.


-- Haight

The lighting isn't terrible, but it isn't great.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
editL Those lights aren't as bright as they appear, and if you
game at night, reading a card or cards might be a strain.

Honestly man, I'd find a home improvement store and look for something to just replace those fixtures. A good directional flood ought to do fairly well, or a replacement of track lighting? they're both pretty easy to install.

Will second that. You have two ceiling fixtures in the room already. Replacing those with something is a 30 minute job with 25 being spent getting the step ladder, tools and unpacking the lights.

Big box home stores (Lowes, Home Depot, Menards, Ace...) will have a dozen different options to choose from, where 90% just screw right on the existing ceiling box.

You have to kill power to the lights (wall switch is normally all I bother with, but the circuit breaker is the safer option). After that, 3 wire nuts and a couple of screws to switch around from the old to the new.

If you dont want to be bothered with that, you can normally get light bulbs with a higher lumens output that will fit in the existing fixture. CFL and LED lights are capable of producing more light and still remaining cool enough to work in the socket. A lot of those are limited to 60 incandescent bulbs, which dont produce much light but a CFL will produce much more light using only 20 watts of power (and the related heat from the integral balast). It might not fit under the glass dome though, but you can get replacements for that which give more room for the larger lights.

Yeah, replacing the fixtures is your best bet.

Gotta agree with replacing the fixtures. There's a lot of cool 'industrial' styled ones on the market nowadays that make it look nice and 'techy' for a man-cave. A fun option would be to also pick up a Phillips Hue kit so you have LED lighting you can control from your phone with a wide spectrum of colors to choose from on-demand...

Since all the sensible options have been pretty well covered, I'm gonna go with:

Candles! Hundreds of candles. They'll really add a nice, gothic look to the place which will be thematically appropriate for many tabletop games.

If you have normal incandescent fixtures, get some of these bulbs. I love them.

http://www.amazon.com/KAEZI-Watt-Studio-Light-5500K/dp/B00BISL11U/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1387923105&sr=8-3-fkmr0&keywords=85+watt+ccfl

I am pretty sure this is the same one I own, just rebranded - I have an 85 watt one from Alzo Digital that is also 85 watts/4250 lumens. It feels about like a 200 watt bulb to me. Note that it is almost as big as a roll of paper towels. are the bulbs sideways under that dome? If so, this won't work for you unless you just put it in a lamp.

I have mine in a freestanding lamp where the glass is at the top and the base of the bulb is at the bottom. The instructions say if you mount it opposite to that it will reduce the lifespan since it gets warm, I guess. It's rated for 6000 hours which is pretty solid for a $13 bulb (I paid $19 6 months ago).

Schmapdi wrote:
Since all the sensible options have been pretty well covered, I'm gonna go with:

Candles! Hundreds of candles. They'll really add a nice, gothic look to the place which will be thematically appropriate for many tabletop games.

Funny you should mention that. One of my favorite minis is PP's' Maelok the Dreadbound, a zombiefied
gatorman Necromancer.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ouze: I'll try that before I go and do anything crazy, like learn how to fix stuff.

If those sockets are sideways in the fixtures, or you have some problem, rock one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Woods-0151-8-5-Inch-Reflector-150-Watt/dp/B000HHQ94C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387924549&sr=8-1&keywords=clamp+lamp

Take off the reflector, orient the bulb up, call it a day, I say. It will look kinda poor aesthetically, but it IS in a basement, and the price is right, right around $20 all in.

Replace at least one of those fixtures with four bulb fluorescents.

http://www.homedepot.com/b/N-5yc1v/Ntk-All/Ntt-fluorescent%2Blight%2Bfixture?keyword=%23+%23+fluorescent+light+fixture

Thanks guys. I'll try brighter bulbs first. See what goes.

Little bit late back to this party, but yeah, new fixtures is definitely the way to go.

As another note, my GF and I share an 'office/hobby/studio space in one end of our basement.We migrated from older cheap fluorescent bulbs to slightly nicer (but still affordable) bulbs last year and it made a huge difference. The whole area lost the yellow cast and looks much brighter and friendlier now. Better bulbs can make a huge difference.

No shoplight to hang above"? A room I rented a while back didnt have a ceiling light so I got a few lightweight LED shoplights and put them on the ceiling and ran the cord along the ceiling and down the wall so it looked "neat" without hanging wires (the lights themselves fir snug against the drywall) to the outlet that ran off of the switch. if you dont have one of those switches, run a powerstrip up to meet the cord from an outlet and you'll have an easy on/off switch there. The ones i got from home depot said you could hook 4 together but i only needed 2 for the room i was in. Just for the table playing area, two would more than cover your need.