Animal Lighting!

[Gazlights]

Hello Peeps! Hope you are all good and enjoying the lovely sunshine atm!

 

Quick post looking for a bit of advice. I am working on a project at the moment and we are trying to light the inside of a full size fibreglass rhino. The rhino has holes drilled into it and we are trying to get a decent effect of light shining though the holes.

 

Previously someone had used a simple light fitting with 100w bulb or something similar and this caused problems with smells of heated/melting fibreglass.

 

I have been tasked to find a low cost/low heat solution to this problem. It has been suggested that we use something like this:

 

Led Par

 

Personally I dont feel this will work as its a full size rhino and directional light probably wouldnt give an even effect and we would need more than one raising the cost. I also have concerns about wether an LED fixture would be bright/even enough.

 

Ideally I'm guessing we would need something like two floods back to back but this would give heat and power issues. everything is pointing towards Led. Another thought I had was buying wide angle gu10 type lamps and fittings for the legs underbally and wiring it to 13a.

 

the solution needs to run of a 13a supply......

 

I have added photos of the rhino. You can see the hole in the unerbelly and there are holes at the bottom of each leg :huh:

 

What do you reckon Blue Room? Any help or suggestions would be brilliant......even more brilliant with links :blink:

 

G :)

 

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e257/gazlights/Rhino1.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e257/gazlights/rhino3.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e257/gazlights/rhino2.jpg

[Brian]

Compact fluorescent?

 

If 100W incandescent was enough a 26W CFL will give out the same amount of light.

[Gazlights]

Hmmm simple ideas are ofthen the best eh...... a four foot fluorescent tube may be perfect. I could hang it with wire...hmmm

 

Any suggestions still welcome! :huh:

[david.elsbury]

Don't bother with GU10's, the beam will still be pretty tight, even with so called wide angle ones. They are also a pain in the rear for blowing, and will still produce tons of heat. I second the idea of something fluro, if you do want something ommnidirectional, or those flat KAM led lights might be worth a look if you do go down that route.

 

:P

[timtheenchanteruk]

100W CFL? bright enough??

[nickjones]

The problem with LED is most are PAR style, meaning too narrow to fill the whole rhino. What about the super cheap LED panels can be picked up from eBay for next to nothing, they don't give a great white, but would provide you with awesome other colours, failing that, if you just want it to light up, what about fairy lights pushed into each hole? If you don't want them poking though you can buy the flat LEDs, it would just take a lot of patience to wire them...

[Gazlights]

The problem with LED is most are PAR style, meaning too narrow to fill the whole rhino. What about the super cheap LED panels can be picked up from eBay for next to nothing, they don't give a great white, but would provide you with awesome other colours, failing that, if you just want it to light up, what about fairy lights pushed into each hole? If you don't want them poking though you can buy the flat LEDs, it would just take a lot of patience to wire them...

 

Thats what I thought. Do you have a link for these LED panels? I was thinking maybe a cheap LED bar/batten to....any suggestions?

 

Nice one for the suggestions so far....won't be using GU10's. Went for a simple 4ft fluorescent tube in the end and it looks ok although it would be nice to have a slow colour fade!

 

So......inexpensive led battens? :P

 

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e257/gazlights/Photo0464.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e257/gazlights/Photo0465.jpg

[Ynot]

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e257/gazlights/Photo0465.jpg

Hmmm...

Pump a bit of light haze into the area, turn off the exterior lights and I bet that Rhino would look rather cool!!

:P

[nickjones]

Thats what I thought. Do you have a link for these LED panels? I was thinking maybe a cheap LED bar/batten to....any suggestions?

Here is the link to the ones on Australian eBay, http://cgi.ebay.com.au/288-LED-Strobe-Part...=item3358530abe

They seem ideal for this situation. What's scarier than a illuminated rhino? An illuminated rhino with red beams of light coming from it.

[dmxtothemax]

Christmas type fairy lights are one option,

The heat issue is less but still could cause problems.

Using high output, narrow beam leds is another possibility,

But will involve some fiddly work,

But it solves most of the problems,

Another possible Simple use CFLs, you can use many of them to spread the light evenly,

There are some big CFLs available now,

48w = 250w, and even an 105w = 500w.

Much less heat.

[KidRay]

You can get LED tubes, not sure if one would be bright enough, but they would solve the directionality (is that a word?) issue.

[nickjones]

What colour is Mr Rhino (Does he (or she) have a name?) on the inside? If it's painted black this would take away a lot of your light, whereas if it was coated with aluminum foil, it may increase light output.

[Brian]

The problem with LEDs is their beam angle. Cheap fixtures tend to be in the 20-30 degree range so, to cover the inside of a sphere (or rhino!), you going to need a lot of units. A 'naked' LED chip is around 120 degrees but is dim.

 

Dimmable fluorescents?

 

You can get LED tubes, not sure if one would be bright enough...

They wouldn't be. They are designed for direct viewing, not for illumination.

[the kid]

What colour is Mr Rhino (Does he (or she) have a name?) on the inside? If it's painted black this would take away a lot of your light, whereas if it was coated with aluminum foil, it may increase light output.

 

I was thinking the same I am sure you would gain a little more on the legs at least from that. It just depends on how even it has to be.

[steve h]

Lee do tubes that allow you to put gel around fluorescent tubes. It won’t give you a colour fade but with some experimenting putting different coloured gels in it could give a nice effect! Can’t remember the correct name for them at the moment though!

 

Steve