Cool White or Day light fluorescents?

[nicobkn]

Hello everyone,

I'm in the process of replacing some fluorescent lights in my car detailing shop and would like to know what's your input regarding cool white or day lights lighting?

I'm leaning towards cool white because it seems as the light output is much better than day light and since I detail cars I need a lot of light to catch every imperfection on the paint, however, I was talking to an electrician the other day and he recommended going with day light lighting instead.

What do you all think ?

Thanks

 

[Cryptic1911]

for a detailing shop, you don't want to go by the names, go by the color temperature (kelvins). Look for something in the 5000-5500K range, as that will be the most white. 6000K-7000K are starting to get into the blue spectrum and cast a weird hue.

What you really want to look for is a high CRI bulb.. CRI is the color rendering index, and the higher the number, the more true the colors will be in its light. You'd probably want something at least 85+ CRI for detailing.

 

[Nostraquedeo]

Everything looks better in "warmer" light, that being a lamp with a low temp. Higher temp lamps will give you more white and even higher will give you blue light. The closer you get to white light the more natural the light will be 5600-5700K. When you get into the blue light, even more imperfections are going to show. Personally I would use something in the 6000K - 6500K range. You also want a lamp with a high CRI (Color rendering index). The higher the better!

Just so you know, a typical surgery room uses lighting in the 6000K range. Seems to give the doctors the best lighting possible.

 

[nicobkn]

thank you very much guys!

I picked up a box of 10 lamps last weekend and they are 6500k and 75 CRI. I'm gonna try to go back and get something with higher CRI's

Thanks again!

 

[Highbeam]

Buying the big boxes of bulbs makes it way cheaper. They hide the big boxes down low. I'm a big fan of the 4300 color temp. Really 4000-5000. Some lighting shops have little displays set up so that you can compare the colors. Thing is, side by side, you can see blue above 6000 and yellow below 4000 but when alone like in your shop, you won't see blue so instead use the display to see how your eyes react to the colors in your palm or in a picture. Once you choose a color you are pretty much stuck with it unless you want to rebulb the whole shop. The tubes last a long time.

 

[rlitman]

Just so you know, a typical surgery room uses lighting in the 6000K range. Seems to give the doctors the best lighting possible.

Blood is red. So warmer (lower color temperature lights) will emphasize the red color of blood, at the loss of other colors.

Generally, the daylight bulbs have a higher CRI than the warm/cool-white bulbs.

The CRI is especially important to a detailer, and this is the biggest factor in the cost of a bulb, as the additional phosphors used for high CRI lamps are expensive.

High CRI will give a good light output that is pretty continuous across the spectrum. Low CRI will emphasize just a handful of colors.
With low CRI, since some colors will be more visible than others, it is possible that an orange streak on a red background may go unseen (just a hypothetical example).

Years ago before daylight bulbs were available, I used to put one cool and one warm bulb in each fixture. The results were nothing like the color quality you get from good bulbs today though.

Oh, and as said above, the large (25 bulb) packs of bulbs offer significant savings. You get ripped off buying bulbs in 2 packs.

 

[Cryptic1911]

goto www.1000bulbs.com and go through their options. They have multiple color temp ranges, and cri numbers

 

[loranger]

goto www.1000bulbs.com and go through their options. They have multiple color temp ranges, and cri numbers

LOL! My wife works there in customer service! If you do order from here and have to contact them for any reason, please be nice. She comes home every day talking about how mean people are on the phone.

 

[nicobkn]

Thanks very much everyone!

I had initially purchased cool white lamps ~4000k and 75 cri. Those lamps were returned today. Best I could find locally was at home depot, I picked up day light lamps with a 6500k and 82 CRI.

I just finished swaping the old ballast and wow the difference is HUGE! It looks much better and brighter. Really happy with the purchase.

Again, thank you all!

 

[Sludge Puppy]

Home Depot carries the 6500K in 82 CRI in the small pack but the 30 pack (I think) CRI is 85. Exact same model number so made no sense to me but if depending on how many you need its few extra CRI points