Room / Pinball Lighting

[CJBob]

I'm looking to add some more light to my basement and wondered what others have done. The ceiling is drywall with 4 huge old pot lights which shine down in just the wrong spots. Ultimately I'm probably going to bite the bullet and change this, for now I was looking at adding lighting.

I have one large floor lamp in the room but not a lot of extra space to add anymore.

Has anyone added LED lighting strips to the back or underside of their machines? Does anyone have some pictures they could share? I like the concept but I'm not sure I'm going to like the look.

Perhaps use this as a reason to add pictures of your space, I'd love to get some ideas.

 

[Seven]

Seven of my machines are in a bedroom. The room has 8 or 9 inset ceiling lights. I pulled the bulbs from the lights over the machines and left the row down the middle and put in a dimmer.

I got a couple Ikea paper floor lamp things. These are paper tubes about 4 feet tall but they are thin enough to fit between machines. I put blue bulbs in them.

Then I also had one of those Ikea floor blob lights. I don't think they make them anymore. That's under a machine with a red bulb.

I have a few LED spotlights of various colours that point in different directions.

All the coloured lighting is on remote switches because most are behind or under machines and hard to get to.

Dim the lights, fire up the colour, switch on the machines, and it's time to play. None of the coloured lights cause any glare.

I'll take some pictures of it tonight for you, but this is what it looked like when I only had 4 machines in there (and I had room for my wall-o-discoball).

 

[luch]

Holy Saturday Night Fever Qeue Stayin Alive

 

[Seven]

I bought all those disco balls off craigslist. I think the box of them was less than $50 all in. I couldn't pass it up.

I tend to embrace the ridiculous.

 

[newguy]

I reccomend Philips Hue bulbs, they are great. You can adjust the color and brightness of each bulb and set different lighting modes.

 

[fantasygoat]

Pinball people seem to like their gamerooms to look like strip clubs. Not my thing, personally, but to each their own.

 

[DRANO]

Nothing too fancy here. The faux brick walls were enough of a shock to my wife. Luckily I had the luxury of making my room from scratch so I planned the game layout well in advance and managed to run two rows of small dimmable LED pot lights roughly right over the players' heads. These are all tilted slightly towards the machines at such an angle that they light up the playfields but without glare.

I don't like a super dark room so I set these at 25-50% when playing.

A couple of neon signs in the darker corners also help illuminate the room and, even though they are right alongside a couple of the pins, I don't seem to get much reflection off those either.

 

[eh97ac]

Always loved this guys arcade with the black light and carpet. See "The Cave"
http://www.braidarcave.com/

 

[CJBob]

Pinball people seem to like their gamerooms to look like strip clubs.

I haven't been to one in years, perhaps some research into lighting is required. Yeah, I'm going to check out the lighting. That's it.

 

[Chris Bardon]

I've actually been looking at something to replace the pot lights in my basement too. I thought about doing the LED strips/crown molding that I've seen people try, but I don't think it's really going to give you much light (more of an accent than a lighting solution), and I don't really think that I need to go full RGB there. I just want something that'll light the room without too much glare/reflection, and without needing a lot of vertical space (ceilings are low enough as is).

 

[brad808]

I've actually been looking at something to replace the pot lights in my basement too. I thought about doing the LED strips/crown molding that I've seen people try, but I don't think it's really going to give you much light (more of an accent than a lighting solution), and I don't really think that I need to go full RGB there. I just want something that'll light the room without too much glare/reflection, and without needing a lot of vertical space (ceilings are low enough as is).

LEDs can give a surprising amount of light in a room. One piece of advice if you decide to go this route is to not get RGB if you want a warm white (even the "cool" white looks like garbage - too many variances and different strips have different tints). You will need to get one designed for that. I have RGB lights around the perimeter of my room but I'm thinking of adding a secondary warm white strip for general lighting when it's not party time.

 

[mwong168]

Lights are so overrated and apparently so is seeing the ball during play.

 

[CJBob]

Thanks for the info so far, post more pictures if you've got them so I can drool on my keyboard.

Realistically I'm not planning on moving in the next 5 years so I'm not going to be getting a bigger room anytime soon. Therefore my later fall project is likely to tear down the drywall ceiling, set up the lighting the way I want (similar to Drano's) and then replace with a drop ceiling.

Or at least I'll start the project and then give up half way and get spiroagnew to finish it for me

 

[CJBob]

These pictures show the problem, I've 4 old large pot lights in just the wrong spots. After looking around I found a small white LED track light that will be replacing these pots. Bonus points for those of you old enough to remember the picture in the second photo.

 

[REVOLUTION]

Don't go TOO dark.. I hear it's not TOPL approved.

 

[CJBob]

It was more of a pain than I thought to remove the old pot lights which were in large metal boxes buried behind the drywall, but the job is done. Here's the result, it doesn't look dramatically different in the picture, but it does when you're playing.

 

[Razor]

It's a Maxell ad with JBL honeycomb speakers. I had the speakers back in the day.

 

[mwong168]

It's a Maxell ad with JBL honeycomb speakers. I had the speakers back in the day.

Thanks you and I couldn't remember where I recognized that familiar image from back in the day

 

[Chris Bardon]

What kind of track light did you end up using? I always thought that a track with a bunch of spots on it would give you the same problem as the pot lights, just with more point sources that you could aim a little better.