homemade flouro set up tips

[IsraelHoudini]

if i'm shopping at home depot or a local lighting store, what specific models of ballasts, fixtures and bulbs have you had the most success with?

do the fixtures/ballasts come with standard wall plugs or will i have to do some wiring to be able to plug them in that way?

how many sets do you use? 2 sets of 2 bulbs (4ft) or 2 sets of 4 bulbs, or a mix or more set ups?

[Jim Brennan]

I use the Lights of America 8055 SS. it's a 2 bulb 48" fixture that comes with a wire and pull chain. IT costs about 15 bucks. Very little hum, and a stainless steel look. I've seen them at Wal Mart and Lowe's.

[MattinSTL]

Home Depot has a 4' shoplight that looks really cool... but it's FAKE diamond plate... after buying one I found that it's stamped steel with a chrome laminated sticker (like mylar) that you can pull off... also that light uses a magnetic ballast... so even though it's pretty I'd avoid it. The one VJ suggests is the one I'd suggest also. If you want it to be stand mountable you'll need to add about $60 worth of hardware to it... and some aluminum tape will pump the output way up... and of course Kino tubes will make a world of difference... but all that will have you at $140 or so... (without stands).

[Barry_S]

I have a couple of those Lights of America fixtures--I got 'em for half price ($7) each at Lowes. They were fun to play with, but as they say, you get what you pay for. I'd completely recommend them over flesh-melting worklights, but expect problems. They have cheapo grade electronic ballasts that hum (not loud, but still annoying). The bulb connectors are garbage and they're unreliable for any serious work. If you're going to shoot anything remotely serious, you better buy twice as many fixtures as you need and expect that half of them will crap out. If you have a little money to spend you might want to wait and see Matt's upcoming line of flo's.

[235 Studios]

If you have a little money to spend you might want to wait and see Matt's upcoming line of flo's.

Sorry for the dumb question - Who is Matt? And when are his line of flo's comeing out?

[Barry_S]

Sorry, didn't mean to be cryptic.:) MattinSTL is one of our members that is going to be selling a line of flourescent fixtures in the near future. He's really serious about coming up with a high quality product at a reasonable price. They're going to be built to use the Kino-Flo biax tubes which are excellent high output compact flo's available in 2900K (tungsten) and 5500K (daylight) models.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=27275

[Jim Brennan]

I put the same kind of tool clips on mine that Walter Graff uses for his grafflights and mount them to a stand that way. You can even boom them if you sandbag the arm.

[235 Studios]

Thanks Barry.

I look forward to seeing what Matt comes up with. It will be nice to have an alternative.

[brdplya1]

What about these?
http://www.naturallighting.com/show_product.cfm?&product_id=120

[Jim Brennan]

That's a bit steep IMHO. If that's what you want, you could get the same effect with a stand, a clip on lamp, and a 65 watt screw in bulb.