DIY fluorescents

[ThatOneJonGuy]

Hi all, I'm hoping to embark on some DIY fluoros (mostly inspiration from this place!) but I was wanting to use kinoflo bulbs in it. Is anyone using them in their designs? Most of the ballasts I see are rated only for 32w, does anyone know of any fixtures w/ballasts that are rated higher? like for the 4ft 75w kinos? Thanks

-Jon

[Andreas]

This guys have everything:

http://www.vossloh-schwabe.de/eng/

For cheap solution I also strongly recomend Philips products and not mixing Kinos with a diferent ballast then Kinos.

best
Andreas

[ThatOneJonGuy]

After doing a little more research, I've seen people using kino flo bulbs in DIY rigs... do the 4' 75w bulbs work in a regular 40w ballast? Thanks.

-Jon

[Andreas]

The question should be if there going to work properly, and the answer is no. You need a the properly electronic ballast to light a 75W lamp, and to have the stability that kino lamp promises, you have to use their own ballast. Yes, you can use other manufacturer ballasts but again you will have better results using the lapms of the same manufacturer in any case. Remember that you want a fliker free, kelvin stable, and maybe dimmable light. Play it safe, or be free to expirement and let us know your results !

best
Andreas

[Noah]

Of course you'll have the best results with kino bulbs and kino ballasts, but "best results" is not the point of DIY as far as I'm concerned. If you want the absolute best, you'll pay for it. DIY is about getting as close to the best as possible while paying a fraction of the cost. Putting kino bulbs in a home depot type electronic ballast can be a very good DIY alternative giving you very good results- search the forums.

[Cool Lights]

I really don't see the need to use kino flo ballasts or bulbs for that matter in a DIY fixture. There are so many good ballasts available that will work just fine and also tell us why you want to use 4 foot tubes instead of 22" 55 watt biax tubes which are used in most of the fluorescent video lighting fixtures today? 4 foot tubes are harder to control, harder to make barn doors for, etc. The 55 watt tube is less than half the length of the ones you said you wanted to use. If you're set on using bulbs that need an external ballast--I'd use the 55w tubes--just another opinion on the subject...

[JasonFox]

Having made fixtures with 4' bulbs, I suggest going the biax route as Richard suggests if possible. Or just buy his.

[Cool Lights]

This guys have everything:

http://www.vossloh-schwabe.de/eng/

For cheap solution I also strongly recomend Philips products and not mixing Kinos with a diferent ballast then Kinos.

best
Andreas

Andreas, I'm guessing you live in Europe. Vossloh can be found in USA but is rare. Philips is even more rare. Both those solutions are big in Europe and Asia but haven't penetrated the market here like Advance, Universal, Sylvania and Fulham all have. Those are the most popular ones here...

[ThatOneJonGuy]

Well, I was originally considering the kino bulbs because they have the greenscreen bulbs and my main goal is to light a 20 ft greenscreen for less than thousands of dollars (also why I was considering the 4' bulbs). Plus everywhere I've checked the 4' bulbs are less than the biax lamps ($17 vs $30 per bulb). So I guess I just got set on the 4' being that they were less expensive, higher wattage, more surface area.

But it sounds like biax may be the way to go after all. For the biax lamps, what kind of ballast would you recommend? I'd like to keep the units fairly inexpensive if I can like $100 or so. Thanks.

-Jon

[Andreas]

Andreas, I'm guessing you live in Europe. Vossloh can be found in USA but is rare. Philips is even more rare. Both those solutions are big in Europe and Asia but haven't penetrated the market here like Advance, Universal, Sylvania and Fulham all have. Those are the most popular ones here...

Hi miracom,

I was just pointing out those companys as a reference. Indeed I live in Europe, but I mentioned Philips because they deliver and Vossloh because of there remarkable website !
I also like to add to some other remarks that 4-5 foot fluo T5 High Output with there electronic ballasts (dimable or not, better if not) seems to have better quality-stability. Fluo are very sensitive in low temp and I don;t know if an ordinary consumer fluo lamp will prove to be even close to a Kino performance. T5 are close enought, if not perfect. As for DIY not ment to be the same quality as the prototype I stronlgy disagree. I have prety good examples all around my house, actualy my own house is an example itself :) Its all about tools, skills and knwoledge, then you can make everything, as perfect as the time you are willing to spend on its project. Kinos are made by humans to :)


best
Andreas

[Cool Lights]

Well, I was originally considering the kino bulbs because they have the greenscreen bulbs and my main goal is to light a 20 ft greenscreen for less than thousands of dollars (also why I was considering the 4' bulbs). Plus everywhere I've checked the 4' bulbs are less than the biax lamps ($17 vs $30 per bulb). So I guess I just got set on the 4' being that they were less expensive, higher wattage, more surface area.

But it sounds like biax may be the way to go after all. For the biax lamps, what kind of ballast would you recommend? I'd like to keep the units fairly inexpensive if I can like $100 or so. Thanks.

-Jon

When I'm lighting a green screen I think of the scene as two distinct areas. The screen with its blanket lighting and the subject in front of the screen (hopefully as far in front as possible to keep from having green spillover on them).

Of course I don't know the specifics of your studio / room so I don't know where you can place the fixtures but let's think about it.

1). Lighting greenscreen. Okay use the 4 foot ones for that. And guess what. It doesn't matter all that much about the bulb is what i've found. How about some 80 to 85 CRI 4 foot tubes in daylight color. Daylight will be a great combo to light that screen and it won't cost you an arm and a leg. in addition you can get away with the $40 special light fixtures from home depot. No need for barn doors when lighting the screen. Just make sure its the ones that have the electronic ballasts (and before you ask, I never had any hum or flickering issues with those ballasts) and are in the mid range of what you can buy. The original ones I bought were about $40 and held 4 tubes. I modified mine later to hold 2 more giving a total of six tubes in a fixture.

You can get a few of those and some relatively good daylight tubes (5000 to 5500K) also at Home Depot these days. You're definitely not going to be spending even $17 on a 4 foot daylight tube from Home Depot. The key here is mostly to place the fixtures on the ceiling or on stands out of site but pointed toward the screen and not hitting the subject so an extra shadow would be cast in that way.

2). Lighting the subject in front of the screen. Depends upon the effect you want mostly. This is where I would probably use a 2 x 55 watt fixture or smaller CFL bulbs to light the subject. Or maybe several of these fixtures if you have several subjects. You've got to light the screen as brightly as possible though to keep those shadows out. A 4x55 or 6x55 may be overkill for lighting the subjects in front of a green screen. Its a lot more light than you think...

If you want to build a 55 watt fixture you should think about Fulham ballasts perhaps unless you can find Advance or Universal ones in liquidation somewhere like Ebay--otherwise its just all too expensive. I found Advance 2 X 55w ones on Ebay when I was building my first ones for $15 each with shipping and that's a great price. They are great ballasts too. But that would normally be a $40 ballast. I've seen the Fulham Workhorse 5 for $28 on Ebay and that's the next best price and also a very good ballast--it will also drive 2 tubes.

It'll be hard to build them for $100 unless you can find a suitable project box to put them in for next to nothing and that's hard to do. Perhaps you could build a 2x55 for $100.

Believe me, I've researched the subject all up and down. You also need good "Miro" reflectors, 2G11 sockets, 2G11 bulb clips and solid core wire to do it all right.