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Full Spectrum Lighting - Is it any better?
lennon asms: "Lighting in my apartment sucks. I am giving some thought to full-spectrum lighting fixtures, like the the Vita-lite. Some places say it's not any better than regular lighting, others say it's just great. What do you think?" I find the quality of lighting in my work environment to be very important. Would lights such as these be better than your standard soft-white or flourescent
bulbs?
IT people don't need lights! we are trolls (like this post). Lighting like that will give us the same problem real sunlight does -- Turn us to stone!!!!
Whether you prefer "full spectrum lighting", "blacklight", normal lightbulbs, "warm" lightbulbs, darkness, daylight through the window, stroboscope, or any other form of lighting is up to you.
If you think "full spectrum lighting" will make you happy, try it, and see what you think. End of story.
I really like soft diffused light, I have 40watt bulbs that I bounce off my walls and ceiling the reflected light is much softer.
If you have to do a lot of paper reading then this is not the best solution but for staring at a TV or monitor it works well for me.
Of course the other solution is not to do any work after dark!
I put full spectrum bulbs in my office several months ago, and so far I've been very happy with them. I have a private office, but unfortunately without any windows so the only light sources are fluorescent lights. I got the full spectrum lights from Home Depot for only about $6 (GE I think). There are some other specialized manufacturers that charge $40+ for their bulbs, but as far as I can tell, they're essentially the same as the ones i got at Home Depot.
The difference is quite amazing - I never realized how sickly yellow the old lights were. The new lights have much more blue in them, and really do seem more like natural sunlight. Now I feel like I have skylights in the ceiling.
I can't tell if changing the lighting improved my performance, but it did make feel more comfortable and alert in my office. My co-workers like to keep their office dim except for their monitors - not me, I find that a dark room strains my eyes and makes me sleepy. I may be an exception since a lot of programmers like a dim room setup, and in our main office the engineering wing has no fluorescent lights on at all. Still I find that I do my best work in a naturally lighted environment. Without windows, full spectrums lights are as close as I can get.
Having put them in my office a few years ago, I must say I love them. The only problem is that you must do it to EVERY room. Otherwise, other rooms become obviously yellow (or pink or green if you have fluorescent).
We had FS lighting installed in our offices at the beginning of erm...last year.
:)
I could not go back. I used to get headaches on a fairly regular basis that I just put down to tiredness/stress/whatever. They went away after about two weeks with the new lights.
I find I can work longer hours with no problems - except an annoyed wife!
I also find I can concentrate a lot better.
My cow-orkers have all noticed similar benefits - we were discussing it at our christmas function.
So, yeah, on the whole...get those bad boys!
Prisoner #655321
Old yellow sodium lighting is disgusting too unless you go for that deserted carpark feel.
According to this snippet, Police have installed sodium lights to 'discourage' teens from cruising in certain areas. Apparantly it really makes the acne stand out.
it's not going to stop until you wise up, no it's not going to stop. so just give up.
The quality of flouresenct light is affected by many factors:
Color Temperature
Bulb Quality (you get whast you pay for)
Power and Ballast quality (Flicker)
For some other thoughts check this out. It is about lighting fish tanks and not cubes but it is still applicable. I supplement my flouresents with an incandescent bulb for better quality of light. More information on lighting theory is available here.
Try some of this if you want a different color.
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Hmm... on the one hand you have large rooms lit by the standard el cheapo fluorescent tubes. On the other hand you have a bunch of educated people prefering darkness to bad illumination.
Think it's just a coincidence?
Now toss in the fact that most monitor's (and all TVs) are "hot" - they're far more blue than they should be since it's a cheap way for the manufacturer to make them look "bright." (That's also why rooms with TVs look blue from outside.) Better monitors allow you to adjust the "color temperature", but most people don't know about this control or find a cooler temperature "dull."
This means that people who work in front of a screen are getting hit with excess blue, and the overhead fluorescent lights also have excess blue.
Still think it's just a coincidence?
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing OSHA mandates that overhead lights be full-spectrum and monitors be adjustable to the natural temperature (6500K?). It takes a few days to get used to it, but it's a lot more comfortable.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Those are Xenon-based. The fake ones the riceboys use aren't, though...
- A.p.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
You will find that full spectum does provide a nice psychologial effect, especially if you are in and out of the sun alot. your eyes gradually adapt to lousy light (like older fluorescents), but the difference can be rather striking. Nothing beats real sunlight though. Full spectrum lighting is essential in locations where you must carry out color-sensitive tasks (retail, hospitals, electronics assembly). But it is also nice in home environments, good for skin tones and fabrics. I suggest newer (Tri-phosphor) fluoresecnt lights, they provide a very broad spectrum and efficient output.
fortune: You die cold and alone
First of all, I want to go on record as saying I have tested/tried FS lighting and I am supportive. For me, it worked very well.
Fleuroescent lights, by their nature, are mixtures of gases which approximate "real" light. Generally you could think of it as similar to theatre light; add the 3 colors and you get white.
However, FL gases are not a smooth dim-to-bright-to-dim spectrum type of light. There are always areas of the spectrum that are missing, and it is the careful (or haphazard) choice of gas that determines how close it can get to white light.
Incandescents are continuous spectrum, with typically blue missing (hence the yellow cast in photos). But, and this is a big but; they are continuous from the "first" color to the last color they can display. FL lights will have gaps (some of the colors of the rainbow are missing entirely).
Thus, FL "full spectrum" lights have more attention paid to haveing all colors represented, but to do it like sunlight, candlelight or incandescent light is pretty much impossible. There will still be areas of the visible spectrum with little or no output. That's why they cost more than "regular" FL's (some of the gases cost more) but they still may be unsatisfactory to sensitive individuals or for critical color matching.
Incandescent Full Spectrum are available; the drawback is cost and overall life. In other words, you probably won't see them in the IT department of MegaCorp. FL Full Spectrum are then still a compromise; it is possible for some individuals to get headaches from them (as they can from all FL lighting).
Having said all that, Full Spectrum are usually better than regular "el cheapo" FLs if that't the kind of light you're stuck with. Just as with regular FLs, brand and product differences exist, so some experimentation may be necessary.
when you wrote that? Have you ever looked at a spectral analysis of a fluorescent light? The ones I'm looking at (Illuminating Engineering Society Lighting handbook, Reference Volume) show a continuous distribution with four spikes that are present in all bulbs classified (Cool White, Warm White, White, Deluxe Cool White, Deluxe Warm White, and Daylight).
Your theory of gas mixtures affecting color is also incorrect. Fluorescent lights are the product of an electrical discharge in a low pressure mercury vapor. Some trace gases are added to improve startup, but not color. Color is determined by the phosphor coating on the glass, in exactly the same manner color is determined in CRTs. Change phospors, change colors.
Observing the spectra of the different classes of fluorescent bulbs shows that Cool White (most typical) differs from Daylight by a reduction in the red (slight) and yellow (significant)and an increase in the green (slight) and blue (significant). Cool White has a yellow component peak that is approximately double the value of the peak that straddles blue and green. In the Daylight bulb, the peaks are relatively the same. The two of the four spikes (yellow, green, blue, and indigo) are also affected, with yellow reduced and indigo boosted.
Incandescent (tungsten filament) lamps are stronger radiators in red than blue, following a somewhat straight line that gives us a red luminace that is approximately 4 to 5 times greater than blue. Yellow comes in at about 3x blue.
Sunlight has a strong peak in the blue-green and decays to about half power in the red. Continuous, but not uniform. And it clearly demonstrates why Daylight bulbs boost the blue component (while still leaving at least 1.5X the "natural" yellow component).
(This clearly shows that six pictures and some graphs are worth a couple hundred words.)
I can say that full spectrum bulbs give your pot plants the best yield over ordinary flourescent bulbs.
Effect shouldn't be that different on humans.