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fluorescent studio lights

Brightline is the studio lighting fixtures we sell. We're using the series one models in our little demo studio.

They have all sorts of different styles and types. One of the coolest things they have is a light fixture called the studio sycseries that you can tweak the actual color of the light output with computer software. The light fixture has red, green and blue tubes in it the software varies the brightness between the three tubes, allowing any color possible to be created!

If any of you all are familiar with lighting, you know that in order to produce a color using incandescant lighting, you must put a gel in front the light. The problem with this is that although it's a easy, cost effective solution, it reduces as much as 2/3 the amount of light the fixture puts out. Using a bulb that "natively" produces the proper color, you are not wasting energy producing light that is filtered out by the gel! That's the beauty of those color changing lamps!

Sorry for the plug!

Those are some familiar looking light fixtures toggle. We have very similar fixtures in many of the old homes around here. They look like they are missing a cover or globe over them though. When they were originally installed, did they always have bare bulbs like that, or was there some sort of globe or lens that went over them. I guess they had more decorative bulbs in them at the time too. Do the electrical wires run through the old gas pipes?

 
Quite a few of my relatives, self included, live in older homes and some fixtures did and some didn't come with globes over the bulbs. My grandparents home which was built in 1935 has fixtures in the bedrooms (3), and living room w/o globes. My home built in 1925, has globes on all of the light fixtures. So, I guess it goes both ways.
 
Do the electrical wires run through the old gas pipes?

The electrical cables generally run parallel to the gas lines across the ceilings. This is also why wiring standards normally followed the pattern of having a junction box at the ceiling and outlet drops (of cables) from those. Of course this is not necessarily the case any longer.

Here's a bit of news: ALL of those gas lines are normally "live" (still connected).

Often times to cut-off and kill all that old piping a lanlord will run a new gas line with all stoves in the buildng on one meter~~ and let's say go straight up and catpture all 5 stoves on one vertical run. Many older residential buildings are 5-stories in height (A 6th story requires an elevator/lift).

Some are even smarter; when re-wiring a building they simply convert to electric cooking for safety and cost-cutting in terms of avoiding plumbing expense for gas piping.

Some tenants STILL use gas stoves to supplement the heat in their apartments, which is a safety and fire hazard on so many levels, including carbon-monoxide generation. Electic stoves remove and lower MANY risks in multiple-dwellings.
 
I've seen kitchens worse than the one in your picture there (eww!). One of my friends lived in a place with a bunch of housemates, and some of them had no idea of the germ theory of disease. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was when one of them washed off a rat trap, post-rat, in the kitchen sink. Seriously. My friend got out of there quickly after that one. (When avian flu comes to town that place will be a mass grave!)

Re. those ceiling light fixtures: And back in the early days, your appliances, for example your vacuum cleaner, had a cord that went to a male screw-in fitting much like the base of a light bulb. You'd unscrew a light bulb and screw in the cord for the vacuum, and clean away. Presumably in places with single bulb fittings, you'd do the vacuuming during the daylight hours.

Re. washers in apartments: On how I hate it when stupid peoples' stupidities cause rules to be made that stop the rest of us being able to do normal things. If I lived in such a place I'd sneak a washer in anyway, if need be plus a doctor's note about allergies or something in case it was caught. I suspect that some of the implicit marketing of the micro to mini size washers is based on the idea that you can hide it or disguise it when The Man comes snooping around. "That's not a washing machine, it's an art deco flower pot!" Or, with the pulsator units, "It's an oversize blender, I like making *big* milk shakes!"
 
The light fixtures in my home for the most part have their original 1925 globes. The fixtures in the computer room and guest bedroom have circa 1950's shades. I'm on the lookout for somethong a little more period though.
 
cybrvanr: Looked at your link-those lamps are very interesting-Esp how you can fade the colors on your "Cyc" lighting!Gives better and richer colors than the incandescent or Halogen lights with the "Gels"Would think these could be required in future lighting codes for studios.Also less of a fire hazard for "Cyc" curtain lighting.If halogen bulbs rupture in those applications-its a chance it could set the cyc curtain on fire!!And the benefit of those-could turn any surface you shine them on into a "chroma-Key" wall.You could use the lamp for chroma-Key blue or green.Love it!-super cool.
 
Occasionally studio lights explode during live TV news or entertainment shows. It's loud.

I had a 100 watt incandescent blow a couple of months ago at work. It was a crappy work light mounted on a wet grinder. I made an error and caused a surge of coolant, and it sprayed on the exposed hot light bulb. It made quite a boom when it went - from implosion, as already mentioned.

Toggles's photos of old ceiling gas fixtures makes me wonder if they are the reason why many modern overhead light fixtures still have threaded mounting posts for the fixture glass. Perhaps an easy way to recycle the existing threaded gas pipe "nipple"?
 

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