Are dedicated lights essential?

[MagicEd]

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone has experience of a full size snooker table in a room with just a single standard light in the ceiling?

The reason I ask is that I am fitting a table in a temporary location (when I say temporary, I mean a couple of years) and don;t really want to spend £300+ on dedicated lights for a table if they are not absolutely neccessary.

Many thanks,
Magic Ed.

[samad]

I felt extra lighting was neccessary for the pool table I have at home but I'm sure you dont need to spend GBP300 to get decent lighting

[cantpotforshíte]

There are a couple of full sizecanopies on ebay at the moment .. at £10 , pick up only .. I suppose it depends on where you are and if you have a 'man with a van'. I'm sure that they pop up all the time.
And yes, I'm sure that you'd struggle without a proper snooker light.

[Terry Davidson]

I know it's preaching heresy, but how about installing some temporary neon light fixtures? You can get them cheap and they will install easily and provide lots of light. If you can find them used then they would be really cheap and if you get 4 fixtures that take 2 x 40w bulbs each you would have plenty of light.

The other solution which you can easily take down and keep is to use spots on tracks. If you put enough spots along both sides of the table from the ceiling (I'd say about 6 x 60) down each side you would have lots of light with no shadows and no lights shining in your eyes.

I use neon and have 2 x 8ft x 100w down each side and 2 x 4ft x 60w along each end of the table with a diffuser (cheap plastic grid) covering the light so I have no glare into my eyes. I also have no shadows and can see the dust on the balls from 12ft away (when my eyes are working)

Terry

[philip in china]

I wondered why you couldn't just use a couple of long fluorescent tubes. What is special about a snooker canopy?

[Terry Davidson]

I guess the incandescent light are traditional but in Canada there are a lot of clubs with the flourescent tubes which are a little cheaper on electricity.

Most clubs have either one 8ft fixture down the middle with 4 tubes in them or sometimes just 2 tubes but the best are the single 8ft down the middle of the table with 2 tubes and then a 4ft fixture at each end of the table and sideways to the 8ft fixture with 2 tubes in each of the 4ft.

This lighting eliminates any shadows but may be a little more costly on the electricity, however with my table lighting (4 - 8ft tubes down the centreline and 2 - 4ft tubes at each end with a diffuser) I get almost no shadows at all and find the lighting very good and I haven't noticed any big jump in my electricity bill and I use the table every day.

Terry

[bricktip]

Hi Terry,
Any chance you could post a picture or two of your light setup? I'm not a huge fan of the specialist lights such as the peradon timesafe or similar, which i think are too expensive and don't really cover the whole table in my opinion. Also, I don't think it's the best look for a home table (actually, my wife)

[Acrowot]

There was a member on here that was selling and fitting some modern lighting for less than £200, but forget his name. Think the price was about £165 at the time.
:snooker:

[nostawmail]

i bought these for my table and they reflect very well giving off very good light you need two for a full size snooker table, its free delivery

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Ligh.../sd2768/p33121