[HauntHollow.com]

Hey all,

I want to try something different this year for my porch and I am not sure what I need. I know this is the place to come though because you guys are awesome.

I have a porch and I want to cobweb throughout and I want to really highlight the spooky affect with black lights. In my experience, most black lights are completely useless.

What do I need to really make the porch pop with black lighting?

Are there quality and effective black flood lights?

-Haunt Hollow

 

[ghostlland820]

If you watch the last third of this video, you can see what my house and props look like when objects are coated with Wildfire Optical White blacklight paint (expensive) and lit with flourescent blacklight tubes placed in cheap shop lights. A tube should give you several years of use. I've been curious about the newer LED blacklight floods but have never seen one in use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk9CRfsgIME&t=1s

 

[absolom7691]

I have found LED blacklights to be subpar to fluorescent or mercury vapor blacklights. The main reason is, proper "blacklight" is 365nm and most LED blacklights are 395nm~405nm. There are some 365nm LEDs out there but they're very weak or very EXPENSIVE. LED Engin makes high output 365nm LEDs but they are $35 /pc and you'd need 5 or 10 of them to match two 48" fluorescent tubes.

The main difference between 365nm and 395+nm is [human] visible light. I have to chuckle when I see people comparing their LED floodlight purchase on amazon to a good old fluorescent blacklight. They think because the violet light is so much brighter that it's better. They're missing the point of a blacklight. A fluorescent tube blacklight puts out little visible light but throws out a ton of UV light that's almost undetected by the human eye. This is useful for lighting up the things you want lit up e.g. fluorescent paint and decorations WITHOUT lighting up the whole room. This is why Disney and other theme parks still use UV cannons (mercury vapor) 365nm lights. LEDs are awesome and I use LEDs for all my lighting but UV LEDs still have a long way to go. If you want to just wash a room up purple, LEDs are the way to go.

To answer the OP's question... 48" dual shop light fixtures, as mentioned above. You can't go wrong. Those little 18" fixtures you see at Spencers are worthless for anything beyond a psychedelic poster.

Slap two of these bad boys https://www.lowes.com/pd/ge-40-watt-48-in-medium-bi-pin-t12-black-fluorescent-light-bulb/3400504?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-lit-_-google-_-lia-_-143-_-lightbulbs-_-3400504-_-0&kpid&store_code=1555&k_clickID=go_1735957583_68257756512_338385360882_pla-323571479248_c_9030993&gclid=Cj0KCQjwla7nBRDxARIsADll0kBT_PehGjqVg2fXnxnc_ToEflgMZ3bVcQKr_9CmGrazJ7W7MxNsgmQaAmwYEALw_wcB

into one of these https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Linear-Shop-Light-Common-4-ft-Actual-4-55-in-x-47-92-in/4013481

Hiding that light is a different story but that will flood almost any room in plenty of UV

 

[annamarykahn]

Hey all,

I want to try something different this year for my porch and I am not sure what I need. I know this is the place to come though because you guys are awesome.

I have a porch and I want to cobweb throughout and I want to really highlight the spooky affect with black lights. In my experience, most black lights are completely useless.

What do I need to really make the porch pop with black lighting?

Are there quality and effective black flood lights?

-Haunt Hollow

fluorescent tube black lights are real black lights ... the led black lights are not ... there are 365nm leds but they are expensive.

i've been doing black light for, it seems like forever ... take a look at my site thathalloweenhouse.xyz ... click on the link in my signature

amk

 

[FogMaster]

I have used something similar to this

https://www.amazon.com/LED-Black-Light-IP65-Waterproof-Blacklight/dp/B07NYRLHZC/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=10+watt+blacklight&qid=1559243152&s=gateway&sr=8-14

Are they the best, no; but for the price they do work wonders. Worst case scenario is you buy them and don't like them, you return them, doesn't hurt to try them.

I ended up buying 8 of these units for my yard and they did the job. I have used 2 of these units- https://www.ebay.com/itm/12W-12-LEDs-UV-Black-Light-Stage-Lighting-DMX-Lamp-Club-DJ-Disco-Party-Christmas-/163652359199?hash=item261a70d41f

At first I didn't like these units as they were more of a spot and the light seemed a little more pink than the others I have used, but after I tried them, it really make my decorations pop! Again these are cheap to try and easy to return if you don't like them. Here is the video where I had used the spot light style on my tiki poles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc87voOZNtM

At first I was not that impressed as part of the reason is they were more of a spot light. After I used them, I was highly impressed at how much they popped.