what's a black light?

[bigrash]

I wanted to mod my case and put a neon light, and i noticed that they also sell black lights. anyone know what's the difference between a regular neon light and a black light?

 

[jaybert]

the black light = black colored..w.ell...more like dark purple

 

[bigrash]

well, i see the purple but what's all that other stuff in that pic?

Light

 

[jaybert]

I think those are just light colored items that the black light makes glow

 

[jaybert]

I think those are just light colored items that the black light makes glow

 

[ericd]

Blacklights put out Ultra Violet light. This makes fluoresent colored items...such as the spiral wrap shown in that picture and a lot of other colors as well glow. I have heard some people say that the traces on a motherboard will glow under a blacklight but I havn't seen it myself so don't take it as truth. I have a feeling the Prophet series of video cards would also look cool under blacklight due to their blue color. In my opinion blacklights aren't the best for a case mod because you only see the spiral wrap and whatever other small percentage of stuff in your case that reacts. I think that normal neon is the better choise because it illuminates the entire inside of the case but that's just my opinion.

Eric

 

[bigrash]

thanks ericd, i didn't understand the difference.....i was planing on going with the regular one anyways from pcmods so i think i'll stick with that

 

[Kp99]

Was gonna answer, but i see you already got an answer, Later!

 

[Gunther]

Actually if you know what you are doing, you can make black lights look awesome in your case. I am going to be going with a black light because I only want certain things to glow, and with a black light you can control what you want to glow, to a certain extent. While with neon lights... like ericd said it illuminates the whole case which imho is just boring. i.e. with a black light you can make your fans glow if you paint them, cables with spiral wrap, and whatever else you want if you have the right materials. Also with a black light since not everything is glowing, it would even be more awesome complimented with EL cable. That's why I think black lights are better than neon, if you know what you are doing.

 

[RedRooster]

Isn't using black lights like putting the sun in your case?? Those things throw off huge amounts of heat, or am I thinking of a different kind of light? I have a black light at home though, and that thing is 5 times hotter than my normal light bulb!

 

[BA]

RedRooster, it depends what kind you use. A flourescent lamp won't put much heat out at all. Now, an incandescent I would not want to have in my case.

And I don't know if you're thinking of infrared, which is an actual heat lamp.

I'm not completely sure about this, I don't really know how the incandescent UV lamps work. But, I figure it's a relatively normal bulb that just has some funky coating on it to absorb the other parts of the spectrum. So to get rid of them, they're converted to another form of energy, heat.

 

[frail]

I had a 4 foot black lite on my ceiling for a few years, and it never produced any heat. After hours of being on you could still grab it by hand, and would barely be warm.