• Neon, LED, Lighting

  number of tubes & thickness of perspex for a light box

  Posted by Philip Gibbs on 22 January 2012 at 13:29

  hi folks

  I have been asked to make a light box
  (quite exciting as it will be the first we have made from scratch)
  it must be 9.8m by 1.2m

  I need it to be bright but the customer is very price conscious,
  so how many fluorescent tubes would you use?

  For the same reason what thickness of plastic would you use?

  as it is our first light box any other advice or hints would be very welcome

  thanks
  phil

  Philip Gibbs replied 13 years, 8 months ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Andrew Fleming

  Member

  22 January 2012 at 14:13

  Usually to get a good light spread you need a tube every 12 inch, and the tube should be about 6 inch from the front face, it doesn’t matter what thickness you use in Perspex, but for that size you should use 5mm, and if the face is to be white use opal 050 or 028 anything else will show more tube lines

• 

  David Rogers

  Member

  22 January 2012 at 14:46

  I did a 10m x 1.1m box a few weeks ago.

  Was 24 tubes in total. (see pic) and nice & bright.

  To be honest, I wouldn’t MAKE a box no matter how cost conscious the client is…buy it ready made. Takes all of the hassle out of it.

  Also – need 5mm thickness and some way to join sheets

  Dave

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  Philip Gibbs

  Member

  23 January 2012 at 09:25

  thanks for your advice

• 

  Ian Johnston

  Member

  23 January 2012 at 09:47

  General rule of thumb for even brightness,

  if box is 150mm deep space between tubes twice that, 300mm as both tubes light half the space,
  but top and bottom spacing should be only 150mm as it is only lit by the one tube
  This is important for 028 as it shows the tubes a lot easier than 050.

  if your using 050 you can increase the spacing generally by 50% and get away with it. it tube spacing of 450mm ,
  painting the backing white is also a good idea as it spread the light a lot better than plain aluminum

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  Philip Gibbs

  Member

  23 January 2012 at 10:12

  "painting the backing white is also a good idea as it spread the light a lot better than plain aluminum"

  that’s interesting. Ive never seen that before.

  Very clearly explained rule of thumb. Out of interest does this work with double sided light boxes as well?

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