# Light Sources - An Important Little Demo (500W Halogens vs. Sun Gun)



## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

A question often asked is what light sources are best for highlighting swirls, and there are a great many on the market which offer that ability. A popular choice is the 500W halogen light readily available from B&Q, Screwfix etc and as the photograph below highlights they are very good at highlighting swirl marks:










And also good at RDS:










However, 500W halogen lights are not completely flawless, and do have quite notable limitations when it comes to spotting lighter marring, especially hologramming left by a rotary polisher. The example below clearly highlights this.

Below is a picture of the paint finish taken using 500W halogens to assess:










The finish _looks_ perfect! Good clarity evident. No sign of any marring. The truth of this finish is quite different however, as the Sun Gun highlights on the same area:










Very definite hologramming! And this was not evident using the halogen lights... The Sun Gun is a very reliable source of light for assessing paintwork at all angles, the 500W halogens hid these holograms at all angles of viewing and only with very careful movement of the light source and examining the finish very closely was any evidence of the marring picked up!

So if you are using 500W halogens as your sole light source, be very careful of what they can hide!

As a further example, here's the finish on the car examined with the 500W halogens both before and after the hologram removal:



















No real difference at all is apparent! The Sun Gun Clearly shows that a difference has been achieved:




























I know the Sun Gun is expensive, but I would strongly consider a bright light source with small area of some description for swirl spotting... Part of the halogens issue is the large light area (bright region). I find that a camera flash is very effective at highlighting hologramming - not practical, but will certainly give more confidence in the finish than 500W halogens will IMO.

Food for thought.


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## Mr Face (Jan 22, 2009)

Hi Dave, most certainly food for thought.

Can I ask, the Sun Gun is rather expensive for most enthusiast to justify. the alternatives are the small pocket LEDs and the Brinkman.

Given the Brinkman is going to set you back about £50 the sun gun about £500 is the brinkman a value for money alternative.

I suppose the question is how much of a % of the SunGun can the Brinkman achieve to justify the extra ££££ ?

I new you were going to be responsible for my children not getting their inheritance

Mike


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## [email protected] (Aug 6, 2008)

Superb test...

What is the watt value of the sungun?


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## Jakedoodles (Jan 16, 2006)

Mike - the sun gun is nowhere near £500. You can get them on ebay for less than £300. 

The justification comes in line with what kind of perfection you are after. For instance the Honda Mugen I just did looked absolutely fantastic outdoors when I'd done the first set of polishing, but under investigation with the sun gun, there was clear marring, and it was simply not an option for me to leave it there. I always correct to sun gun level, which is a greater level of correction than even looking at the car in full sun at times, but this means that no matter what light is thrown at the car, it will look as good as I can get it.


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## AndyC (Oct 25, 2005)

In defence of thumble halogen, I have to say that I've never had an issue with it "missing" lighter marring or hologramming. I tend to use it at different height/angle to assess correction level in combination with Xenon lights. I've also mounted a halogen in the garage roof to be able to have an overhead light source in addition to the standard double lamp tripod setup.

Metal halide lighting I've found highlights light marring better than anything - hence why it will be the default lighting when project garage starts shortly.

I'm interested in how the Sun Gun is seen to be better than direct natural sunlight Paul - partly because I'm curious and also because I need something pretty damned solid to convince SWMBO that it's a justified spend :lol:


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## Waxamomo (Jun 18, 2008)

I've been looking at different light sources recently, has anyone ever tried the Makita ML 180?? Is it any good?


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## Jakedoodles (Jan 16, 2006)

AndyC said:


> In defence of thumble halogen, I have to say that I've never had an issue with it "missing" lighter marring or hologramming. I tend to use it at different height/angle to assess correction level in combination with Xenon lights. I've also mounted a halogen in the garage roof to be able to have an overhead light source in addition to the standard double lamp tripod setup.
> 
> Metal halide lighting I've found highlights light marring better than anything - hence why it will be the default lighting when project garage starts shortly.
> 
> I'm interested in how the Sun Gun is seen to be better than direct natural sunlight Paul - partly because I'm curious and also because I need something pretty damned solid to convince SWMBO that it's a justified spend :lol:


Because the sun gun uses pixie power, which of course we know is a lot more powerful than the sun.

If the sun was at the right angle, fully out, it would show up everything, but that's rarely the case. I had a little full sun yesterday and couldn't see some marring. The sun gun showed it up though. This was on the doors, straight on.


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## Auto Finesse (Jan 10, 2007)

Mr Face said:


> Hi Dave, most certainly food for thought.
> 
> Can I ask, the Sun Gun is rather expensive for most enthusiast to justify. the alternatives are the small pocket LEDs and the Brinkman.
> 
> ...


the brinkmann is not near as powerfull as a 3M sun gun, as pual said there not 500 quid but you wont get them to your door for less than 350, unless some one has a rather nice one up for 200 in the sales section


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## Jakedoodles (Jan 16, 2006)

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38.l1313&_nkw=3m+sun+gun&_sacat=See-All-Categories 

Still cheaper to buy James's though!


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## Waxamomo (Jun 18, 2008)

£324.50 from eBay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-3M-PPS-SU...14&_trkparms=72:1683|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318


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## Epoch (Jul 30, 2006)

***Cough***

Neil_S's Sun Gun Vs the EP200 MK1 (which hasn't gone much further yet to be fair)










Sun Gun £350 Vs if i told you the EP200 uses a bulb that i get for £7 (12 of which are about to go in the garage) and can be run from a mains transformer bought for £5.


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## Waxamomo (Jun 18, 2008)

Epoch, tell us more about the EP200 please. I've googled it and all I come up with is bloody toy helicopters


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## Epoch (Jul 30, 2006)

Alty17 said:


> Epoch, tell us more about the EP200 please. I've googled it and all I come up with is bloody toy helicopters


lol It as a torch L200 Steve made using the bulbs i'd found, there are some pics of the Mk1 Heath Robinson version, it works and STeve has left it on for in excess of 1 hours full power with no heat problems so it has potential.



















We were looking to have a body made in plastic so that it was a saleable item, but the cost was a little prohibitive.

Parts shown came to about £60 IIRC (the batteries being about £40 of that) the quotes for the bodies would mean a run of 1000 or so and that was a little unrealistic


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## Waxamomo (Jun 18, 2008)

No wonder I couldn't find anything on google :lol:

Can anyone feel a group buy coming for the Ep200?? :thumb: Come on fella's it only needs a thousand of us :lol:


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## Epoch (Jul 30, 2006)

Alty17 said:


> No wonder I couldn't find anything on google :lol:
> 
> Can anyone feel a group buy coming for the Ep200?? :thumb: Come on fella's it only needs a thousand of us :lol:


You can see why we stoped

Tooling costs were a liitle high to do it as separate costs.

DIY kits might be an option for the clunky version


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## Andy_Green (Oct 27, 2005)

so going back to the high powered LED torch such as a LED Lenser, these a valid alternative to the sun-gun, my guess is that they lay somewhere in between. Think we need a comparative pictures of the two showing marring as was done with the halogens vs sun-gun.


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## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

Mr Face said:


> Hi Dave, most certainly food for thought.
> 
> Can I ask, the Sun Gun is rather expensive for most enthusiast to justify. the alternatives are the small pocket LEDs and the Brinkman.
> 
> ...


Hello Mike,

As others have said, the Sun Gun is more powerful than the Brinkman in terms of brightness and as such it does highlight more marring _more easily._ However, correct use of the Brinkman makes it an ideal tool as well for spotting hologramming. It can mask them at the wrong angle, held static but if you sweep the light from side to side, holograms will appear as waves in the paint which move the reflection slightly off the path you'd expect it to take... I'll do a video next time I'm at the unit to highlight what I mean.

500W halogens are, IMO, the easiest light sources to get a flase result from and while you can adapt them for most marring, trust them fully I would not. Very faint machine hologramming I have seen completely masked by a 500W halogen that was picked up easily with the Sun Gun, and with a little effort using the Brinkman.


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## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

Andy_Green said:


> so going back to the high powered LED torch such as a LED Lenser, these a valid alternative to the sun-gun, my guess is that they lay somewhere in between. Think we need a comparative pictures of the two showing marring as was done with the halogens vs sun-gun.


I'm sure I have a couple of LED torches that Bryan bought in the unit, I'll see what I can do at te next machine polishing training day this weekend as it would make a very good illustrative example in practice.


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## greglogan (Feb 17, 2009)

re: EP200 What bulbs are they? Is it a 12V dichroic and if so what wattage?

Thanks

Greg.


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## Epoch (Jul 30, 2006)

greglogan said:


> re: EP200 What bulbs are they? Is it a 12V dichroic and if so what wattage?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Greg.


50W bulbs


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## Clark @ PB (Mar 1, 2006)

This is the reason I only ever really use the Halogens for photographing defects and not much else, it's the Sun Gun standards I work to :thumb:


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## rich vrs (May 7, 2008)

i found my LED inspection lamp (hand held battery job) has been pretty helpful for this alongside my halogen but it does struggle a little in bright conditions.


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

I think its also worth adding that contrast makes a lot of difference too. A brinkman in a darkened garage (or at night!) is worth 10 sunguns in broad daylight. 

Setting up the most contrast between the ambient and hand held light source gives the best results.


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## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

Brazo said:


> I think its also worth adding that contrast makes a lot of difference too. A brinkman in a darkened garage (or at night!) is worth 10 sunguns in broad daylight.
> 
> Setting up the most contrast between the ambient and hand held light source gives the best results.


Yes indeed contrast makes a big difference which is why I find detailing outside difficult, especially on bright days - working in a nice dark unit is best for me, lighting only the areas I want lit.

All things being equal in terms of ambient light levels though, the Sun Gun is (as shown above) leaps and bounds ahead of a halogen.


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

Dave KG said:


> All things being equal in terms of ambient light levels though, the Sun Gun is (as shown above) leaps and bounds ahead of a halogen.


Absolutely:thumb:


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## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

Epoch said:


> You can see why we stoped
> 
> Tooling costs were a liitle high to do it as separate costs.
> 
> DIY kits might be an option for the clunky version


...and the first of the EP200 MKII's will be heading my way


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## Epoch (Jul 30, 2006)

Bigpikle said:


> ...and the first of the EP200 MKII's will be heading my way


I'd say second at best  :lol:

Thinking about it I'll remind Steve to get Mk1 out for Sunday mate :wave:


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## dogfox (Apr 5, 2009)

Has anyone used quality LED torches for this purpose ?

Two such torches are: 
(1)http://www.fenixtorch.co.uk/led_torches/fenix_p3d_q5.html
(2)TerraLUX LightStar 220 Extreme Cree LED Torch / Flashlight 220 Lumens TLF-3C2AAEX: Amazon.co.uk: Car & Motorbike

The fenix retails around £46 & the terraLUX for about £27.

I appreciate that professionals must have the top quality kit but the DIY
enthusiasts who just want their own car to work on cannot justify three figure sums for hologram checking.

What do you think?


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## Cullers (Sep 29, 2009)

This facinates me.... so what are the elements which make the sun gun so successful? I would imagine that the cost does not reflect (pun intended!) the technology or materials so it has to be (comparitively) the reputation of it which justifies the price. If this is the case. why hasn't another manufacturer jumped on the bandwagon and done their own version or, alternatively, why isn't there another product which is designed for a different role but has equal, almost equal or better qualities?


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

What makes the sun gun special is the bulb is extremely close to the colour temperature of natural daylight. I've never looked in to it but i imagine that the bulb is expensive to manufacture. Also it's made for professional use so i imagine the build quality is very good.

It's like asking what's the difference between a cheapy Black & Decker drill and a Makita.


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## Cullers (Sep 29, 2009)

Your comparison is exactly my point! How many cheapy black and deckers are sold and work well for years? The point is, they both do the same job albeit to a different tolerance of reliability and power. 

So its the colour temperature? So what do you think would happen with one of those SAD lights you can get? If its about colour temperature then they should be even better unless the diffuser nullifies it?


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