I came across a sunbed at a junk shop recently. Its the metal type with 8 tubes and rotates horizontal over a bed.

There it was at the back of the shop in a vertical position complete with its cantilever stand on castors and I thought....

Well you guessed right, what would replacing the tubes with some daylights types be like as a cool lighting unit

Its all there with individual reflectors per tube - has any one tried this - would it work??

From the lack of responses I doubt anyone has tried it. I would
also think that normal lights might get too hot for such a unit?

Not sure that heat would be a problem since the beds are usually fitted with fans. I would hate to be the grip assigned to your shoot though and have to move the thing around much! Also wonder if bulbs of the correct lenght and color are available.

The fans on your typical bed are very loud. Of course, they're designed to keep people cool who are basically right on the light so maybe you could get away without them.

If the tubes are 4' long you could replace them with Kino-flo 5500K or 3200K tubes.

The problem is more with the ballasts used to power the tubes. Kino's use approx. a 10Khz tranzformer to eliminate strobing or flicker from the tubes.

Heat won't be a problem for you. These tubes are more for visible light spectrum than the IR band that tanning boots use. They create heat just like the french fry lamps at McDonalds.

David Mesloh

thx for the input

I returned to the shop to discover that this thing weighs a ton - more like 40kg

also the 6 ft long tubes are impractical

nevertheless i like the design concept and am thinking about constructing a lightweight alloy frame (square section) and bolt on half a dozen 4ft strip light holders (very cheap) - then I can use 4ft kinos with the right ballast of course!!! --- target weight 6kg


seasons greets