What do you use for a light/lamp on your custom enclosures? Perhaps someone can share a better project, as this isn't my last. Well here are my results of my custom made lamp for now.
I built another enclosure/house/habitat for my mantis with improvements. As it was another custom built habitat I needed to find a lamp/light source for it.
After building my own lamp and spending about $15 total I found small florescent lamps (5" and 12") at a local store for only $6 new. So it turns out if I knew what bulb size to buy originally, or knew of the florescent lamp, I would have saved money (100% or more).
I found a tiny lamp that used light bulb bases B, C, and F - so after looking at local stores C base light bulbs were plentiful, especially C7. I originally tried two night lights (that use 7 watt bulbs) and it did not provide near enough light. I then jumped to a 40 watt bulb, which was too much.
In the end I bought a 25 watt bulb and it provided enough light without being too much. I dismantled the lamp and made a vented box enclosure for the bulb socket.
After experimenting with the various light bulbs, and saw nearly none give the light amount (lumens or luminosity) on the package just the wattage -- but then it wouldn't matter as I had no idea how many lumens I needed for my habitat. I tried all the various incandescent light bulbs I had then, and made a chart of the various wattages.
As my camera auto-adjusted the images based on lighting/iso I took images with the room light on and off as well to help show the variations. Perhaps this will be of use to others that build their own enclosure/house/habitats.
Seems even on bulb packages with limited info, they show what wattage or comparable wattage it uses. So the chart will help even if you are using the newer light bulbs, LEDs, or such bulbs.
Here is my photo chart...
I built another enclosure/house/habitat for my mantis with improvements. As it was another custom built habitat I needed to find a lamp/light source for it.
After building my own lamp and spending about $15 total I found small florescent lamps (5" and 12") at a local store for only $6 new. So it turns out if I knew what bulb size to buy originally, or knew of the florescent lamp, I would have saved money (100% or more).
I found a tiny lamp that used light bulb bases B, C, and F - so after looking at local stores C base light bulbs were plentiful, especially C7. I originally tried two night lights (that use 7 watt bulbs) and it did not provide near enough light. I then jumped to a 40 watt bulb, which was too much.
In the end I bought a 25 watt bulb and it provided enough light without being too much. I dismantled the lamp and made a vented box enclosure for the bulb socket.
After experimenting with the various light bulbs, and saw nearly none give the light amount (lumens or luminosity) on the package just the wattage -- but then it wouldn't matter as I had no idea how many lumens I needed for my habitat. I tried all the various incandescent light bulbs I had then, and made a chart of the various wattages.
As my camera auto-adjusted the images based on lighting/iso I took images with the room light on and off as well to help show the variations. Perhaps this will be of use to others that build their own enclosure/house/habitats.
Seems even on bulb packages with limited info, they show what wattage or comparable wattage it uses. So the chart will help even if you are using the newer light bulbs, LEDs, or such bulbs.
Here is my photo chart...
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