Halogen lighting for Bartop

[wrcsixeight]

A while back I made a bartop out of Parota wood, and covered it with a thick layer of epoxy, and that is covered with a high quality satin finish polyurethane to reduce glare and reflections.

Here is a section of it glowing under sunlight coming in through the skylights:

The client held off on lighting for it for a while, but now is ready for me to design something. While he is into LED's, I brought some warm white 12v 4k Phillips LEDs over there, and it was not able to highlight the beauty of the wood, Whereas Halogen makes it glow and people go Oooohh and Ahhhhh and fondle it lovingly.

So I am thinking about some mr11 or Gu10 halogen bulbs.

The Idea is to have the bulbs hidden from view, in a smaller wooden enclosure. The lights will anywhere between 38 to 49 inches over the bartop, and a person sitting at the bar should not be able to see the bulb itself unless they lean over and look upward into the wooden enclosure.

I am worried about heat. The bar is 9 feet long or so, and I was thinking about 4 to 6 gu10 bulbs each with their individual housings directly over the bar shining straight down.

I can leave the top uncovered. It is not too important that no light escape up the top, and perhaps even desirable to light the ceiling as a diffuse light.

I am a woodworker and a craftsman, not an interior designer or lighting engineer, obviously. The owners and me feel the same about how the bar should be lit, and it is upto me to make it happen, I am just not sure how much heatsinking I need for the Gu10 bulb bases nor how much room I need to leave around the bulbs, nor the wattage of the bulbs I need. They will be on a dimmer, and I think 50 watts would be excessive.

The owners do not really want any store bought type of tracklighting

I do have lots of rather large salvaged finned heatsinks from desktops or RV power supply/converters and have no issue cutting and drilling and can mechanically fasten a gu10 bulb base onto one.

Anybody have any input/insight/advice/warnings on these matters?

 

[Anders Hoveland]

You need to use high CRI LED lighting (preferably something with a CRI around 95).

Normal LED light does not have much red wavelengths in its spectrum, as a result wood tones look terrible, they look dull and yellowish.

 

[CoveAxe]

You need to use high CRI LED lighting (preferably something with a CRI around 95).

You didn't read what he wrote:

Whereas Halogen makes it glow and people go Oooohh and Ahhhhh and fondle it lovingly.

So I am thinking about some mr11 or Gu10 halogen bulbs.

No LED, so CRI is meaningless here. By definition, anything he buys will have a CRI of 100.

I don't have any halogen, so I can't really offer any opinion, but this quote stood out:

I am just not sure how much heatsinking I need for the Gu10 bulb bases

Halogen doesn't use heatsinking. They are supposed to be hot to work efficiently. As for the spacing and everything so it's safe, I haven't the foggiest. I'd probably leave some room for some kind of air circulation in case in the future they would want to swap out the halogens for LEDs since they are getting better and better every year.

 

[wrcsixeight]

I was looking at G10 bulb bases, trying to figure out how to mount them to a wood structure/ enclosure.

I figure these bases get extremely hot, especially when the bulb is firing straight downward.

If I could attach this bulb base to a finned aluminum heatsink then I could attach this heatsink to the wood suspending the bulb in the middle, and have the wood remain at a cool enough temperature to not be an issue.

I was thinking the GU10 bulb base screwed right to the wood would Not be acceptable.

I hope to keep the wooden enclosures small, but just big enough to allow enough space around the bulb to keep it cool enough to not be dangerous or warp the Seriously hard wood (Bubinga or Pau ferro) from the heat generated.

I'd love the LED route if it were able to make the wood glow and not appear a sickly greenish yellow, but dimming to extremely low light levels is highly desirable in this application.

 

[FRITZHID]

I'd love the LED route if it were able to make the wood glow and not appear a sickly greenish yellow, but dimming to extremely low light levels is highly desirable in this application.

That's what Anders was trying to say.....
Halogen has a CRI of 100.... This is what makes the color and depth of an object appear pleasing.
To do this (and yes it's possible), you need a high CRI LED source. A CRI of 93 or better will surprise you.

Using a high quality-high CRI LED source, with proper cooling, will provide what you're after..... Including a clean looking wooden housing, provided you allow adequate cooling.
A simple heatsink with thruflow air will suffice....
Only issues from there is optics/aiming, brightness/control and power supply.
This really isn't as complicated as it seems..... Despite what others say. I have plenty of high CRI LED lighting all over my house, including art, wood, food and general lighting.

 

[Anders Hoveland]

A CRI of 93 or better will surprise you.

Yes, something around 93 CRI would be fine.

For LED lighting, between 85-90 CRI wood tones will look about the same as they do under fluorescent light, in my experience. Not noticeably bad, but it could be better.

 

[poiihy]

When choosing halogen reflector lamps, make sure to choose the correct reflector type. For your use you should choose a lamp with an aluminum reflector.

See this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgZdKGndFs8