Pinball room lighting

[DanSeldon]

I'm having some work done on the house to accommodate the little collection I have and as part of this I'm upgrading the lighting in the room.

I know a few people have dedicated areas, converted garages, pin sheds etc and wondered what you did for lighting?

My room, the old garage which has been fully converted, will be split in two, a bank of 4 pins one end and a snug tv area the other.

I was thinking of having spot lights maybe split between 2 two dimmer switches so you can independently control the spots ver the pins.

What better solutions are out there? should I just back light the pin area with remote controlled LEDs etc

What have you guys done?

 

[JAG555]

I have spotlights, but they are never on when I play, just if I need to work on them.

I have ambient lights from neons and other light art on the wall and that, along with the machines, is a good light for me.

However, I think it’s a bit of personal preference and depends what kind of light you like to play with on.

This is my lighting.

 

[DanSeldon]

I like to have as natural a light as possible but I do also through in extra GI to most of my pins so the kind of levels of ambient light you have would work well.
I think I'll need the spots in case the room gets re-purposed in the future but I don't want a spotlight immediately over the playfields.
The wall they are going on is a tight squeeze so they'll butted up together so I could run LED strips behind and you wont see them.

I'lll get some cheap strips and see how they do maybe.

 

[David_Vi]

I asked the same question a couple years ago and track lighting came up a few times so that's what I've got now.

One track down the middle of the room and a bunch of spots I can move about and adjust.
I can dim them and use them for ambient lighting but not have them pointing at the pins causing glare.
Also can move some and point them where I need them when I need to work on a pin.

Essentially just really flexible spotlights

 

[Jib]

We went with smart downlights. Can turn them on or off, control brightness and colour all individually. I think it works well if you want lights off over certain games but still have light around you

 

[RetroHeed]

Today I was looking at more options for lighting in my Games Room, during my self build I installed ceiling track spotlights. They can be angled in any direction and I have those LED bulbs that can be dimmed and colour changed with remote. The ceiling track lights also have a toggle switch so each side can switched off separately.

Here is my current lighting and setup, sorry for the poor quality photos.

 

[JT.]

My room, the old garage which has been fully converted, will be split in two, a bank of 4 pins one end and a snug tv area the other.

I was thinking of having spot lights maybe split between 2 two dimmer switches so you can independently control the spots ver the pins.

What better solutions are out there? should I just back light the pin area with remote controlled LEDs etc

What have you guys done?

My own view is that you have the best solution here already. Track lights are a faff to keep clean versus spots, and personally I'm not keen on the aesthetic of them - being non-flush, they just look too fussy for me, almost making an ugly metal lump into a feature (just my opinion obviously, others will like them). Also it would seem like such a wasted opportunity to me not wiring for a matrix of many spots whilst the construction work is being undertaken. If you went for two banks of spots with one double gang dimmable switch, then if the room is repurposed or you move, it could easily be changed to a single gang switch to control the entire room in one.