Sunday, February 1, 2015

Time to upgrade your IKEA cabinet halogen lights for your anime figures


Alot of people have IKEA glass cases to store their anime figures. They are a great value. But the lighting, is a different issue. many people use LED light strips, which in the past, although functional, looked like a pocket pen light bulb and gave off a white/blue hue. 

Personally, I always preferred the brightness and color intensity of Halogen lights. But the two huge flaws have always been the large power draw and the dangerous amount of heat produced. Touching a Halogen light, even these little bulbs can seriously burn you and it only takes a minute or two for them to fully heat up. Three of the biggest dangers I would say to anime figures are HEAT, UV light and moisture. In an enclosed glass case with the lights left on frequently, we definitely want to get rid of as much heat as possible. 

The good news, is over the last 5 years, LED technology has improved vastly and is very affordable, now. If you are still using Halogen G4 light bulbs you should consider upgrading to these little LED discs. The light intensisty is almost exactly the same and they use less wattage. They do still get rather warm, but they won't scald you like a halogen. 

Left is LED disc, Right is Halogen G4

*IMPORTANT Safety Information*

if your new lights are making a small buzzing sound
it could be because your light box transformer is inadequate
this is common on the IKEA grundtal if you have the white plastic box
Try leaving one halogen in a light and the others LED and see if the buzzing stops
the LED buzzing sound is the capacitors being overworked
and they can fail and make smoke or maybe even start a fire
PLEASE check your LED lights if they can be used with A/C current if your lights plug into the wall. 
Some are made specifically to run off a car battery like in a mobile camper.


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