SAD lights?

[Rob Morley]

Many years ago I made a SAD light from six four foot fluorescent tubes backed with reflectors made from split carpet tubes covered with foil. I stuck it on the wall behind my computer monitor because I'm pretty much guaranteed to check mail, newsgroups and news sites every morning. It didn't work well because the CRT screen looked very dim and caught a lot of reflections. A few years later I got a couple of LED panels from Lidl, sticking them beside my newer LCD screen doesn't affect my ability to see the screen (actually improves it slightly - I'm a bit long-sighted) and may help me to resist my instinct to hibernate at this time of the year.

[whisky-dave]

No it is the exact spectral content that is important, that;s one reason why they were expensive as you needed blue light which wasnlt easy to 'make'.

What you really need is full spectrum SAD.

Semi-SAD or just a bit MOPPY won't do it ;-)

[Roger Hayter]

At least according to Philips (I haven't checked their primarys sources thought they do reference them) you can get away with a significantly less bright light if it is in the blue region (not precisely sure how far). If you ever want to set up such a system it is well worth looking up, as white light does have to be really very bright indeed to work.

[Martin Brown]

That is what the vendors would have you believe and to some extent it is true but the LED technology is to make blue light very efficiently and use it to excite a broadband yellow phosphor for a white. It is trivial to mix in extra blue LED during build (just as it is trivial to omit green LEDs in magenta arrays intended for horticulture).

Fish tank people have a range of choices.

Bright enough and bluish will be good enough.

Conversely if you use a computer late at night having the colour temperature go lower after dusk will make it easier to sleep.

[whisky-dave]

But you do need that 'special Blue' LED normal blue LEDs just don't produce the correct wavelengh at sufficinet brightness. Things are better now but a friend of mine was seeing a specialst at a hospital near trafalgar square and was having SAD sessions in the mid 90s.

It is trivial

But you still need the correct one, not just any blue will do.

Not sure how valid this is but.

6.html

FISH TANK PEOPLE ! I think you mean Aquarists.

I had 3 'tanks' in the ealry 90s. Thre wasntl one light that wass the best for everything, some lighting was to show off the fish others for the plants.

Depends how bad your SAD symptoms are.

I think that depends more on what you are looking at ;-) and it certainly isn't the answer if your interested in photography.