Biased lighting for your big screen tv

I was intrigued by the instructable explaining how to add biased lighting to your LCD monitor.
My monitors are CRT and sit in a spot that does not allow biased lighting, but my big screen TV could be a candidate.
Now I can watch TV for hours on end without eye-strain.

Step 1 Inspiration

Biased lighting on the cheap gave me this idea, so essentially this is his instructable, modified for my situation.

Check out his tutorial here. http://www.instructables.com/id/EE79YDCL0REQZJI1AZ/

This is a pic from his tutorial below.

After the jump is my how-to.

Comments

[sloleak]

"My only annoyance is the thermostat above the TV. It makes the whole setup look silly." I had the same problem. Went up into the attic and found that the thermostat wires were fed down from the top wall plates. I cut the wires (2 in my case), spliced more wire on and was able to move the thermostat over. Drilled thru the wall plates and fished the wires down to a new location. Only had to use 2 beers...:) note: First check with a stud finder to insure there is no blocking between wall studs at the new location.

[Frogz]

you owe me $4000, i just tried this and my 70 inch hd dlp tv stopped working

[bensharn]

don't you feel partially responsible? After all ColumbusGEEK even stated how dumb he was being. Instead of sticking a drill in your $4000 tv you could perhaps try tape. (that eliminates the whole drilling part into the $4000 tv part)

[ColumbusGEEK]

Crap, and I already sent him 4000+shipping. I get dumber every year.

[Frogz]

check arrived safely do you recomend a bigger drill bit? i think that was my problem

[ColumbusGEEK]

This one should do.

[Frogz]

are you sure? i actually used the next model up from that, it comes with an second full sized handle so a second person can hold it steady

[ColumbusGEEK]

handles are for losers.

[cornflaker]

Yeah pfft. handles are as useless as instructions.

[jakecav04]

lies

[VIPER2475]

Dont DRILL into you TV! Just put a small lamp behind it.

[joeny1980]

I dont have an LCD or anything that would use this but ever since I've seen commercials for the Philips LCD tv with "Ambilight". I thought - how hard could that be to make with some LEDs. Someone needs to build one of these with adaptive lighting - changing colors based on the picture on the tv. I'm not an electronics genius but here is an idea on how to do it: Take the video out of the tv, connect it to the smallest least expensive screen you can (maybe $50 LCD for a car). Pump up the brightness and saturation and contrast on the screen of the LCD. Mount some fiberoptic tubes on the front and string them to the edges of the back of the tv facing the wall. Thats my ghetto-rig idea. Better yet, somehow take the video output of the tv and essentially color block it out and translate that into light a multicolor RGB LED.

[starphire]

The Philips light is a set of cold cathode fluorescent tubes, so the colors are not nearly as saturated as LEDs would be. Color Kinetics patented this concept for use with RGB LEDs some years ago.

[Ibanezfoo]

I am trying this out on my 55" LCD projection TV. So far it is more annoying than anything. I think it is too bright. I used the same bulb you used in this guide. I am going to try and wire up some kind of dimming circuit and see if that makes a difference.

[Ibanezfoo]

Actually I realized right after typing this that you can't dim flourescent bulbs, well not easily anyway. The LED route might be a better solution.

[rule001]

hmm, don't really see the point in doing this :( light behind your screen actually makes the sceen seem smaller! This is the reason most screens have a black frame, silver or no frame also makes it look smaller. also, my big screen has economical settings: the brightness of the sceen adapts to the light of the enviroment. So the darker the room is, the lower my electric bill gets ;) But fot those who (for some weird reason) think this is the coolest thing since tv was invented... ..just hang x-mas lights behind your screen! U can get them in a color to mach your room, they don't get hot and they use practicly no power so u save on your electric bill too.

[ColumbusGEEK]

To each his own of course, thats what makes this site great. ...but... The point is to make a soft diffused natural light behind the TV. Bias light behind your TV can help reduce the strain your eyes endure when you force them to jump between light and dark images on the screen. The constant light provides an anchor so your eyes' adjustments don't have to be so extreme. Christmas lights will help you look more like a 15 year old girl decorated your home then achieve the affect I was shooting for. Bias lighting is very popular recently with LCDs and new tvs. A mere 5 minutes on google will enlighten anybody.

[A3rd.Zero]

That looks really good. You may want to invest in a light that produces 6500K, and some sort of neutral photo grey paint for the wall behind the TV. Otherwise your eyes will adapt to the color temperature of the biasing source which conflicts with the color temperature of your TV.

[ColumbusGEEK]

Tried teh Tungston...made the pics blinding white. Anyhow, I got a new camera for macro pics so the future will look much whiter.

[joeyjoeyjoey]

Great how to. If I may add... another way to acheive this is to use under cabinet lighting. I have found LED ones at my local harware depot. They are thin and allow themselves to be applied with velcro (so no need to drill). Its great option for those with minimal clearance as well. As far as your orange cast on your photos. If your camera has selectable white balance select tungsten.

[ColumbusGEEK]

True Jordan.day. The bulb does give off a bit of heat, not enough to burn by a long shot, but still enough to skew the thermostat just a bit. Its one of those electronic ones so I simply adjust it a bit higher or lower to suit the girlfriends desire to keep the nips in check. (I prefer it cold over warm) As for jeffrowards comment, I gotta admit, it looks ridicules from the side. I really only use the tv when sitting in front of it, so it's not a huge issue. I sigh and shake my head when I walk by to the kitchen, but aside from that it's no biggie to me.

[jeffroward]

this is pretty awesome. although, i have some questions- isn't the lightbulb visible when you walk from the tv room to the kitchen (or whatever room that is) ? have you shrouded the bulb for a more... aesthetic...look? and, have you adjusted your thermostat to account for all the heat the tv and the bulb put off? seems like the heat would cause you to have bogus temp. readings. other than that, this is an awesome idea!

[jordan.day]

While I'm sure the TV puts off some heat, he pointed out in the instructable that he used a 9W compact flourescent bulb -- so the heat it generates is pretty negligible, and probably dissipates quite a bit by the time it gets to the thermostat.

[bowdie]

Nice work sir! Although the photo of the screw sinking into the TV is still giving me the heebies.

[ColumbusGEEK]

I used really short panhead screws that did not penetrate the plastic too far. Most of that "I am scared, look how crazy I am", was shtick. My new TV, if I can ever afford it, will have it built in. Many of the new plasmas have it as a feature.

[FrenchCrawler]

Nice, but if you were really worried about damaging your TV, why not just attach a board to the back of the stand and then attach the light to the board? Then if your tv broke for some reason and you buy a new tv, you can easily switch out the old and put the new one in without drilling holes into it.

[trebuchet03]

That's pretty cool :D Good way to use another instructable to your specs ;) A