Common Light Table Myths Debunked

Like a lot of crucial industrial and lab equipment, illuminated tables also known as a light table, are deceptively simple things. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that has led people to believe some deceptive things about them. Including, how they work and what they can do.

But these are myths — in some cases, exaggerations or misstatements, in others outright falsehoods. Many of these myths are interrelated and feed into one another. Worse yet, the misapprehensions they engender keep people from availing themselves of what can be incredibly useful tools.

RDM Industrial Products has 40 plus years of experience creating laboratory and industrial furniture. So we know a thing or two about how a light table works. Since we want you to be in the know – here are five of the most common light table myths debunked.

1. The Lighting Bills Can Become Expensive

One might be totally willing to grant the usefulness of light tables as tools in all manner of different workplace environments. And yet stay wary about buying them for a pretty mundane but important reason: cost. Specifically, even if the cost of the table itself is not much of an issue, fears about accumulating light bills might be, especially in larger labs, factories or design firms that may have to keep many of these units running at once for hours at a time.

Rest assured, this not something for you to worry about. RDM’s light inspection tables all use LED lights. LED light are incredibly efficient and long-lasting. Advances in technology over the last number of years have have substantially brought down not only the up-front costs that one needs to pay to buy lights like this, but also the amount of energy that they use as well. According to most estimates, LED lights consume about 75% percent less electricity than ordinary incandescent lights.

Energy cost per unit simply will not be a major factor for you. If your operation can handle the cost of buying the units themselves, it can also handle the cost of powering them.

2. The Light They Provide is Not Bright Enough

As soon as one hears about the impressive energy efficiency and low electricity usage of LED bulbs, another worry begins to creep in about inspection tables — this time about the brightness and usefulness of the lights they use. A laymen could be forgiven for believing that if LED lights really use as little electricity as they do, then their ability to illuminate a surface just can’t be terribly impressive.

Once again, this is simply false. There’s a very quick and easy way to refute this misconception. Just turn on an LED light and see what happens! If you still don’t think that these lights are bright enough for you, you may need to have your eyes examined.

For those who would like a more detailed explanation of why and how the LED lights in our light panels and tables are able to generate such impressive luminosity – you can get more LED info here. LED lights, however, are special in that they use two-lead semiconductors. These semiconductors are designed to excite electrons in such a way as to produce a great deal of light but relatively little heat. Hence, LED lights’ intense brightness and their energy efficiency.

3. They Only Provide Lighting in a One-Dimensional Way

Light inspection tables with LED lights are energy efficient and bright enough to make even the darkest areas eminently visible. However, the truth is that explosive brightness is not always called for in every situation. Sometimes, you might require only a moderate amount of light. And at other times, only the faintest glow will be appropriate. If our LED units only offered the one-dimensional advantage of blaringly intense luminosity, you might think they aren’t worth the investment.

But again, to think this way would be to fall prey to a misconception. Illuminated tables are not one-trick ponies that can only light things up for you only a single, narrowly circumscribed way. Years ago, when LED lights were a relatively new thing, it was not possible to either dim or brighten them effectively due to the peculiar properties of their electrical circumstances. However, technology has surmounted this problem. Today, an LED light can be dimmed or brightened just as well as any fluorescent or incandescent light.

Indeed all of our factory-direct units come equipped with remote dimmer switches. Not only can you change their lighting intensity at will, you can do so without even having to touch them.

4. There’s Only Really One Kind of Light Table

If your entire image of an inspection table is simply as some fixed surface with a white light source emitting out from underneath it, let us assure you that this doesn’t even begin to exhaust what illuminated tables can be. As with all of our industrial furniture and other manufacturer-direct products, we can customize these tables for you in myriad ways.

For instance, light can flow out from beneath the table’s surface. But if you require overhead lighting, we can also build units for you with overhead light booms. Overhead racks can also be added if you need to hang some items nearby as you work. We’ve already mentioned that we can give you the ability to regulate your light’s intensity. But you can choose the color that suits you as well. In addition to the standard white, our tables can be made to emit red, blue, green and other kinds of light as well.

Furthermore, you need not limit yourself simply to the use of a flat horizontal surface. You can also order special models which allow you to tilt their surface to whatever angle you require using either a hand crank or a hydraulic motor. Thus, you can have light tables for drawing or many other purposes. The hand crank or hydraulic motor can also be used to raise or lower the table vertically. Height adjustability can range anywhere between six and sixteen inches, depending on your specifications. The hydraulic lift system can also be customized to bear as much as 3,000 pounds of weight.

Not only this, but some of our models aren’t even tables. We also manufacture light panels that can be flipped around and left totally vertical. And, any light table model can incorporate wheels for mobility purposes.

With so many customization options, we urge you not to fall into the trap of thinking that if you’ve seen one light table, you’ve seen them all.

5. A Light Table Has Limited Use

At first glance, perhaps the one thing that might come to mind for you in regard to this whole topic is an image of an architectural planner hunched over a table in a dark room. You picture the light glaring out and illuminating his entire immediate work area. That’s certainly one way to put a light inspection table to use, but it’s far from the only way.

Artists who take advantage of their tilt feature can profitably enjoy light tables for drawing. Doctors and medical technicians can put them to use while examining x-rays or other important medical documents or information. Scientists can use them to light up their immediate work areas so they can see exactly what they are doing as they combine the ingredients of sensitive or potentially volatile reactions together. When there’s no room for error, that light can be an indispensable tool.

Light inspection tables can be utilized for more than their intended use. Any industry or aspect of work where concentrated light is regularly needed can benefit from having them around.

Conclusion

Light tables and panels are incredibly valuable tools. Many have already come to see this, and they’re prevalence in workplaces of all sorts has grown accordingly. Alas, many continue to believe some persistent myths about them and their most critical components. We’re it not for these myths, we are sure that they would be even more widely used than they are.

Now that some of the most common of these misconceptions have been swept away from your mind, we encourage you to check out our full selection of illuminated light tables and panels — all proudly manufactured in the USA.