Craftsman Professional 500 Watt Halogen Work Light
The Assembly
It came in a normal size box so it’s no wonder it has a lot of pieces. However my dad was able to put it together in just about 20 minutes with no trouble. It’s pretty self-explanatory for anyone who works with tools a lot. The manual does give good instructions on how to set it up and even has pictures to guide you.
The Lights
The most important thing about this set is the LIGHTS. As you can see in the picture, there are two bright light bulbs inside a well protected container. The light bulbs are each up to 500 Watts as that is the Max you are allowed to put in there. They are covered by a black grill to avoid anything falling on the bulb and burning. Of course it is still possible for something to touch the bulb, but at least you know you are safe if you fall into it.
The bulbs range from BRIGHT to VERY BRIGHT to Double the Brightness! To start, you can turn on only one, or both. Than if you hit each one twice they will get even brighter! You can have enough light for your whole basement. This works well if you are working on a room and have to (for safety purposes) disconnect all the lights. Or if you are building a new room and don’t have any lights in there yet. These bulbs will effectively light the entire area. To experiment, I turned them on on one side of my basement, and suddenly the opposite side of my basement looked like it was in daylight! Very bright.
If you have one light on low, it is 250W. If you have 2 lights on low OR 1 light on high, it is 500W. And of course you can figure out the other combos until you get 1000W. You will be able to see whatever it is you are working on even in the dark of night. As we worked on our new addition in the darkest of hours, we felt like it was noon.
The Positioning
There are many options you can set in order to make the lights face exactly where you want them. You can move the lights side to side, not quite 360 degrees around because of the plug, but close enough. They also can lean more towards the ground or more towards the ceiling as you wish. Essentially you can set them to aim right at the ceiling dead on. You can also adjust the height. We keep ours at about 4 feet in our basement, but it can get as small as about 3 feet and as tall as about 6 feet. Once you have the settings as you like them, it works on a “tighten the knob” system to lock those settings into place. This is pretty standard and easy to adjust. Even little weaklings like me can tighten/untighten and adjust the settings without any trouble at all.
The Swivel and active use of the product
When you are actually using the product, you probably won’t be changing the angle of the lights much, but you most likely will be moving around a lot. The product is very light and I can carry it with one hand by the handle that protrudes from the top. The light angles/settings I have locked so they stay tight even if I move it around.
Even better, it swivels! So you could really just set it in the middle of a room, tighten the lights, and turn it to whatever direction you need to work on. The only downside is that you cannot turn it 360 degrees around because of the plug will get tangled, but you can get almost all the way there!
The Stand
The stand seems really sturdy. It’s made of metal with rubber parts used to keep things in place. It’s a Tripod so you don’t have to worry about it falling over too easily. I just gave it some pretty hefty pushes and the tripod legs barely moved. This is ideal for a product that is going to be in your workspace. Anyone who’s worked on a house project knows that trying to get lights to stay in place can be frustrating. Back in the day (like 10 years ago) we used to use one of those little lights that took a regular bulb and clamped on to a shelf. Thank the heavens we moved on from those because it was so hard to get them pointing in the right direction!!
The Plug
They boast that the plug is 12 feet so you won’t really need an extension cord, however you may choose to get one anyway. If you are working in a small room, 12 feet is plenty, however in my basement we find ourselves moving the plug from socket to socket to keep up with us. It probably would be easier to get an extension cord and not have to worry about distance at all.
The Rain
It says on the product “Suitable for Wet Location Use” but doesn’t really seem to say anything in the book. Does this mean you can use it in the rain? That’s something we’ve never done but I am pretty sure you can….however, maybe an expert can clarify for me.
The Practical Use
We’ve used these lights for many projects so far. We bought them because we built a new addition and obviously needed to light up a room that had no light bulbs. We used these bulbs day and night to paint, nail, put up shelves, put down carpet, etc.
A second example usage was when we were repainting the basement, starting with the ceiling, which is why aiming the lights right up at the ceiling is beneficial. We’ve removed a lot of our lighting fixtures for this task so it gets pretty dark down here when we are working. The bright lights make it so we can clearly see what has been painted and what hasn’t.
I imagine these lights could be used for many workspace purposes. Perhaps if you are working on your car in a dark garage, or painting a mural. You don’t have to be building something in order to buy this light set.
The Warnings
Of course there is some danger when using something with this much power…you should be thinking of Tim the Toolman Taylor at this point. If you use this, make sure you read the many precautions, but here is some common sense. Don’t touch the bulbs and avoid touching the metal pieces. There are rubber “grips” where you need them so you shouldn’t have to touch the metal. Keep the product away from children and other people who may not know any better. The bulbs do have a gate over them, but little hands can still sneak through. Finally, I imagine this uses a lot of energy so be good to the environment and turn it off when not in use! That will also be good for your electricity bill and keep the product from getting too hot. Always take caution when using something with more power than what you are used too. This is not a reading light, this is for people doing some heavy duty work. Use it wisely.
The End!
So far this light set has helped us complete our projects with ease. There is no “strain” on our eyes as we try to see what has already been painted or aim the hammer just right. It’s much easier to work on a project when you aren’t worrying about aiming the light bulb so you can see. The lights cover so much space that you will hardly ever need to adjust them. I suggest you check out Craftsman next time you need to see better! Enjoy your projects.
