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Lights Out?


Do you use your spa's lighting?  

151 members have voted

  1. 1. How often do you turn on the spa's lighting (at night of course)

    • Yes, we use it every time we are in the spa.
      55
    • Often, most of the time
      44
    • Rarely, only some times
      37
    • We never use it
      15


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  • 2 months later...

Good night for light's out soaking coming up.

Lyrids meteor shower the night of April 21/22 it will be a near new Moon. Should be a great show!

If you have not tried turning the lights off, it would be a great time to try it! Maybe even invite some friends over.

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The only times I ever turn on the lights are (1) as a courtesy for a guest so they can see their way in/out of the tub (once they're situated comfortably I turn the lights off) and (2) if a guest wants to see all the horns and whistles that my tub has. I seldom use the jets, either. Only use 'em when I'm sore after a workout or long bike ride. I prefer to sit out in the tub, quietly, under a moonlit sky due in part (I suspect) to my early-on experiences of hot springs soaks after a long day of backpacking.

ah yes a good hot springs soak.

If you ever go to yellowstone national park there is a place called the boiling river on the North West side of the Park. There is a hot spring that empties into a cold river via a 3 foot waterfall. Someone constructed a stone grotto right under the waterfall. You can alternate from hot to cold by wading a couple feet in different directions.

Now that was a soak to remember.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Good night for light's out soaking coming up.

Lyrids meteor shower the night of April 21/22 it will be a near new Moon. Should be a great show!

If you have not tried turning the lights off, it would be a great time to try it! Maybe even invite some friends over.

Just a reminder, this Tuesday & Wednesday night is the meteor shower.

Is anyone else planning to soak and watch the fireworks?

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I plan to -- remains to be seen if my weather intends to cooperate, however! :) It is Oregon, after all.

I once watched the Leonid on a clear, dark night when I lived in California... I couldn't sleep and got up to go have a squiz. I promised myself I wouldn't go inside until I saw 100 shooting stars. I was back in the house in less than an hour!! Would have stayed out longer, but it was ccccooooollllddd!! Still, it was an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime show.

My favorite time to soak is after the sun goes down but before it's quite dark. I like the spa lights on and going through their schtick (color variation with 5 levels of dim) while it gets really dark. Once the stars are out, though, that's all I want to see, so it's lights out. Another rural dweller here. Lots of wildlife and stars to see without any ambient light.

Rae

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  • 3 weeks later...
The aftermarket led systems cannot be used with a dimmer (at least any I've heard of). OEM systems can. I know I can purchase a factory led light system for my 2002 Sundance spa that will work with my three level dimmer.

I am curious as to what you paid for the factory light system. Mind sharing?

I just bought one of the aftermarket LED system for my Sundance Capri and it's great! Prior to that I NEVER used the light. It does work with a dimmer system (I'll admit I just crossed my fingers and hoped!). What happens is that the setting that previously would have been dimming ones don't do anything at all. So for each time you want to either change the display setting or shut the light off you need to hit the switch 3 times (the first 2 do anything.)

It was VERY easy to install ... even I could do it! :P

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The aftermarket led systems cannot be used with a dimmer (at least any I've heard of). OEM systems can. I know I can purchase a factory led light system for my 2002 Sundance spa that will work with my three level dimmer.

I am curious as to what you paid for the factory light system. Mind sharing?

I just bought one of the aftermarket LED system for my Sundance Capri and it's great! Prior to that I NEVER used the light. It does work with a dimmer system (I'll admit I just crossed my fingers and hoped!). What happens is that the setting that previously would have been dimming ones don't do anything at all. So for each time you want to either change the display setting or shut the light off you need to hit the switch 3 times (the first 2 do anything.)

It was VERY easy to install ... even I could do it! :P

I didn't end up purchasing one. I like the blue light and decided to just keep what I had. If the light bulb needs changing, I'll consider an LED. It was a while ago, but I thought the factory light was somewhere aroung $125 or $150.

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I love the lights in mine, it is a big part of the tub for me.

It does 30 different colours apparently and a few different modes, FADE, SWITCH, PARTY etc and has about 5 brightness settings and you can change all the timings etc.

The only way it could be better is if I had more than 1 light in the tub as the way it is placed is at a funny angle and doesn't totally light up the whole tub :(

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  • 2 months later...

We are first time hot tub shoppers. We went to the Hot Spring dealer yesterday and so far are interested in Bengal, Flair and Sovereign. The dealer thought Bengal was best value for the money, but we are not too sure about it. It does not have the waterfall feature and has only one light. It also has less jets. According to him, waterfall and lights are not really useful features and that most people do not really use them. In fact, he said more lights you have in the tub (more holes), more likely they will cause leak. Is that true? .....

Thank you.

This thread might give you some idea about the utility of the lights.

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I use mine "often" but it doesnt stay on the whole time. I dont have LEDs so it's just a blue lens, but if the bulb goes out I'll go LED. I wanted LED but I dunno about the color changing bit; since I'm a geek I'll prolly end up making some kind of color wheel controller that responds to sound... or something.

I really like floating and looking up at the sky. Since I live in town now I don't have the view I used to have in the country (at our old place the milky way looked like a brush streak of stars across the sky) but I still have plenty of stars and now I find enjoyment counting and tracking the high flying planes. Sometimes the light in the water adds enjoyment to that as it gives a nice shimmering glow to the pergola framing the sky.

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  • 2 months later...
Hope everyone is enjoying their skywatching!

THe Orionids are visible tonight in the SouthEastern sky. It is supposed to peak early tomorrow morning, but if anyone is going out to soak in a little while you might be able to see the early effects.

Enjoy!

I got up about 5 and went for a soak and watch session. Unfortunately, I live in the city and did not see that many. Still a good Lights out soak.

Also I saw there is another on November 18th. The leonids.

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Sorry you guys did not have luck where you are.

I went out at about 12, and saw a couple and then soaked from about 30 minutes and kept seeing more and more. I finally went in about 2! I normally keep the tub around 107-110, thankfully I had dialed it down to about 102 for the wife (I am not sure what would have happened if I had soaked for 2+ hours at 110). :o

Hope you have better luck next time, I had lots of 'long low' ones... the kind you can almost hear. Great time! :)

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After 3 weeks use, on reading another thread, it occours to me that I have not once turned on the lights in the spa other then to see if they work?

I can't see why I would use the light, unless maybe entertaining in the tub?

Do you use yours?

We like the lights. My wife likes changing the colours.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a heads up;

morning of Tuesday, November 17th.

The 2009 Leonids Are Coming!

Most meteor showers vary from year to year, but the Leonids are particularly capricious. Many years they chug along producing just 5 or 10 meteors visible per hour. But at the Leonids' historical greatest, in 1833, meteors were seen to fall "like snowflakes in a blizzard," with estimated rates of several dozen per second!

This year is expected to be better than average. The "traditional," most reliable part of the shower should peak around 4 a.m. EST (1 a.m. PST) on the morning of Tuesday, November 17th. You might see 20 or 30 meteors per hour under ideal dark-sky conditions. (Remember, if you want to stay up late instead of getting up early, you'll be staying up Monday night. It's easy to get the date wrong for events that happen after midnight!)

A second, briefer, but very intense outburst is expected about 12 hours later — during the early-morning hours of November 18th in Asia. (See "Will the Leonids Roar Again?".) There's only an off-chance that some activity from that burst will still be going on by the time the Earth turns halfway around and the Leonids become visible in the Americas on the morning of the 18th.

But if the sky is clear, why not go out again that morning — and also before the predicted peak, on the morning of the 16th? The Leonids have surprised the theorists before, and they surely will again.

Wherever you are, no Leonids will be visible before the shower's radiant point (in Leo) rises around local midnight. And peaks and bursts aside, the number of visible meteors increases steadily from radiant-rise until Leo is highest, just as the sky is starting to get light.

Be sure to bundle up warmly; meteor-watching is always colder than you expect. Ideal meteor-watching equipment is a comfortable lounge chair, a warm sleeping bag, and a pillow. If you live in a city or suburb, consider traveling to a dark location far from city skyglow. In any case, find a spot where no lights glare directly into your eyes.

The direction to watch is wherever your sky is darkest. Notice the meteors' flight paths; only those streaking away from the direction to the constellation Leo are Leonids.

Another, less-known meteor shower is going on simultaneously — the Taurids. They're sparse but tend to be very bright. If you see a slow, bright meteor heading away from the direction to Taurus, that's a Taurid.

And you're bound to see a few sporadics that aren't associated with any major showe

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