shop lighting

[dodgeguy]

Tired of fighting my old florescent fixtures, burning out humming slow start hard to find. Need all the help I can get to see!. Specs... 1140 sq. ft. 11 ft. ceilings .Have 16 2 tube 40 watt flor. now. My buddy trying to get me to go to 2ft square LED. Says I will only need 4 cant believe that. PLUS!!!!!!!!!  $200 per unit outrageous  . ANY idea HELP!

[deathbound]

Check out:http://www.garagejournal.com/ More threads on fluorescent lighting for garages, etc. than you have time to read.

Here is the sub-forum for lighting/electrical:http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=30

 

**EDIT** Probably LED also.

Edited November 7, 2015 by deathbound

[chopt50wgn]

check out ....superbrightleds.com...........they have lots of different led lighting fixtures. the 2ftx2ft from them start at $129

[Jeff Balazs]

Daylight spectrum HE florescents work fine in my shop. You would need to have the correct ballasts but you can reuse the fixtures you have.

 

Jeff

[linus6948]

Another option is HID lighting, I personally like metal halide for inside the shop/garage as it provides "daylight" illumination good for aging eyes. If you keep an eye on Craigs list you can often find these fixtures in good used condition fairly cheaply. They are cheap to run and the bulbs last for years, they are also unaffected by cold temps. They do take a few minutes to fire up to full brilliancy and when fully light and shut off they can take a full 10mins or more for the bulb to cool and then fire up again.

I have a pair of very large screw-in compact fluorescent s that I use for quick lighting if I have to run in and grab something fast after dark, they give light in a few seconds.On dark and dreary Winter days I can light the place up like a day at the beach, it is very good to combat the "Winter-Blues".

 

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2015 by linus6948

[Plymouthy Adams]

the problem lies in the cheap two tube fixtures..these are sold as workshop/utility room lighting and they are on the average very cheaply made, sold cheaply..some are solid state without ballast and not worth any effort to repair or maintain.  I have maybe two of these two lamp fixtures left that are anywhere near what I would call reliable. At 18 years of age..they have done pretty well.   I have purchased a couple lots of the commercial 4 tube fixtures when a store, school or other business has done modernizations for really cheap prices complete with working tubes.  These commercial fixtures seem to last a lot longer and I bought most of mine from 5-10 dollars each and guaranteed to work.   Watch newpaper or craigslist or contact a local lighting company..they normally stock pile these to sell just in the condition I described above..it is free money to them..so price is great....

 

LED and well almost any quality light fixture you look at will break your wallet if buying new...while the above works for me and lights my shop well and also the barn..it may not be the next man's cup of tea.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Plymouthy Adams

[William Davey]

Try going to a commercial lighting/electrical supply business with a sketch or drawing of your shop. A company in my home town layed out a lighting plan that showed the lumens available for the entire shop. Their plan actually used fewer fixtures than I was planning and saved me some money too.  I bought the fixtures and bulbs from them for just a little more than Lowes/Home Depot prices.  The guy at the store said my original plan would have been so bright that I'd get a headache trying to work in there!

[Ulu]

I dumped all my fluorescents.

 

For about $6.50 each, I installed steel can lights in my ceiling. The bulbs are LED floodlights from Costco for $22 ea, with adaptors, so they work in the old style cans too. Equal to 120 watts output per light but only 21 watts power required. LEDs last a long time, but severe voltage spikes can kill them. They have an internal voltage regulator to help control this.

 

In my experiments with LEDs I found you can blow them out if the voltage is slightly off.

 

So I put in 8 for about $30 ea = $240 + tax. I added $25 in wire & wire nuts, plus a steel box or two.

 

This is really too much light many times, & I have 2 lights wired separately. I can run 1, 2, 6, or 8 lights.

 

Some of these are sorta cold blue light and some are more warm light (yellow) Look carefully when you buy them to get the ones you want.

 

Overall they use 1/5 the juice of regular light bulbs and about half vs. fluorescents.