4ft LED shop light

[JTK]

I replaced three of the old twin tube 48" T12 shop lights I had in my basement with Lithonia 36" LED strip lights. Their light output is as good as a T8 shop light with quality lamps. Problem is, within a year or so, one of them has began to intermittently strobe/flicker.

Like said above, components within the homeowner grade stuff will definitely fail long before the actual LED they contain will fail. Even the commercial grade fixtures aren't immune. I've noticed this with much of the roadway lighting in my area that's been swapped to LED fixtures. Some fail within months.

In my home, I've lost maybe 2-3 screw in LED bulbs in the few years I've had them. They drastically dim, flicker or just go out all together.

I doubt these lamps/fixtures will match the lifespan of old school mercury containing T12 fluorescents with magnetic ballasts. Those lamps alone had incredible lifespans, but then again, what's made like it used to be?

 

[KJSmith]

Originally Posted by JTK


I doubt these lamps/fixtures will match the lifespan of old school mercury containing T12 fluorescents with magnetic ballasts. Those lamps alone had incredible lifespans, but then again, what's made like it used to be?


T12's are rated for 20k hrs.
T8's are rated for 25k hrs.

 

[KJSmith]

Originally Posted by greenjp

70k hours is 8 years if they're on 24/7. Very few people actually have a significant number of lamps in use that long.


Correct.
I am retiring in two.... so it makes no real difference to me.

 

[exranger06]

I have a 4' LED light made by Lights of America, bought on sale at BJ's. It's nice and bright and I've been very happy with it. I also have an old 4' fixture that had T12 tubes and a magnetic ballast in it that was failing. It definitely wasn't cost effective to buy new bulbs and a ballast for it, but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to throw it out. I wanted to fix it, but it had to make sense financially. So I found some cheap LED tubes online (that require a ballast-bypass and need to be direct-wired), and bought them. I removed the ballast and re-wired the sockets, and installed a longer cord with a new plug (the original cord was about 8 inches long

) I ended up spending about $13 to fix it up. It works great hanging above my workbench.