Shop Light Thoughts?

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gsnod

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Hello;

I'm looking for greater light over my 5 foot long garage workbench. I have about a 12 foot ceiling in that space, and am seeking opinions on what type of florescent shop light will work best. I'm in New England, so I've read about the need for Electronic Ballasts, and also the recommendation for T8 lamps.

I'm thinking about one 4 foot lamp section, with 2 florescent bulbs. I'll hang it from the ceiling, and run the cord to an outlet. So, any recommendations from the group?

OR, am I overthinking this?
 
why not get led fixtures.. the new ones are amazing.

or you could get led bulbs for a t8 fixture, (you dont use the ballast with most IIRC)


Cree has some AMAZING products out there for commercial industrial, some are trickling down to residential.
 
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LED long fluorescent type lights strike me as $$$.

But I do love LED for task light. Even if just putting up a few regular screw-in bases and using a few lights (maybe two floods in the center flanked by two regular bulbs?)
 
cree has new t8's that are 90cri 21w 2100 lumen

but thats for retrofit(with ballast)

I'd get ones that dont require ballast, the ballast would go a long way towards the price difference between good florescent tubes and led.
 
gs- I've got a similar situation in my garage. The ceiling height is well over 12ft in spots. I have several standard T12, 48" shop lights, suspended down lower by longer lengths of the same type of chain that comes with shop lights. Was done this way before I bought the home.

T8's with cold weather ballasts would be much better. I'll re-do them at some point.
 
I hate fluorescents, the 60 hertz flicker gives me a headache.

Look at Super Bright LED's dot com, lots of ideas there...

I just replaced all the chandelier lights in my church sanctuary with LED bulbs, very pretty...
 
I am seriously thinking about picking up a track with built-in cans with PAR bulbs (or whichever has the one which is wide area beam) and then swapping the bulbs for LEDs
 
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In my garage I have a high ceiling. I have 4 plain porcelain sockets with 120 eq. watt bright white CFLs. Lots of light and cheap. Bright white makes a big difference.
 
I'd seriously look at LED lights or T5 fluorescent fixtures. A T5 bulb is slightly more expensive, but will light with the temperatures all the way down to -20F.
 
At my job, we just replaced about 160 four foot fluorescent bulbs with LED bulbs. They were direct replacements. The light is very white and crisp and we all like them very much.
Here's what we learned...
Our fixtures in the plant are all two bulb fixtures. In our doubles, the LED's seem to put out more light than the old bulbs. In some of the spaces that only have one bulb, they're definitely not as bright. Strange.
Second, the old four footers were under 4 dollars apiece. The LED"s are about 38 bucks each. Supposedly, we'll see a return on them in a year and a half between energy savings, labor swapping them out because they last longer and reduced recycling cost.
 
Old pool table lights make great shop lights as well. Plus a lot of them take standard bulbs instead of tubes so getting LED retrofit is significantly easier.

I'm a big believer of LED. Lower power consumption and crazy long bulb life. The downside is you gotta pay up front - but at the end of the day you come out on top if you use it long enough.
 
Originally Posted By: Kruse
I'd seriously look at LED lights or T5 fluorescent fixtures. A T5 bulb is slightly more expensive, but will light with the temperatures all the way down to -20F.


Are 4" T5 shop lights available? I've never been able to find them. I've got a twin tube T5 HO on one of my fish tanks (with plants). They're blindingly bright compared to a T12 or T8.

It seems even T8 shop lights are hard to find compared to ancient T12s.
 
Originally Posted By: camelCase
Old pool table lights make great shop lights as well. Plus a lot of them take standard bulbs instead of tubes so getting LED retrofit is significantly easier.

I'm a big believer of LED. Lower power consumption and crazy long bulb life. The downside is you gotta pay up front - but at the end of the day you come out on top if you use it long enough.


Last time I looked, the power consumption of CFLs was not much more than LED for equivalent light output. The LEDs probably last longer, but they have not been available long enough for that to be verified. Only claims on the box.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: camelCase
Old pool table lights make great shop lights as well. Plus a lot of them take standard bulbs instead of tubes so getting LED retrofit is significantly easier.

I'm a big believer of LED. Lower power consumption and crazy long bulb life. The downside is you gotta pay up front - but at the end of the day you come out on top if you use it long enough.


Last time I looked, the power consumption of CFLs was not much more than LED for equivalent light output. The LEDs probably last longer, but they have not been available long enough for that to be verified. Only claims on the box.


The LED has been around for a very long time. LED development really started in the early '60's. I bought my first digital calculator, with LED display, in the early '70's. Only recently has developments been made to the LED where it can produce enough light, yet still be affordable, for practical use in lighting applications. But the long life of the LED has been proven for decades. Nothing to to still be verified there.

LED lighting tends to be about 25% more efficient than CFL lighting. For example, to get the equivalent Lumens of a 100 Watt incandescent, it takes a 23 - 26 Watt CFL. The same Lumens can 16 - 20 Watt LED.
 
A garage workbench and you guys recommend the most premium lighting available
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Buy a $40 T8 fixture. It'll put out enough light, bulbs are available everywhere, and it'll be reliable enough for garage use. Attempting to consider efficiency or ROI on a occasionally used garage light is not worth it at all.
 
That's true Tom, and a decent cold temp start 48" T8 can be had for $20-30 if you catch one on sale.
 
Since I started this conversation, thought I'd better get back into it! Yep, Tom Slick has my thought in his first sentence. I'm gonna go with a T8 double bulb set-up with electronic ballast, as I don't have heat in my garage.It rarely gets below 32 in there unless I leave the door open, and then I'm probably not working too much in the garage.

Now to find the better 4 foot T8 shop light... I'll look at the local hardware store first, then consider the big box stores second....
 
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