garage/shop related...lights

Willit Stop

Willit Stop

Well-known member
I just finished up converting my 4 foot fluorescent garage lights to LED's. A very easy project. The cost was pretty cheap (Roughly 4 bucks each for a 20 pack 5000k through Amazon). What a difference! It's like being outside on a sunny day. Those LED's use about half the power and put out twice the light.
 
Good to hear. I did the same thing a couple years ago. Found some locally for about the same price you paid. Another bonus is that in cold weather they don't need warm up time. I put some LEDs in my shipping container too and even at -30 they are instantly on.
 
I have the 30.00 twin light, no replacement fixtures. I had really cheapo fixtures for my flourescents and wanted to toss them. 50,000 hours claimed on my throw-away units, and yes, "Ive got sunshine on a cloudy day".
 
Newc said:
Electonic ballasts don't care. Newc
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True, but the bulbs care. Depends on the led bulb. Some need the ballast, some don’t, and some are damaged by them.

A true led light doesn’t need a ballast. I’d recommend removing the ballast to eliminate the hum when they’re cold and the higher energy draw with them even with led type bulbs.
 
Changed mine to LEDs a couple of years ago. Mine have no ballasts and they work great. Only one is out so far.
 
I bought my LED lights from Harbor Freight several years ago. IIRC they were on sale for $ 10.00 each, so I bought 10 of them. So far, so good. As others have said, instant on, great lighting, no warm up time. I remember the florescent lights in my barn. When it was really cold, the lights just wouldn't light up at all, even after a few hours. now it is just a matter of flipping the switch. What a difference in lighting.
 
I've bought a lot of Harbor Freight LED shop lights, mostly when they are on sale. They are in my garage and basement shop. They work great. Very happy with them.
 
We went from incandescent bulbs, to fluorescent tubes, to special fluorescent bulbs for cold weather, to LED fixtures in our unheated warehouse. The led lights have been the best for total light and operating costs. We did learn that the life of the LED lights was much better…..if we got in the habit of turning them all off when not in the warehouse. Since they light up brightly and instantly when turned on in cold weather there was no need to leave them on all the time during the winter.
 
I have 16 ceiling light fixtures in my shop, evenly spaced, 40x 60 area, 12 foot ceiling--all were 8 foot florescent, either high output T12 or t8. I converted 6 of the t12 with direct wire LEDs, the highest lumen I could find and the whitest light, I believe 6000K. Way brighter than fluorescent and I noticed the light bill isn't as high. Recently I found three and four panel LED's at Menards that screw into a regular bulb socket. I have replaced four of the florescents with them, and like them, but not as well as the eight footers because with the concentrated source of light, they produce shadows that sometimes are a nuisance. For instance I have one over my lathe and if I lean over close to look at what I'm working on I create a shadow, where as the eight footers spread the light out. Something to think about when choosing lights.
 
The LED tubes I used required removing the ballast, and the amazon link above shows how I wired mine in the double ended fashion. It was really quite simple, and I'm glad to eliminate the ballasts. They are nothing but trouble and electricians for years have been tired of them.
 
I am in the process of converting. The ones that are done work great. On some fixtures I had to replace the tombstones (ends), but no big deal. One limitation is some LED's have a limited spectrum so they may distort colors, if that is a concern consider mixing different brightnesses.
 
I also did this a few years back.Absolutely 100% better in every aspect. I love 'em. Anyone out there considering it, just do it, no regrets.
 
I did my shop shortly after buying my house about 4 years ago. I did ALL LED's via Amazon and wish NOW that a post like this would have been around as I would have gone a "slightly" different direction. As you can see I did the dual LED's up high, 12'6" and hung them down about 16" from there.....and it was definitely a great improvement over the fluorescent fixtures BUT it still was not what I would consider "Great" lighting. I saw the "UFO" style LED's on a day sale on Amazon and bought a 5pk and got to looking at my set up SO I went back and added both.....another set of dual LED's hanging about 7' from the floor running parallel to the sides of the vehicle for better lighting IF I was doing like a brake job or working on a rear axle in three of my bays BUT I also hung two UFO's down 7' from the floor at an angle inward for working under the hood of my vehicles an you can see the light they provide on the engine bay of my Jeep. Had I known, I would have used ALL "UFO style LED's" they way brighter light than the dual 5000 LED's. I also did not like the exposed linked wires SO I used 3/4 PVC pipe and cut them to length between the linked lights and covered the link wires to clean the look up a bit!!!!
 

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Changed all my garage shop, lights to LED last year. Best thing I ever did. Just a quick rewire and eliminate ballast. 10 fixtures on 14' ceiling .
 
rockfla said:
I did my shop shortly after buying my house about 4 years ago. I did ALL LED's via Amazon and wish NOW that a post like this would have been around as I would have gone a "slightly" different direction. As you can see I did the dual LED's up high, 12'6" and hung them down about 16" from there.....and it was definitely a great improvement over the fluorescent fixtures BUT it still was not what I would consider "Great" lighting. I saw the "UFO" style LED's on a day sale on Amazon and bought a 5pk and got to looking at my set up SO I went back and added both.....another set of dual LED's hanging about 7' from the floor running parallel to the sides of the vehicle for better lighting IF I was doing like a brake job or working on a rear axle in three of my bays BUT I also hung two UFO's down 7' from the floor at an angle inward for working under the hood of my vehicles an you can see the light they provide on the engine bay of my Jeep. Had I known, I would have used ALL "UFO style LED's" they way brighter light than the dual 5000 LED's. I also did not like the exposed linked wires SO I used 3/4 PVC pipe and cut them to length between the linked lights and covered the link wires to clean the look up a bit!!!!
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@Kiwi - most of them are plug and play. Get the daylight type. I have 16 4 foot lamp boxes with 4 tubes each. What a huge difference. Did some research. Easy to replace, mobetter lighting, less energy costs, 6 years and no problems.
 
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