Shop lighting

Tacoma Bob

Tacoma Bob

Well-known member
Did a search and came up empty handed. I want to convert my 4 foot florescent tubes in my shop to LED. My current fixtures are all mounted and hardwired so I'm looking for a retrofit kit to eliminate the ballast and the "tombstone" pin holders. Any brand names and part number appreciated. TIA...TB:cool:
 
Costco has a package of two self-contained LED lights that are absolutely marvelous!

Don't know much more, as I threw away the box. Was just amazed at how much brighter they are. About $70 on sale.

Larry
 
Tacoma Bob said:
Did a search and came up empty handed. I want to convert my 4 foot florescent tubes in my shop to LED. My current fixtures are all mounted and hardwired so I'm looking for a retrofit kit to eliminate the ballast and the "tombstone" pin holders. Any brand names and part number appreciated. TIA...TB:cool:
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Bob, Check out The Ford Barn's sister publication The Garage Journal http://www.garagejournal.com They have a whole Forum on "lighting".
 
Can't quite justify LED lights in my garage. Right before LEDs came out, I had completely re-done all the (mostly non-existent) lighting in my garage with new fluorescent lighting. :(
 
I got the ones from Costco. Just replace your old tubes with the new LED ones,
use your existing fixture.

Bob
 
Of course, right now I have 16 fixtures in my house & garage that all use the same tube, and have a whole box of replacement tubes in stock. It's going to be a while before any of these get replaced.
 
I just bought a bunch of 4 ft LED lights to replace the fluorescents in my shop that had bad ballasts. I got them at Menards for $35.00 each. They are the complete fixture with plug in ends. I bought one last winter and couldn't believe the difference. I think they are 3300 lumens at 41 watts each. They are quick to start down to 20F below. The brand name was Smart Electrician.
 
If you are starting with incandescent lights going to LED's to save electricity it is definitely the thing to do assuming you use the lights on a regular basis. I didn't upgrade the lights in my attic because I seldom go up there. If you are starting with fluorescents and going to LED's the savings is much less. In my case I was going through a lot of fluorescent bulbs (probably due to bad electronics in the fixtures) and just replaced everything with LED's. At the time it was about the same price to replace the fluorescent fixtures as to upgrade them. I bought mine at COSTCO.

Charlie Stephens
 
I saw some of those LED retrofit "fluorescent" tubes at Home Depot. The light looked nice, but I noticed that the lumen rating was about 30% less than the T8 bulbs that they replaced. So do a bit of research before dropping a lot of money on replacements.

My garage has a pair of 8-foot fixtures each with two T12HO bulbs. These are pretty bright, and a couple of years ago I did a very worthwhile upgrade: I replaced the original magnetic ballasts with electronic ballasts (GE brand from HD, very reasonably priced). Now the lights start instantly even in the coldest weather, and there is no humming or flickering, and the ballasts do not get as warm as the old ones, so they are definitely more efficient.

One more thing on LED bulbs: If you house has those ceiling "can" lights, you really ought to install the Cree brand LED fixtures (sold by HD) in them. I've installed at least 30 of those around my house, and in two years I have had ZERO failures. They are easy to install, have good light, and are pretty inexpensive. They totally blow away the annoying CF bulbs that the fixtures used to have.

Doug
 
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While I was @ SEMA a few weeks ago, I looked at some very nice LED lighting called "Big *** Lights" I am not sure if they do retrofits but their lights looked to be very high quality!
 
When I built my dream garage I used CFL lights, I liked the idea of getting 100 watt equiv for only 25 watts. I have no regrets, there are 20 in my 40 X 60, set up in zones so I can light up just the area that I am working on. 7 years and all still work
 
A clarification. The lights I got from Costco are two separate, 48" 2 LED bulb fixtures.

You just unplug the old one and plug these in. The two LED Bulbs are intregal to the fixture.

What is most amazing in the amount of nice, white light these put out. 3200 Lumens, 4000 Kelvin.. I think.

Larry
 
The term retrofit is kind of a misnomer. All you do is buy the proper LED bulb that will fit your fixture, then remove the ballast & starter, then wire directly to the ends.
I would like to thank the O.P. for this post, I had been wanting to start upgrading my shop to LED's for a while & this post gave me the kick in the pants to do it. I just ordered a 10 pack of 8ft 48watt 240 led 6500 lumen bright white bulbs for $289.00 from a company on ebay. Unfortunately this is only about a quarter of what I need!
 
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