LED Lights in a Workshop

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Richard_W
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by Richard_W »

If you go to Lowe's they sell T8 LED tubes in a 2 pack for about $15 and they work with the T8 ballast. Most 4' LED tubes sold today only work with T8 ballasts. They keep changing the way they are made and the early ones had to have the ballast removed. They changed the laws on how they are to be made. I am changing the house to 4' LED T8 tubes. I am changing the fixtures out to newer T8 fixtures, since the old fixtures used T12 bulbs. Both the wife and I can see to read better with the daylight LED bulbs.

Richard W.
SteveM
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by SteveM »

We have an LED lighting shop out here that has tubes that will work in fluorescent fixtures with or without ballasts.

If you replace your tubes with these, and your ballast burns out, you just take it out and rewire the fixture to power the bulbs direcly.

Steve
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warmstrong1955
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by warmstrong1955 »

SteveM wrote:We have an LED lighting shop out here that has tubes that will work in fluorescent fixtures with or without ballasts.

If you replace your tubes with these, and your ballast burns out, you just take it out and rewire the fixture to power the bulbs direcly.

Steve
That makes more sense to me.
If it can be done without ballasts, it's one less thing to fail, and besides, I would think more efficient.

Bill
Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.
SteveM
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by SteveM »

The nice thing about these, particularly for a commercial setting where you might have hundreds of fixtures, is that you don't HAVE to rewire all the fixtures, only the ones where the ballast goes bad.

For all the fixtures where the ballast continues working, you don't have to do ANYTHING.

Steve
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warmstrong1955
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by warmstrong1955 »

Steve,

Do they work with the cheapie 4' electronic ballast lights, like you can get at Walmart or Home Depot for 12 bucks?
Or would they just require a ballastectomy?
I have some of those here and there to add some additional light, behind my lathe & mill among a few other spots.

Bill
Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.
John Hasler
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by John Hasler »

warmstrong1955 wrote:Steve,

Do they work with the cheapie 4' electronic ballast lights, like you can get at Walmart or Home Depot for 12 bucks?
Or would they just require a ballastectomy?
I have some of those here and there to add some additional light, behind my lathe & mill among a few other spots.

Bill
The only thing electronic about the one I took apart a few years ago was the starter circuit. The actual ballast was just a choke.
Inspector
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by Inspector »

I recently bought lights for my new woodshop :shock: and garage. When I first looked around I was going to buy LED tubes to fit fluorescent fixtures that I was also going to get. I could not find new non-ballasted fixtures and it didn't make sense to throw out new ballasts. There wasn't much in the way of used to buy either so I started looking at LED fixture assemblies. They were 3 to 4 times the cost of the fluorescents from the various Borg and lighting stores here.

Then I started poking around Alibaba and found a lot of companies selling an assortment of tube fixtures so after contacting some and asking if they had UL approvals for Canada or the USA (either is acceptable here) I found one that had the certification and did most of their business in North America. They had a light I wanted that they call a tri-proof (dust, water and impact proof) by then budget was getting stretched so I opted for their Double T5 series. I got 40W, 4000 lumen, 6000K fixtures that are 5' long x 1 1/2" wide x 1 1/2" high. They come with a short lead to connect to power, another for daisy chaining them together or a short connector if you want them to form a continuous line. Longer are available for a bout a buck. They also came with 3 clips to attach them directly to the ceiling. The cost each was $17.53US and the cost to send my order by FedEx was $168US for the 22 fixtures I bought. So total of $570US. I paid by credit card through the Alibaba Trade Assurance (buyer protection), warn your card company first so they don't stop the transaction, and when the moneys cleared, they started the order. A week or so later they scheduled FedEx to pick it and it was delivered 2 weeks later. So a total of 3 weeks from ordering to delivery. I'm very happy with these lights and have taken one to the wood turning and woodworking clubs I belong to. When I plugged it in some said it was like looking at a light sabre. :D Since then there have been two groups get together to order a total of over 60 more for themselves.

The company is Guangdong Lonyung LED Lighting Company and the light I got was LY-T5SL1500-40W3. I'm a very happy customer and not affiliated in anyway with Alibaba or Lonyung.

Pete
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Steggy
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by Steggy »

John Hasler wrote:The only thing electronic about the one I took apart a few years ago was the starter circuit. The actual ballast was just a choke.
Actually, the magnetic ballast to which you are referring is an auto-transformer, not a choke. All ballasts are capable of generating high open circuit voltages, as an impulse of 300 to 1000 volts (depending on lamp and starter circuit type) is required to strike the arc inside the lamp when the fixture is energized. Needless to say, you don't want to get in the way of that—unless you are going for a Don King hairdo. :D
Don King, after making contact with the red and<br />yellow leads of a rapid start fluorescent ballast.  :)
Don King, after making contact with the red and
yellow leads of a rapid start fluorescent ballast. :)
don_king.jpeg (21.74 KiB) Viewed 7636 times
As an aside, magnetic ballasts are vastly superior to the electronic ones, which are not noted for their long lives. I have some 48 inch T12 fluorescent fixtures in my shop that are going on 40 years, and still have the original ballasts. We recently converted from high pressure sodium lighting to metal halide to get a more pleasing color temperature. The HP sodium fixtures, which had magnetic ballasts, had been in service for more than 31 years, often running up to 60 hours a week, and needing nothing more than routine lamp replacement, as well as an occasional ignitor.
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Music isn’t at all difficult.  All you gotta do is play the right notes at the right time!  :D
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SteveHGraham
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by SteveHGraham »

I felt like getting rid of the ballasts was the way to go. With LED's the ballasts served no purpose at all, except to fail and to make replacement bulbs more expensive. An LED site I looked at points out another issue: ballasts and bulbs never fail simultaneously, and when you use ballasts with LED's, your ballasts will fail just like they will with fluorescents. More potential for trips up and down the ladder.

I think people should be aware that when I complain about the hassle of rewiring fixtures, I'm talking about an unusual experience. My fixtures are 11 feet off the floor, in a very crowded garage. I had to move a very heavy ladder all over the place. For most people, fixtures are easier to get to. Converting a fixture only takes a couple of minutes, and all you need is a screwdriver, a crimping tool, and wire cutters.

I replaced my bulbs one-for-one, because my garage was dim with fluorescents. If you're worried about having to replace a huge number of bulbs, just count the lumens per bulb of your existing bulbs and then decide how many LED bulbs you need, based on their lumen output. And as BDD says, don't forget to consider temperature. Some flavors of LED light are nicer than others.

For me, one LED tube per 100 square feet is a God's plenty.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
Inspector
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by Inspector »

Steve you must have owl eyes. I searched for light levels I'd need before selecting my lights. I found that 100 candlepower per square foot for detailed woodwork was recommended, which converts to 1000 lumens per square foot. That meant for my shop I needed 63400 lumens so that's why I went with 16 fixtures in the shop, at least 4 times, or maybe it's 8 times what you like. Everyone has different needs and preferences but I like lots of light. :)
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SteveHGraham
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by SteveHGraham »

Wow, that's weird. I thought I was overdoing it. My vision is not what it used to be, but it sounds like things could be worse.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
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gwrdriver
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Re: LED Lights in a Workshop

Post by gwrdriver »

Something isn't right. To light my 325/F² workshop at 1000 Lumens/F² I would need 155 x 48" tubes @ 2100 Lumens/ea!

I found a light level specification for "detailed technical assembly" of 1500 to 2000 Lumens/METER² which would translate into 21 to 28 x 2100 Lumen tubes . . . In my workshop I have 4 x 2x4 fixtures x 4 tubes = 16 tubes for ambient lighting. So if I added two 2x4 fixtures I would meet the 1500-2000L/M² specification. I have task lighting in addition to this so I will probably NOT add fixtures at this time.

I ran a test installation using two 48" T8/T12 x 1800 Lumen x 6100K tubes in a 2x4 layin fixture and compared that to another fixture running only two T12 tubes. I saw no improvement in benchtop light level but a bothersome change in light color. 6100K is too white.
All in all an unsatisfactory test (more L, less K) but I'm going to try 2100 Lumen x ±4000K tubes to see if those don't work better.

The fixture conversion (pulling ballast and reconnecting) took no more than 10 minutes once I figured out what needed to be done.
GWRdriver
Nashville TN
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