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Shop lighting today?

matty

matty

Border raider.
Joined
Feb 8, 2022
Member Number
139
Posts
635
Location
England Scotish border
Need to refit the lights in the Small shop its been storage for at least 15 years and now we got it cleared out its obvious i need a lighting upgrade. Its Got 7 old flourecent strip lights, i thought about just led tubes but would like something as ecconomical to run as possible. Not lookd into lighting at all as yet, just asking here for Ideas and Opinions share them here.
 
I would also like to have better/brighter shop lighting.

Currently have four 4ft twin tube fluorescent fixtures. They are T12 bulbs.

Light output is "OK"
but my older eyes would like more....
 
At work we replaced the florescents with leds. The glare made it even harder to see. At home I tucked led strips under peak of the porch awning. So only the reflection of the light is visible. Which worked great. Im not blinding road traffic or myself. I also painted the under side of the awning white. At work...we cleaned and painted the garage doors. That worked better than any bulbs. And sometimes under vehicles..I pointed the light at the floor rather than the under carriage. Reflected light is easier on my eyes.
 
Over the last couple of years, I've replaced all the fluorescent fixtures in my shop, garage, and this weekend my shed with 4' LED fixtures I got for ~$17 each from Harbor Freight. At first I thought they were almost too bright, but after a couple of days I got used to the new light level. Now anything less seems unacceptably dim.

Also, my shop and shed aren't heated, so the fluorescents are even dimmer in the winter. LEDs aren't affected by temperature.
 
I swapped all my fluorescents for the 4' LED shop lights a few years ago. Great to flip the switch in the winter and have Brightness, not the usual lame flickering. HD, Lowes, Sam's, BJ's etc. all seem to carry them for $20-30. I have 4 for general garage lighting then 2 directly over the bench, on separate circuits.
 
Any of the mre modern lighting broadly illumination, but without the glare most LEDs seem to have. a softer light i supose you might term it Warm depending on your choice of terminology.
 
I find the led spectrum a bit harsh, but sure do love the reduction in heat damage in the fixtures; particularly desk lamps you can put really bright bulbs in without things getting too hot. About half of our recessed lights are led now, through replacing as the old bulbs burn out. The led bulbs fail occasionally too, presumably from materials and quality shaved to the bone to make them cheap.

I still have incandescents in the "fancy" lights in the house, and in the spotlights on the lathe and mills out in the shop. Sure is nice to have the warmth from the light on the workpiece and/or controls particularly when temps are low.
 
keyzard said:
We recently bought a house built in 1900. The 4 basement rooms had a single bulb fixture in each room. My wife joked she needed a flashlight to do the laundry.

I bought these to solve the problem -

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LGVGRT3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Click to expand...

Ah yeah, old houses :rofl ours is 1923- same thing; knob and tube wiring all thru the walls and attic, one fixture in the center of each room's ceiling, one outlet per room, pushbutton lightswitches, an original 5amp outlet still in service, a variety of very creative wiring mods over the years. It took a while to modernize and straighten out all of that.
 
I've got two led light bays in my garage and it works excellent, can work late into the night and not even realize it didnt have any good place to hardwire them in so I bought two extension cords, spliced them in and plug them into the outlets when needed
 
We have large LED fixtures in the shop at work that fit in with ceiling tile and have diffusers, it takes away some of the harshness.
 
matty said:
Need to refit the lights in the Small shop its been storage for at least 15 years and now we got it cleared out its obvious i need a lighting upgrade. Its Got 7 old flourecent strip lights, i thought about just led tubes but would like something as ecconomical to run as possible. Not lookd into lighting at all as yet, just asking here for Ideas and Opinions share them here.
Click to expand...
Cheapest option is to simply replace with new fluorescent strip light "bulbs". General fluorescent lights that are on 24/7 will lose half their brightness in 3-4 years. 15 year old can be very dim, and storage areas are usually not designed to be brightly lit to begin with.
Second cheapest is to replace with LED lights designed to be installed in fluorescent fixtures.
What I would do is get LED strips and install them so you don't see the strips themselves, but the light is reflected of some white surfaces. That allows you to have very high amount of light without it being uncomfortable.

General guidance for amount of light is 500 lux for general work. Older people and finer work need more light, 1000 lux is good baseline. This is usually measured at desk height.
Keep in mind that LED lights can be bought in many "temperatures of white". 6500 K is the light outside on a sunny day. Higher is more blue ("cold" light) and lower is more yellow/red ("warm" light), like the old filament bulbs.
Colors are usually matched at 5500K temperature and at least 1000 lux.

I'd go for 5000 K, or a little lower, for a garage. Around 3000 K for a home. Double the amount of recommended light, and have everything dimmable.
 
After reading the replies and looking at LED retrofit bulbs I thought I would try fresh fluorescent bulbs.

My current ones are 5-6 years old. I spoke with a very personable guy at my local Lowes. He recommend that I switch from a T12 (1.5 inch) to a T8 (1 inch) bulb. Also my originals were 3500k a cool/warm white. He said try the 6500k daylight bulbs. A box of 12 was only $56, about $4.70 a bulb.

If I didn't like them, keep the receipt and return them. How could I lose ?

WOW !! Let me just say "My futures so bright . I gotta wear shades"

YMMV


😎😎😎😎
 
Several years ago I put cheap LED fixtures from Costco in my machine shop and wood shop. They're too white and harsh for a living space but I love that level of light in a shop where I really need to see what I'm doing. As an example, here's an epoxy table I made last week. The first picture is in my wood shop under white LED lights. The second is in my kitchen under florescent fixtures. The third is in natural light shining through my RV windows.

image.jpg


PXL_20230317_151715724.jpg


PXL_20230309_202357806.jpg
 
Not a fan of led for shop lights. Dads shop has them. They work, but it's somehow uncomfortable. And they're utterly disposable.

I don't think it's very responsible to have to throw away an entire light fixture every time you lose a "bulb". Just annoys me on a personal level.

Florescent isn't expensive. Cold temp ballasts work just fine. If it's so cold in the shop that my lights can't work I believe my next concern would be adding heat to the shop rather than "upgrading" to LEDs.
 
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