Keeping Up With Lighting Changes

[Chips O'Toole]

Has anyone here noticed how quickly lighting is changing?

When I moved to this house in '17, it already had LED-only tube fixtures in the shop. No ballasts. For that year, that was impressive.

Recently, I got tired of the oppressive glare of the tubes. They were not frosted, so I had a bunch of tiny LED's staring right at me through clear plastic. I decided to look for frosted tubes.

It turned out the frosted tubes put out less light. While I was looking around, I found a bunch of integrated-LED fixtures. These things have LED's built right into them. The down side is that you can't change the light sources when they go bad. You have to buy new fixtures. But they put out a ton of light, they come in convenient shapes, they don't cost a lot, and you can get fixtures with diffusers built in so the glare is reduced.

My shop had two two-tube 4' fixtures which were poorly located and poorly oriented. Today I bought two $17 LED fixtures, put them up in better locations, aligned them so they would distribute light better, and tore down an old tube fixture. I ended up with much better light in the shop, and when I'm done replacing the other fixture, I'll have 4 old LED tubes I can use to replace the failing fluorescents in my storage room. That room has home-grade fixtures with lenses, so it doesn't need frosted tubes.

LED Fixtures I Bought

Instead of 4000 lumens times two in the shop, I will have 6000 times two.

The wiring is kind of sloppy because the builder never foresaw the kind of fixtures I bought, but it's an outbuilding, so it doesn't matter if there is a little bit of visible electrical tape on top of the trusses.

I ordered 16' of LED strip lighting, and I plan to use it under some shelves that get very little light now. I'm also going to put LED lights under one of my tool chest lids. It has a power strip inside the top, so I can plug the LED's in and forget about batteries.

 

[Deleted member 69715]

When we have a light bulb burn out I go with LED everytime. Almost every fixture has a diffuser on it and the two that don't will get replaced. What I like is the light they put out, the long life and less to Duke.
My outside spotlights have been in use (all night) for over 10 years now.

 

[RJSakowski]

I started the migration away from incandescents over fifteen years ago, first to compact fluorescents and then to LED. I only have about ten incandescents remaining; mostly in fixtures only used a few minutes a year.

I saw my first white LED around twenty years ago. It was a novelty then. The color rendition was awful. In 2006, after calculating the power draw of halogen lighting in our kitchen remodel project, I decided to go with LED's. At that time, the efficiency of LED's was around 40 l/w. and heat dissipation was a big issue for any solution creating a useful amount of light.

Undercabinet lighting had to wait for some seven years as the complex geometry of the cabinets required custom fixtures and a CNC mill to make. (It was actually the motivating force in the decision to purchase my Tormach PC770.) By that time, the efficiency had increase to around 80 l/w. decreasing the heat sinking requirement.

The first LED replacements for A19 were relatively expensive and only available as 40 w. equivalents. Shop lighting was still relegated to fluorescents and compact fluorescents. Since then, low cost 100 w. equivalent A19 LED's have become common. I have measured the effective light output with a light meter and found the 100 w. equivalent LED's to have greater output than the 150 w. equivalent CF lamps so as the CF's failed, I replaced them with LED's. The only CF's remaining are in my attic workshop. All of my machine lighting is LED, as well as my work lights.

A19 LED's are typically rated for indoor use only but I have been using them in our yard lighting for at least six years. The bulbs are sealled well enough that there has been no moisture ingress and lifetme is comparable to those used indoors. A few years back, I found some LED arrays the had 2600 l. output and were powered directly off the line. They needed a heat sink and suitable fixture but put out a remendous amount of light. My intention was to make fixtures to use them in my wood working shop. The shop has mogul based fixtures mounted on the roof rafters 14 ft. off the floor. The holdback has been making appropriate fixtures as finding a suitable mogul base is difficult. Another concern is the possibility of a fire originating from component failure. My plan is to drop the lamp by several feet and use electrical cable with nonflammable or self extinguishing characteristics. (The easy way out would be to just buy the screw-in triple arrays that seem to be everywhere nowadays. but what fun is that?)

Mobile LED lighting has made great progress as well. In fact, it has been the driver for low cost high output LED lighting. I have replaced all my trailer lighting with LED lighting. Goodbye to those 1157 bulbs.

 

[ChazzC]

Has anyone here noticed how quickly lighting is changing?

When I moved to this house in '17, it already had LED-only tube fixtures in the shop. No ballasts. For that year, that was impressive.

Recently, I got tired of the oppressive glare of the tubes. They were not frosted, so I had a bunch of tiny LED's staring right at me through clear plastic. I decided to look for frosted tubes.

It turned out the frosted tubes put out less light. While I was looking around, I found a bunch of integrated-LED fixtures. These things have LED's built right into them. The down side is that you can't change the light sources when they go bad. You have to buy new fixtures. But they put out a ton of light, they come in convenient shapes, they don't cost a lot, and you can get fixtures with diffusers built in so the glare is reduced.

My shop had two two-tube 4' fixtures which were poorly located and poorly oriented. Today I bought two $17 LED fixtures, put them up in better locations, aligned them so they would distribute light better, and tore down an old tube fixture. I ended up with much better light in the shop, and when I'm done replacing the other fixture, I'll have 4 old LED tubes I can use to replace the failing fluorescents in my storage room. That room has home-grade fixtures with lenses, so it doesn't need frosted tubes.

LED Fixtures I Bought

Instead of 4000 lumens times two in the shop, I will have 6000 times two.

The wiring is kind of sloppy because the builder never foresaw the kind of fixtures I bought, but it's an outbuilding, so it doesn't matter if there is a little bit of visible electrical tape on top of the trusses.

I ordered 16' of LED strip lighting, and I plan to use it under some shelves that get very little light now. I'm also going to put LED lights under one of my tool chest lids. It has a power strip inside the top, so I can plug the LED's in and forget about batteries.

I installed the Feit 4’ LED replacement bulbs in all of my (2 tube) fixtures maybe 5 years ago; the tubes are frosted, but put out more light that the fluorescent bulbs they replaced. In the office the fixtures have prismatic covers, but still took some getting used to. In the garage & shoo the extra light was welcome since the ceilings are dark colored.

 

[Chips O'Toole]

I got me two more fixtures today. My shop is going to be like a tanning booth.

 

[Chips O'Toole]

Harbor Freight is having a sale on 4-foot LED Braun hanging fixtures. Of course, they're not quite 4 feet long, but anyway, they're close, and they are really bright. Seventeen bucks each, down from 22. I have three old Home Depot fixtures. I just replaced one with a new Braun, and it's much brighter.

Not sure how the real Braun company feels about these lights.

My strip lighting arrived. I like it a lot, but I have to splice in some sections of plain old wire. I want to light up two shelves which are three feet apart, and I don't want lights between the shelves. They can be spliced with special fittings or solder and shrink wrap.