What lighting do you recommend for an often cold garage?

[Seasoned Oak]

Just noticed these replacement LED bulbs for T8 fixture but not all that much cheaper than the whole light. And only 30 watts total.
(broken link removed)

 

[Sprinter]

I get the 4 foot LED shoplight available in a 2 set pak. For $32.50 Unit, Nice and bright at 4500 Lumens
Price has been dropping steadily
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That's encouraging. I was assuming I would be retrofitting my T12 fixtures, but I may end up replacing them altogether when the time comes. We'll see.

 

[RSNovi]

I put T8 fluorescents with cold start in my pole barn located in Michigan. They always fire right up. I wanted it like daylight in there.


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[begreen]

A friend put a full set of T8's in his wood shop. Good light, but they completely block radio reception. Thinking now of taking them out and putting in LEDs.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

ID rather go with the whole LED fixture. That way i know the the bulbs are matched correctly with any other components of the fixture. ,and they do claim 50000 hour bulb life.Theres no way im getting anywhere close to that out of my remaining T8 bulbs and fixtures

 

[Highbeam]

ID rather go with the whole LED fixture. That way i know the the bulbs are matched correctly with any other components of the fixture. ,and they do claim 50000 hour bulb life.Theres no way im getting anywhere close to that out of my remaining T8 bulbs and fixtures

Yeah, 30,000 claimed from the 2$ t8 tubes. That's like 30 years at 3 hours per day.

 

[Highbeam]

A friend put a full set of T8's in his wood shop. Good light, but they completely block radio reception. Thinking now of taking them out and putting in LEDs.

Inside my metal sided barn with metal ceiling and like 36 t8 bulbs burning I get perfect radio reception but not cell reception. Your friend has radio and/or electrical problems.

 

[begreen]

Google - T8 ballast blocks radio. No wiring or radio problem. The shop is all wired new. This is/was a known ballast problem in some T8s. A large batch got out on the market including some via Home Depot. I can take a good portable radio tuned to an FM station outside the shop and the station goes to white noise as soon as I walk with the radio into the shop.

 

[Sprinter]

I may be in a unique position here. I have only one fixture with an electronic ballast in the house or garage. It is in the utility room where I had to replace the magnetic ballast due to failure. All other fixtures still have original magnetic ballasts (all T12, BTW)

I just took a an AM/FM radio through them all. I have no RFI from any fixture except the new electronic ballast, where I get substantial noise on FM channels, but much less on AM. I get the noise on FM when the fixture is on, and it disappears when off. All of the original fixtures are quiet on AM or FM freqs.

I didn't expect that when I replaced the ballast until this thread suggested it.

I suspect that some electronic ballasts, whether on T8 or T12 are noisy by poor design and perhaps some are better designed.

 

[semipro]

I've tried numerous brands and types (commercial/residential) electronic ballasts and still have RFI problems.
Its a well documented problem without prescribed solution other than to identify the offending ballast and replace it.
I've tried various inline filters on affected receivers without success.

 

[begreen]

Unfortunately in my friend's shop he has 10 of these offending ballast/fixture combos.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Yeah, 30,000 claimed from the 2$ t8 tubes. That's like 30 years at 3 hours per day.

I have about 4 T8 fixtures all purchased in the last 12 months in 2 different locations. Every single bulb in every fixture has about 2" of black on each end. They are going downhill way faster than my old shoplights. No way ill ever see anywhere near 30000 hours ,ill be lucky to get a few hundred hours.

 

[begreen]

Some ballasts are harder on tubes than others depending on the start mode and output (normal vs HO).

 

[Highbeam]

Some ballasts are harder on tubes than others depending on the start mode and output (normal vs HO).

There are many other ballast specifications. It's like buying a woodstove, many things. Ballast factor is just one of them. Also, the quality of power feeding the ballast appears to be important.

When the bulbs are rated for 30,000 or 50,000 in the case of LED, that assumes pretty ideal conditions. Probably continuous duty, temperature controlled, with constant pure power and good grounds.

Are the LEDs any more tolerant of crappy power? Who knows.

 

[sportbikerider78]

I got one of these for above a working area in the garage. For $39, worth a shot. I wanted the stupid pull string...but not in the middle. lol

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-4-ft-White-LED-Linkable-Shop-Light-54103161/205331022

 

[iamlucky13]

I don't think you'll find quite as many T12 compatible LED tubes as T8 LED tubes, and few seem to specify that they work with magnetic ballasts, so I suspect you'll find yourself replacing the fixtures instead of just the tubes.

Check the rated lumens output on your lamps and choose your replacements accordingly. Don't just go based on size, as some LED's that appear to be replacements have only a fraction of the rated output.

That said, almost all LED tubular retrofits or replacement fixtures I've seen have 1/2 to 3/4 the rated lumens as the equivalent fluorescent, yet most of their reviews are good. I find this curious, but the technical questions this raises aren't particularly important, since these folks still seem satisfied. If you replace 2800 lumen tubes with 1700 lumen tubes, I suspect you'll be happy. If you replace them 1000 lumen tubes, or replace twin-tube fixtures with LED fixtures that are rated for 2000 lumens, you might be a bit disappointed.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Check the lumen output as well ,the LED shop lights sams club offers for $35 list 4500 The Home Depot LED shop light For $39 lists 3200.

 

[Sprinter]

I don't think you'll find quite as many T12 compatible LED tubes as T8 LED tubes, and few seem to specify that they work with magnetic ballasts, so I suspect you'll find yourself replacing the fixtures instead of just the tubes.

I'm finding that out, but I'm hoping to find LED T12 tubes that will work with the ballasts bypassed. At least I'm okay for now, and the cold garage is only a concern when it gets cold again. Too bad. I actually like the T12 fixtures. I'll figure out something. Maybe the LED fixtures will improve with time, as I would expect with such a young and ever-changing technology.

 

[Sprinter]

Check the lumen output as well ,the LED shop lights sams club offers for $35 list 4500 The Home Depot LED shop light For $39 lists 3200.

Doesn't lumen output pretty much depend on color? I wonder what color name emits the most light?

 

[iamlucky13]

Color temperature, specified in Kelvin, is what relates to color. Lumens are separate.

Color temperature refers to the color tone an object glows at when heated to that temperature. 2700K is what normal incandescent lightbulbs glow at (often called warm white). 3000K is what many halogens glow at (sometimes called soft white). Fluorescent and LED lights are designed to mimic these behaviors, and are available in higher color temperatures. Daylight usually means anything above 5000K.

Lights in the 3500-4500K range (aka "bright white") seem to be the most popular choice for workspaces like offices and shops, I think because they appear reasonably neutral under the widest variety of circumstances - 2700K is perceived as orangish-red when compared to sunlight, where as 5000K bulbs tend to look a bit harsh and blue-toned at night.

 

[begreen]

Often higher color temp LEDs bulbs will have a bit higher lumen output, at least for 12v bulbs.

 

[iamlucky13]

Often higher color temp LEDs bulbs will have a bit higher lumen output, at least for 12v bulbs.

Yep, and also usually be slightly more efficient. However, if you have two bulbs in different color temperatures, and both are rated for the same number of lumens, your ability to see should be similar in a space illuminated by either.

 

[Sprinter]

Often higher color temp LEDs bulbs will have a bit higher lumen output, at least for 12v bulbs.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. The "warmer" , lower Kelvin equivalent colors always seem to me to be less bright, but I haven't looked at the numbers much to see it was just perception, or a matter of fluorescent material used.

The way fluorescents emit light in so many discrete wavelengths and with so many gaps seems to affect how the eye perceives the color and overall brightness compared to a black body spectrum, so it seems to complicate the Kelvin comparison I would think.

From what I see, LED spectrums seem to be all over the place depending on color and manufacturer.

 

[iamlucky13]

Yeah, I've noticed a few colors look washed out under fluorescent lights due to the numerous gaps in their spectrum. We have a moss-green paint in one bedroom, for example, that looks almost grey under fluorescent lights, but more or less as expected under LED lighting. Clearly, the primary color in that paint falls right in one of those spectral gaps, but in a slightly different shade of green, fluorescents tend to be a bit exaggerated. This graph really shows why that is:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yxuQF3Sy_...44/R0BoSYkZN6w/s1600/cfl_spectrum_500_250.png

I've noticed a bit of weakness in LED lighting for violet and deep red colors. They sometimes look a bit bluish and pinkish-orange respectively, and fluorescents actually seem to do a hair better at these polar opposite ends of the rainbow, but you have to really pay attention to notice, and on the whole, I like LED's significantly better. High color rendering index (90+ CRI) LED's do a bit better in the reds especially, but aren't nearly as widely available. For shop lights or general area lighting, I'm pretty content with ordinary 80 CRI lights.

The spectra for LED's certainly look a lot better on the whole than for fluorescents:
(broken link removed to http://openluna.org/wiki/images/6/63/Warm_vs_Cool_White.jpg)

These spectra are almost universal for daylight and warm white bulbs. In addition to the purples and reds I mentioned, you can also see a dip in the teal region. I've not really noticed this when I compare LED's, but others might.

But again, that's generally only if paying really close attention. I try not to consider CRI except in a few specific areas like the bathroom (where you often look at yourself in the mirror - we're very perceptive to skin tones so accuracy is good there) and in the kitchen (food looks its best under good light and good light helps with detail oriented tasks).

 

[Sprinter]

Thanks. All helpful info. Stuff I haven't looked into much as far as available consumer products. Sounds like you have a built-in spectrometer lol.

I have seen that LED spectra are much smoother. I's good to know that differences within the daylight and warm white varieties don't vary much.