But it's not even a debatable issue. My LED's have already outlasted any fluorescent tubes I've ever had by at least 2 fold. I would bet the farm that I'll get another 10 years out of them. A safe guess would be 20.
I've never had a tube last more than 18 months without starting to fail.
Ed Pawlowski wrote in news:F9SdnS5J5KM9VbrFnZ2dnUU7- snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
Be careful, though, as daylight might be only 6000K or even 5000K. The term's unregulated, so marketers will stick it to anything even close to hopefully capitolize on its popularity.
Puckdropper
Definitely T8 bulbs with electronic ballasts!
I upgraded the lights in my garage shop earlier this year:
I already had four T8 fluorescent fixtures that I installed when I built the garage. So, I just added six more fluorescent fixtures.
I switched most of the lights in our house to LED, so I was hoping to use LED fixtures in the garage too. Unfortunately, the equivalent LED shop lights put out less light (fewer lumens), and cost twice as much as fluorescent fixtures. So I stayed with the fluorescent lights.
LED bulbs should last longer, but my fluorescent bulbs were still working fine after 16 years. So the longer life didn't make much difference to me.
LED bulbs use less energy, but my shop lights are usually on 10-20 hours a month at most. So any power savings would be so minimal it wasn't worth the additional cost.
LED fixtures can "appear" brighter, but that's usually just because the light is whiter. The actual lumen output is usually lower.
You can buy fluorescent bulbs in various color ratings too.
3000K "Warm White" bulbs have reddish tint that mimics a standard incandescent bulb. 6000K "Daylight" bulbs have a bluish tint that can make the light appear brighter. But I find them to be a little too blue and cold feeling.I opted for 5000K "Natural" bulbs which seem just about perfect. Not too orange, and not too blue. Just a nice bright white light.
Anthony Watson
My fluorescent experiences...
Business location #1, 13 years, never changed a tube
Business location #2, 16 years, never changed a tube
Current residence, 20 years, about half have been changed/replaced
In wonder if that is marketing or just their different perspectives on which daylight is more preferable. Like all of the different shades of white that paint companies offer. Some days are brighter than others depending on the season.
I find glad resent love gating iffy. Our home is 6 years old and I have had to change the fluorescent tubes in the class set and laundry room two times.
2 weeks after moving in I installed 4, 4 tube floor resent lights fixtures in the garage. In 6 years I have not had to replace any of the T8 bulbs but have had to replace 2 electronic ballasts in 2 of the fixtures. Go figure. I think the ballasts have a lot to do with tube life.
Jeeeeeeez. I find fluorescent lighting iffy.
Eight years ago we had all our fixtures replaced with high efficiency fluorescent fixtures. Some are 4 light, others 6 light. So far about
25% have been replace and I'm going to order another hundred lights. Also a half dozen ballasts have been replaced.
And what about the "in the class set and laundry room two" ???? Don't you hate the spell checkers on cell phones?
On 11/13/2016 9:31 AM, woodchucker wrote: ...
Grammar ain't spelling... :)
... yes, as shown here:
Color temp is a individual preference thing. Even though 6500K does appear marginally brighter, the unmistakable blue hue isn't for me. IMO the sweet spot is in the 4000K/5000K range.
Hitting the bottle early today Leon 8^)
Ballasts are key to good fluorescent tube life. Cheap electronic ballasts are tube killers, it basically comes down to how much of the phosphor coating is blasted away at the tube ends when they start up. It is tough to beat a quality old-school transformer ballast, though they suck at efficiency. The tubes lose 10% of their brightness within the first few hours of operation. LEDs are not much more efficient...yet. there are LEDs that are more than double the efficiency, but they have not yet trickled into commercial products at low price points quite yet (soon!). The LED retrofit tubes gain there efficiency claims over florescent tubes simply from having all the light directed downwards, no losses from having 1/2 the light reach the floor via the fixtures reflectors (and they don't have the sharp initial lumen drop-off that florescents experience).
-BR
The Feit LEDs are a great option, it's what I went with
I've nearly tripled the light in the shop since I set it up. Our eyes need more light as we age
Also florescents produce -less- light as they age
It is an odd thing to comprehend. I used to hate LED lights, they ALL looked blue and did not seem to have any illumination compared to incandescent. I'm talking many years ago when LED flash lights were first showing up.
Fast forward and LED's lights now use, in many cases, yellow filters to filter out the blue.
I have Phillips Alto Daylight 6500K T8's in my shop, 16 of them, and I see no blue at all. BUT I just replaced the florescent screw in ceiling bulbs in my shop to supplement the T8's and the lamps seem to cast a slight touch of blue off of our white freezer. That was not there with just the T8's. The new LED screw in lamps are 3700K, Go figure. I guess they don't have enough yellow filter .
I am hoping that will be true. I have switched out 5 PAR40 incandescent bulbs in our kitchen to Feit LED about a year ago. One of the bulbs has already failed, fortunately Feit sent me a replacement.
Also we have 9 ceiling fans in our home, all but 1 have 4 candelabra incandescent lamps, 32 of those suckers. Unfortunately they are more for looks than longevity. Anyway I have replaced 8 lamps with LED candelabra bulbs in the 2 fans that we typically have on most of the day. I hope they last! :!)
In the closet and laundry room two times. LOL.
It was the iPad this time ;~)
LOL. A little bit spell'n and a little bit of taking my comment out of context.
Should have said, in the closet and laundry room two times. "Times" was on the next line, but left out. ;~)
One would think. LOL
I have always been told this but oddly I have had two electronic ballasts fail long before the 6 year old bulbs. I guess these ballasts just out right suddenly failed vs. slowly dying and showing signs.
Well, we both had very different experiences.
Unfortunately, the tubes and bulbs are apples and oranges, somewhat. I think there's more room in the tubes fixtures for the electronics and heat dissipation.
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