4 foot LED "shop" lighting

[hubops]

Just a rant ... < a long one - sorry folks >

but wondering if anyone else has any bad <or good >

experience with this type of lighting ? And - buyer beware if you're outfitting your whole shop !

Less than a year ago, I installed a 4 ft. LED self-contained <plug-in> light fixture in my back-basement storage room. It was a very very decent looking item from Lee Valley made by Armacost and more than double-the-cost of the common cheapo units. It failed last weekend ... after ~ 5 hours of ON time ! if that. ... so much for the 10's-of-thousands-of-hours of LED bulb life !

I looked-it-over closely - checked the 120 volt cord & connectors - everything was A-OK ; I pulled off the end-caps to check internal wiring connectors A-OK ; pulled the ON-OFF switch ; - everything was A-OK.

Guess what ? - Lee Valley doesn't carry them any more ; Armacost says that it's discontinued and that it was probably an internal power supply failure ... gee thanks !

The polite refund from Lee Valley meant that I was not out-of-pocket - but it was little consolation - now I need to go shopping for another fixture... again looking at the cheapo's that I avoided !

Plus - I'm hoping that the replacement fixture can be matched to the custom-made little 45 degree corner-mounting-blocks that I made for the original fixtures ...

Geeeze ! < thanks for listening :-) >

John T.

[DerbyDad03]

re: "wondering if anyone else has any bad <or good > experience with this type of lighting ?"

I understand your frustration, but I hope you aren't projecting this failure across the entire universe of plug-in LED fixtures. The rare faulty unit can show up in every product line from any manufacturer, from lighting fixtures to appliances to cars.

I've got three cheapo 4' shop lights (3 different models, can't speak to the internal workings, might just be different cases), three cheapo 3' foot models, 6-ish of the cheapo screw-into-the-socket style shown below, a bunch of cheapo under-cabinet-touchless LED strips, three recessed can conversion units and four LED replacement T8 tubes that I put into a couple of really old (30+ year) 4' shop light housings. One of the cheapo shop lights is in my garage where temps range from below freezing to over 90°F.

Hundreds of hours in total, not a single failure.

You got a bad unit. It happens.

These are great for those single bulb, screw in fixtures, like in many older closets:

These are great for older recessed can lights. They have 5 switchable color choices.

[krw]

Early life failures are a fact of life for all electronics. Some better than others but it happens. The failure curve looks like a bathtub (hence called a "bathtub curve"). Lotsa failures up front, almost zero in the middle, rising after some time (lotsa time for most modern electronics).

[hubops]

Thanks for the reply. I've bought 2 3-ft. Feit brand fixtures on sale $ 20. each. .. time will tell, I guess.

John T.

[invalid unparseable]

Go to banggood.com and look for an LED power supply in whatever volts and amps the light needs. Yes, they're Chinese made. Yes, some of them are junk.

However, a $7 power supply from there might resurrect your light fixture and you might even find one that's close to the same size.

I have 3 under-cabinet LED fixtures that have been in place for maybe

10 years and still work fine. I've also had "stuff" that didn't survive the first week. Some is from the "make it cheaper" mentality but sometimes there are glitches in what we think are well made products - couple of flaws in the 737-800 that took at least two crashes and several deaths to find a solution beyond "have the other pilot guard the throttles during landing so autothrottle doesn't take engine one all the way to idle' xteen million for an aircraft and it took them a year ot two to find and fix that problem. One crash and multiple deaths when the pilot guarding the throttles had a heart attack and was possibly dead before the plane went into its death spiral.

[hubops]

Yeah .. Murphy is following me around. John T.

[Leon]

Frustrating... But things break and at least you LV gave your money back.

I tend to very leery of special purchase electrical items offered by any one. Not saying this is the case but LV often offers these type "deals".

[hubops]

Just prior to returning it to the store - I tried to get at the internal power supply - no can do - not without seriously wrecking the unit - it's about a foot into the aluminum channel and either attached somehow or firmly snagged on the mounting screw socket. John T.

[russellseaton1]

I just use 4 foot fluorescent lights in my shop area. I have 37 of the two bulb 4 foot fixtures in the basement. Once in a great while the fluorescent bulbs die. But its rare. And the bulbs cost $1 each or something like that. Fixtures were about $10 each maybe. They just run and run and make lots of light. Sometimes getting high faluting and fancy dandy just does not make sense. In your case it would have made lots more sense to just put in one or two of the single bulb fixtures with a pull chain. They are $1 each and dead simple. 110% reliable. 5 hours of on time in a whole year? Why not go for simple and reliable and cheap? Why F around?

[hubops]

I won't disagree with the Keep-It-Simple idea. The plug-in fixture required no wiring and thus no electrical safety inspection. The single-bulb slim-profile allowed it to nest along the top corner with very little protruding < to get knocked off while storing / un-storing junk >

The LED vs fluorescent and cost were not considerations for this 1-fixture 1-time installation .. alas. :-) On a positive note - the new 3 ft. Feit fixture required 33 inch mount-spacing - my home-made mounts for the 4 ft. fixtures were randomly installed < drum roll > 33 inches apart ! I'm heading out to buy a lotto ticket. John T.

[Clare Snyder]

and a dead ballast is $30-ish 2 tubes for $11.99 and a $35 ballast does NOT make ANY sense, in my opinion. Not when I can buy a 4 foot LED that makes more light on 1/4 the power for $20

Just replaced 2 instant start ballasts and 16 tubes for a client because all the lights in the office are the same - 2 tube pans in dropped cielings - $210 in parts at my cost. Asthetics over economics and I can understand that. To relamp the whole office with LEDs would cost thousands -(50 units, +/-) and it's a rented office.

[whit3rd]

Yep, fluorescent is still a winner on parts/availability/maturity, and was never far behind LED in power consumption. I suspect the various (low-voltage DC, high-voltage AC, dimmable, not dimmable, flickering, flicker-free, etc.) LED options mean that one can never re-lamp or re-power a fixture, if a lamp or power brick dies, you need... a new fixture. With screw-in LED bulbs, you replace both a power supply and an LED, AND a heatsink, instead of just a glass tube/bulb with fittings on the end(s); replacing the light emitters is going to be easier on the wallet if you go fluorescent.

Case-lot purchases of fluorescent tubes are $2 each, but if you just buy a couple off-the-shelf, it's closer to $5 each. I've replaced some T12 ballast/tube fixtures with T8 electronic ballast and T8 tubes; less mercury in those smaller tubes, and quite bright. The sheet metal of the fixtures might be 40 years old.

[Bob D]

I am a fool when it comes to determining value based on cost. When I lit my shop, I wanted the brightest, most even lighting I could install with 5000k color. I selected 4" two tube daylight T5 fixtures. That was a few years back, but I still don't see LED fixtures that will compete with 10,000 lumens per fixture. I've replaced one tube and no fixtures. My shop feels like an operating room that has good light on every surface wall to wall.

Bob

[J. Clarke]

LED is far less rocket-sciency than fluorescent. Get an adjustable power suppy. Hook it up, turn up the voltage until the light hits the brightness you want. Note that voltage and the current. Get a wall-wart with the same spec, you're done. The wall-wart might not be dimmable or respond to Alexa but it will make the light give off light.

[krw]

I want it bright too. I have a 13x20 and 12x12 rooms each with six two light T8 fixtures with 6500K (whiter the better) tubes each. I'm about to add a 9x42 room with 16 two tube T8 LEDs,long one wall they'll be 4500K LED fixtures and the other 6500K LED replacement LEDs. I found the LED fixtures at a reasonable price or they'd all be

6500K.

The LED tubes are 2800l and the fluorescents are 3400l, IIRC.

[krw]

' A lot of LEDs aren't dimmable. You can get LED replacement tubes for about 5-7ish$. Brighter (3400l) are at the $7 end.

[russellseaton1]

I'm not exactly sure what you are arguing. But at Menards store, the two bulb 4 foot fluorescent light fixtures are $13.34 each. And the bulbs are $1.77 each. So for $16.88, I can get some light. Multiply that by 37 for the number of fixtures I have in my basement and you are at a total of $624.56. That is a bit of money for lights. But I might have the best lit basement in the world. Every square inch is bright.

[russellseaton1]

Menards sells individual bulbs for $1.77 and $2.22, and more expensive ones too. Maybe they are cheaper if you buy a whole box.

[Scott Lurndal]

I would argue that a 50% reduction in power consumption between fluorescent and LED does indicate that fluorescent is "far behind LED in power consumption".

You can buy replacement LED tubes for standard fluorescent fixtures, the tubes run on line voltage, so you simply rewire the fixture to bypass the ballast.

I've converted a dozen F96T12 two-bulb fixtures with LED tubes, which _are_ easily replaceable.

You can also get LED tubes that are drop-in replacement in standard

48" fixtures using the existing ballast.

[Leon]

Yeah...

I discovered the LED florescent replacements a couple of years ago. I kept having to replace tubes and finally replaced the ballast. AND STILL had issues.

I went to HD to buy a complete replacement assembly. The sales guy suggested the LED ballast bypass style. Wow, no more issues.