4 foot LED "shop" lighting

[krw]

200kWh? That's 270W 24 hours a day. As my father used to yell "TURN THE **** LIGTHS OFF!"

I can only wish I had $30 electric bills. Mine are more like $250 Summer and Winter - and I consider that more than acceptable. Lighting is in the noise. The electric water heater and 2.5T and 5T heat pumps are the biggies. In the coldest (not really cold) months the heat pumps are using "aux heat" so really just resistive heat.

I'm going LED because: 1. fluorescent fixtures are getting hard to find. HD had none in the style (2-tube wrap) I've put in other areas of the shop. They only had LED fixtures. 2. The LED replacement tubes for the other fixtures weren't much more expensive than the real thing. 3. LEDs allow more fixtures on a 15A lighting circuit. ;-)

The difference in the electricity cost for lighting is immaterial.

[krw]

Diesels also require less routine maintenance and last longer than gasoline engines. These factors are rather important to someone making money on their vehicle. Down time gets expensive.

Yes, I didn't realize this is where you were coming from. With your little electricity use, you couldn't justify much in the way of hardware either.

[krw]

Put an electronic ballast behind both and call me again.

Bingo! Some. Not all.

For cheap units, sure. That really messes with the PF. My cheap fluorescents are like that. I can hear the breaker buzz in my entrance panel. It's quite loud with all the tubes running. These are really cheap units. Electronics ballasts can increase the frequency to where it's not a problem.

[krw]

Yeah, that's going to work with 99% of the people out there. Hell, they're too stupid to use their turn signals.

And then the next owner burns the house down. No problem. It's not yours anymore.

Lowes here at 10packs for as low as $50 but I wanted the 6500K 3400l? tubes. They were 10 for $75. Still not bad.

[Clare Snyder]

I'd likely use my LED flashlight instead of the candle - - - -

[DerbyDad03]

Or my smart phone...

[Clare Snyder]

The difference in mileage will almost ALWAYS be more than the difference in price because the price is "loosely" based on price per therm, and deisel is more energy dense than gasoline. (one part of the reason a diesel is more efficient) The deisel is also more efficient in how it uses each "therm" because it runs at a much higher compression ratio and it does not have "throttling losses" or "pumping losses" of a typical gasoline engine.

That said, the premium you pay for a diesel over a gas engine takes hundreds or thousands of miles of fuel savings to recover.

[Clare Snyder]

One thing to keep in mind - other than the issue of the possibility of putting in the wrong bulb - when you remove the ballast and install direct wire LEDs you totally nullify the UL and/or csa certification of the fixture - may not be an issue in your home shop, but anywhere the department of labor gets involved, you do NOT want to get caught - nor if an electrical inspectio n (say for insurance reasons) is required. Installing "replacement" tubes using the ballast no certification is affected.

[J. Clarke]

No, the price is based on the amount of tax the government wants to charge.

If you operate in a locality where government puts enough tax on it you never recover.

[hubops]

It's a very long narrow storage area, under the front porch < cold room > which is used ~ a couple times per week - but just in & out 30 seconds or so - but carrying preserves or other such items - carrying a flashlight wasn't an option - the single, pull-cord light at the entrance served to light-up about 1/3 of the room. The addition of the 3 ft. LED provides good light for the other 2/3 for reading the label on a jar of preserves or a storage tote or whatever. The electric bill or the cost of the fixture were never any consideration for this 1-fixture job. .. it was having the top-quality, most expensive fixture fail prematurely that was the peeve. John T.

[krw]

Maintenance came around our building and replaced all of the fluorescent tubes with LEDs. I saw them pulling out the ballasts but don't know if they were replaced by another. They weren't even electricians and, *horrors* used ladders without safety nets.

[Scott Lurndal]

For most individuals, perhaps.

For large groups (cities, counties, states, countries) the savings in consumption is significant.

[Spalted Walt]

...or equivalent.

[hubops]

Ha ! ... you tell my wife about that option .. :-) John T.

[krw]

We weren't even talking about major buildings???? <sheesh>

Some heat with their lighting and I've heard of at least a few of them who screwed themselves by switching to LEDs.

[whit3rd]

No need; the plasma lifetime in fluorescent tubes is known, and their ballasts always deliver AC instead of DC because of filament sputter erosion. The AC will make LEDs go dark at zero crossings, because those LED filled tubes (I've dissected some) have only diodes, no energy storage.

[Clare Snyder]

No place in North America comes close to that condition. No place outside North America that I am aware of either, as in MOST of the world diesel is lower cost than gasoline (and lower taxed as well)

[Clare Snyder]

You forget the persistence of the phosphor used to create the light color. \ From reaserchgate.net:

The alternative current driven light emitting diode (AC-LED) lighting system has attracted a great deal of attention because of the high luminous efficiency and the simple electric circuit. However, this system causes the unacceptable flicker due to rapid fluctuations in the voltage of the power supply. In order to compensate the flicker effect in AC-LED, we proposed the use of yellow persistent luminescent garnet phosphors. The time evolution of luminescence intensity measurement of Ce³? and Cr³? co-doped Gd3Al2Ga3O12 phosphor using a modulated blue laser diode was performed. From this measurement, the flicker percent of Ce³? and Cr³? co-doped Gd3Al2Ga3O12 phosphor is calculated and showed to be about 60%. This result demonstrated that persistent phosphor is expected to solve the problem of flicker caused in AC-driven LED lighting system.

Also many led replacement drivers use well filtered switch mode high frequency power supplies. - the LEDs see virtually pure DC.

[krw]

Maybe the cheap crap but it's not all cheap Chinese crap. There are such things as switching power supplies. No zero crossing - current controlled (i.e. a ballast).

[J. Clarke]

You do know that in some localities there is a 25% surtax on diesel, do you not?