Need to add some lighting. T8 or T12? Probably going with 2-tube 4 footers.
- posted
7 years ago
Need to add some lighting. T8 or T12? Probably going with 2-tube 4 footers.
I have 16, T8 4' tubes in my 3 car garage. If I had it to do all over again I might go wit these. My wife has one in her sewing studio over her cutting table and it is perfect. I have two more on order to go into my shop.
I have 16, T8 4' tubes in my 3 car garage. If I had it to do all over again I might go wit these. My wife has one in her sewing studio over her cutting table and it is perfect. I have two more on order to go into my shop.
The mainest thing is the ballast. I had T12's with the old style ballasts and they would fart around and blink and give poor light in the winter. Changed them to T8 with electronic ballast. They pop right on, even on cold mornings and including the one in the outside shed.
Look at LED! I couldn't be happier with the Feit LED shop lights I got from Costco. They now sell separate LED "tubes" for retrofit in existing fixtures.
They use a fraction of the energy, run much cooler, and produce wonderful, cool, light, with no ugly green tint like most florescent tube.
Yeah, what Mike said!
I switched to LED shop lights in the garage over a year ago and could not be happier. Instant on at full throttle even in the coldest weather.
More light than I've EVER gotten from fluorescent tubes of any ilk.
Currently carried at $59.99 for a two pack of the 4' x two "lamp" hanging fixtures as shown here.
The fixtures look like regular fluorescent shop lights (more or less) but they are thinner and lighter. They can be interconnected or hung individually. Try them, you won't regret it.
My T8 with electronic ballasts do come on instantly but in cold weather they are dim until warmed up.
More - probably - than you'll ever need/want to know (downloads a PDF, takes a while).
To paraphrase it, if you want to save electricity, use LED; if you want max light, use flourescent (use electronic ballast)
If you want good information about rapidly changing technology, don't read a three year old government report.
"G. Ross" wrote in news:l6adnVHIpf9z27rFnZ2dnUU7-I snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
The old ballasts buzz and while I couldn't see the 60 Hz flicker (some people can) they'd tire my eyes. New electronic ballasts (low temperature starting and instant on are good clues) are so much better.
You can get different color temperatures too, the 6500K "daylight" bulbs seem so much brighter than the 2800K "warm white" and use the same amount of electricity.
Puckdropper
Even ignoring the age of the report, I don't see how you reached that conclusion. Quoting from the report:
"Dedicated LED troffers are ready to compete with fluorescent troffers in terms of efficacy (lumens per watt [lm/W]), and in many lighting quality issues such as glare, light distribution, visual appearance, and color quality. That is not to say that each one is stellar, but each one tested in this CALiPER study bested the fluorescent benchmarks in terms of efficacy, and almost all were rated highly in several categories?only one luminaire of twelve performed consistently poorly."
and
"To summarize the experience of the observers, ?LEDs have not improved recessed troffers. But they have made them more efficient.?
To paraphrase it, if you want to save electricity, use LED; if you want max light, use more LEDs.
My fluorescent are being replaced with (non-ballasted) LEDs in the house and shop just as fast as I use up my stock of fluorescent bulbs. I wish the stockpile was smaller, but the upside is that LEDs are still getting less expensive. If I were buying new lights, I would not even look at fluorescent.
I think the color temperature is a more important decision. I like the 6500K tubes for work areas.
Thanks. Fluorescents are cheaper, but I have decided on the Costco leds.
My actual experience would contradict that. Lumens are lumens. My shop is brighter than daylight and I'm using less than 1/2 the energy of fluorescent tubes.
Notice the date of that study. LED technology is improving at a rate that rivals solid state memory storage.
Or for old eyes, maybe LED 4 footers which are brighter.
They may be cheaper to buy, but the LEDs will be a LOT cheaper in the long run when you consider their energy consumption AND their life expectancy.
That report is ancient. 2013 is old considering the rate of change of LED lighting.
Color temperature matters a lot. Try tubes with the same lumens at
2700K and 6500K, and you'll see a big difference. That's not to say that fluorescents are better but all lumens are not created equal. ;-)
I don't buy the advertised life of any lighting. I just and another pig tail die today. I've lost more of them than incandescent bulbs in the last five years, despite being outnumbered at least 3:1.
The 6500k are often called "daylight". My preference too
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