LED Shop Lighting

BCGPER

Starting Another Thread
Location
Sunny Arizona
A couple of guys were asking about my shop lighting in another thread. To keep from derailing that thread. I'll post this here. Just a quick copy and paste of an e mail to a friend.

A couple years ago I installed 4 LED replacement bulbs in my exterior lights. The benefits proved to make it worth doing the entire house. The house is all LED now, with the exception of about 40 fluorescent bulbs. With the phasing out of all T-12 lamp production, I decided it was time to start looking at an alternative.

Much like you, I was shopping at COSTCO one day, and snagged a couple of the drop-in replacement bulbs. I really liked these bulbs, slightly brighter that the T-12's they replaced, 50,000 hour life, and less than half the energy consumption. I was sold! The entire change out was going to cost me $600+, so it was going to have to happen in stages. Returned to Costco a week later, and as COSTCO seems to do, they were completely sold out.

I thought, hell I'm smarter than Costco, I'll track down the "manufacturer", well they say they're the manufacturer but these are all made in China. After several unanswered e mails and phone messages, it was obvious they wouldn't sell to the public. While researching new suppliers, I learned of all the different types of LED replacements. The lower lamp cost and the ability to do away with the light ballast seemed to be a no brainer in my mind.

What I eventually settled for was the 6000K direct wire 110 volt lamps. the 6000 color is whiter than I really wanted, but not blinding. I had a bunch of 4 foot lights to modify, and two 8 foot lamps. The 8 foot bulbs were $60-$80 a piece so, time to rethink that idea. Replacing an 8 foot lamp with two 4 foot lamps would cost about $60 for everything, plus I'd have all the same lights.

Now, as much as I hate the place, Ebay was by far the cheapest place on lights. I decided to roll the dice and order 20. I installed a couple and turned the power back on and wow, what a difference! Of the 20 lamps in the initial order, two were DOA. I wasn't surprised, since this is cheap Chinese crap. I contacted the seller and explained the failure and asked if this is fairly common. He said its not that unusual to get a bad one, but two was rare. He agreed to give me 10% off my next order, which seemed fair enough to me. I ordered another 20.

Installing the next 20 was a frustrating ordeal. Of those 20, 14 were DOA. I'm pissed, to say the least. Contacted seller again, and he is absolutely shocked. I've had Ebay deals go south before, and was preparing to ship all 40 lamps back. The seller asks if I'll work with him. He wanted me to open up the defective LED's and send him photos of anything I can find. The problem with a lot of them was very obvious, the power wires to the LEDs were broken during the manufacture of the lamps. He sees the issue, and immediately sends me out another order of 20 lamps, and don't bother shipping the bad ones back. SWEET! After an hour with my soldering gun, I had 9 FREE working LEDs.

So, I found a unicorn, an honest Ebay seller. I ended up with 54 lamps for $300, about $5.55 per lamp, and did away with every ballast I had. Time will tell if I see anything on the power bill.

And what you really wanted before my ramblings, the link:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/26223017219...49&var=560983419237&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
 

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I've got to do this soon. So do you wish you would have gone with the 4000k bulbs instead of 6000k? Did you get the clear or frosted or stripe covers? I might even risk going to Alibaba or AliExpress if anyone else wants to risk going in on it. I bought a bunch of hover boards from China last year that way and was mostly satisfied.
 

BCGPER

Starting Another Thread
Location
Sunny Arizona
I wouldn't want the 4K in a garage, but I wouldn't want the 6K in the house. Two entirely different kinds of light. I did put these in the laundry room, but I figured that was "her" shop. :D

These hard wire directly to the 110 power, it's easy. The only real wiring I had to do was a new run of wires to make two 4 footers more like 1 8 footer.
 

Greg

Make RME Rockcrawling Again!
Admin
Pretty good timing! Hickey turned me on to these at Sams Club.... $35/per light, 4500 lumens @ 40 watts. - http://www.samsclub.com/sams/4ft-led-shoplight-shoplight-led/prod16460030.ip

I have almost a dozen fluorescent lights in my shop and I hate them. So far I've bought 4 of the above lights and they're MUCH brighter than my fluorescents. I'm planning on replacing all the lights with these LED's over time, should make a huge difference in my lighting.
 

BCGPER

Starting Another Thread
Location
Sunny Arizona
https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...e-industrial-led-light-4-foot-long/3179/6640/

These are what I was considering. I know they're more but the lumens are what I am after.

What I learned after doing lots of homework is that the 50,000 hour number is tossed onto a lot of LED stuff but doesn’t make it close. I would rather pay more for something that is more apt to make it that long... for me they are likely the last shop lights I will buy.

Do you have an estimated idea of what a complete 4' light would cost for those that have no lighting at all and are starting from scratch?




$15 to $30 for the fixture, depending on where you buy. Another $15 for the lamps, would put you at $30 to $45 per fixture.

The lights you linked are nice, but total overkill for a home garage.
 

sawtooth4x4

Totally Awesome
I got mine at Costco last year. You can just stick the LED bulbs straight into an old school fluorescent light fixture and they work fine. I did that with mine.

I love mine, but they are not professionally installed into the ceiling.
 

BCGPER

Starting Another Thread
Location
Sunny Arizona
Ok, project complete. I ended up converting 21 fixtures total. I decided to do the shed too, just for the cold weather operation that LEDs excel in. Here's the breakdown of the entire project:

20 replacement lamps (which turned into far more) $300
3 replacement fixtures (to convert 8' lamps) $90
Misc. wiring supplies that I had on hand $10

So for $400ish, I converted every one of my fluorescent lights. The way it worked out with the bad bulbs, I also ended up with 13 good spare lamps. All in all, it was $400 well spent in my opinion. I'll chime back in when the power bill comes, and report if there is a noticeable difference.
 

Hickey

Burn-barrel enthusiast
Supporting Member
Pretty good timing! Hickey turned me on to these at Sams Club.... $35/per light, 4500 lumens @ 40 watts. - http://www.samsclub.com/sams/4ft-led-shoplight-shoplight-led/prod16460030.ip?navAction=

I have almost a dozen fluorescent lights in my shop and I hate them. So far I've bought 4 of the above lights and they're MUCH brighter than my fluorescents. I'm planning on replacing all the lights with these LED's over time, should make a huge difference in my lighting.

I'm obsessed with these babies. I'm considering sunscreen at this point.
 

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Shawn

Just Hanging Out
Location
Holly Day
Wow, this is a great thread. I have 20 ish 8' ers in my garage and I have to use my night vision goggles to see anything.
 

frieed

Jeepless in Draper
Supporting Member
Location
Draper, UT
Heads up!
I just came from the Jordan Gateways Sams club and they seem to changing suppliers for the LED shop lights.
Lights from the new supplier are still $35.99
A partial stack of ones from Lights of America are $24.99
Still 4500 lumens. The look identical, probably made in the same factory in China.
 

bryson

RME Resident Ninja
Supporting Member
Location
West Jordan
Heads up!
I just came from the Jordan Gateways Sams club and they seem to changing suppliers for the LED shop lights.
Lights from the new supplier are still $35.99
A partial stack of ones from Lights of America are $24.99
Still 4500 lumens. The look identical, probably made in the same factory in China.
Do you mean Jordan Landing? In West Jordan?
 
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