Shop Lights

[ericheartsu]

Gearing up for a brand new project in the next two months, and need to re-install all the lighting.

What's everyone using for good shop/production floor lights?

[Lizard]

I prefer the T-5 High Output the best.

[blue moon]

are you switching bulbs or do you need new light fixtures?
We just rewired all our fluorescents and installed LED bulbs in them for less than $15/fixture.

pierre

[kingscreen]

We just converted our entire production floor to high output LED lights.  6000k/6000lm 
Used existing fixtures with a simple ballast bypass.

[mk162]

yup, we did all retrofits to our tube fluo lights.  Some LED's can run on the ballasts, but I recommend bypassing them.  ballasts get wicked hot and will burn out over time anyway.

[blue moon]

Also, I would go with 5000k, it is more natural and it matches the Pantone specs.

Pierre

[Du Manchu]

I ran four 8' led sticks over my press.  They are extremely light and hang on a light steel cable strung across from wall to wall, tightened with turnbuckles.   Holy cow!  Now I realize we've been working in a dungeon for way too long!

Our shop is narrow and crammed with equipment, and thus I have no easy way to reach the 18 ft florescent lights above.  This was my next best alternative, and the results are amazing. Expensive for some, but easily offset with setup times and fewer misstakes.   Probably $300 in supplies.

Dewey

[mk162]

Also, I would go with 5000k, it is more natural and it matches the Pantone specs.

Pierre

That is what we went with as well.  You'll be surprised with the output you get from the LED's.  Fluo tubes slowly lose light over time, so you don't notice how dull they get.  LED's lose I think 5% at 50,000 hours or something crazy like that.  We used to replace our tubes every other year(we should have done it yearly, but we forgot).  Also, it gets freaking pricey to recycle fluo tubes. 

[ericheartsu]

are you switching bulbs or do you need new light fixtures?
We just rewired all our fluorescents and installed LED bulbs in them for less than $15/fixture.

pierre

all new!

[mk162]

are you switching bulbs or do you need new light fixtures?
We just rewired all our fluorescents and installed LED bulbs in them for less than $15/fixture.

pierre

Did you have 4ft troffers?  The 8ft bulbs were decidedly more expensive.  I think $30-40 per bulb when we bought them.  I figured it was time to bite the bullet and install them.  At that price I figured it took less than 6 months to pay them off, and in 6 months I doubt the bulbs would be that much cheaper.  We replaced around 40 of the 8 footers and around 24 of the 4 footers.

We found that 2 bulbs works pretty well in a fixture that holds 4.  The light output was just fine.  Some fixtures we ended up installing 3 just to get a bit more light.

[blue moon]

are you switching bulbs or do you need new light fixtures?
We just rewired all our fluorescents and installed LED bulbs in them for less than $15/fixture.

pierre

all new!

as mentioned by mk162, two bulbs per will do you just fine. I would pick up cheap 4' fluo fixtures and get bulbs from ebay. You should be under $30 per combined. If you can manage to rewire your current fixtures, bulbs are under $6 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/282150629178?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT this is what we bought).

pierre

[kingscreen]

We bought our 8' bulbs in bulk and they came in right around $20/bulb.

[mk162]

We bought ours around 2-3 years ago, they were pretty pricey back then.  But they have paid for themselves over and over.

I will never go back to fluo tubes.  Too much hassle with light loss, ballasts, disposal, etc.

[blue moon]

We bought our 8' bulbs in bulk and they came in right around $20/bulb.

we just bought a 10 pack of 8' bulbs for the warehouse, they range in price from $16 for the 36W to $24 for 48W. I contemplated converting to 4' fixtures as the bulbs are cheaper, but adding the everything together and new installs were just not worth the small savings.

pierre

[tonypep]

We are all LED.........its ridiculously bright here