The Big Ass Garage Light is expensive, but awesome. It's bright enough that I can see myself injuring myself. Wear sunscreen.

I installed eleven of the four foot twin tube LED lights last year. They make a HUGE difference.

IMG_20171030_175825563 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

IMG_20171030_175806312 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I converted 4 different 4 foot fluorescents to LED just recently.
It was a little work but great afterwards.
They look great too, cleaned up the old ones, took out the ballasts and painted a cool looking black.
Used Hyperikon Tubes from Amazon > 4K color temp is just right for me.

Some of the Hyperikon ones require changing the sockets and rewiring them to have 120v at them. I don't suggest using this kind, as you can short them out changing the light bulbs or shock yourself. We don't use them in commercial spaces because the employees are too dumb not to shock themselves.

For most people I recommend using direct replacement ones that use the existing T8 ballasts. You loose a fraction of the efficiency due to heat loss in the ballast, but who cares about a watt or two between friends? Or just replace the who fixture with a LED fixture.

PS I am an electrician and I only have a couple LEDs in my house. They don't last as long as advertised and don't save much money in electrical costs either. I am going to wait until there is an industry standard on the products and some with longevity. They change every two months so if you have one prematurely die, you can't buy a replacement that looks exactly the same a few months or a year later.

Would you, or perhaps some of our other bright folks, be able to point towards a couple examples of these?

Like others mine are standard flush-mounts on a finished ceiling. I'd rather not have the ends wired at 120.

Yup...LED shop lighting, and one of these, too!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...04_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I converted 4 different 4 foot fluorescents to LED just recently.
It was a little work but great afterwards.
They look great too, cleaned up the old ones, took out the ballasts and painted a cool looking black.
Used Hyperikon Tubes from Amazon > 4K color temp is just right for me.

Some of the Hyperikon ones require changing the sockets and rewiring them to have 120v at them. I don't suggest using this kind, as you can short them out changing the light bulbs or shock yourself. We don't use them in commercial spaces because the employees are too dumb not to shock themselves.

For most people I recommend using direct replacement ones that use the existing T8 ballasts. You loose a fraction of the efficiency due to heat loss in the ballast, but who cares about a watt or two between friends? Or just replace the who fixture with a LED fixture.

PS I am an electrician and I only have a couple LEDs in my house. They don't last as long as advertised and don't save much money in electrical costs either. I am going to wait until there is an industry standard on the products and some with longevity. They change every two months so if you have one prematurely die, you can't buy a replacement that looks exactly the same a few months or a year later.

Would you, or perhaps some of our other bright folks, be able to point towards a couple examples of these?

Like others mine are standard flush-mounts on a finished ceiling. I'd rather not have the ends wired at 120.

The ones I used required to remove the ballasts and direct to only one side of the socket aka tombstones > a simple wiring as in any light socket.
The other tombstone is dead.
Not a big deal at all to do.

quote:

Originally posted by JRC:
Yup...LED shop lighting, and one of these, too!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...04_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Years ago, I acquired one of those with a fluorescent bulb that was being disposed of for no reason other than it was in the way. Not quite sure what happened to it, most likely misplaced or broken in one of my many military moves. In the last 4/5 years I've wished mightily for another as my vision ages.

We have an outfit called "Marden's Surplus and Salvage" that buys up inventory from here, there and everywhere and resells it. You just never know what they'll have and I drop in every time I'm in the area which is at least monthly. Their slogan is "You should have bought it when you saw it at Marden's" and that's VERY good advice as their inventory changes constantly and any given item may never appear again.

Wandering through one day, checking out the tools and hoping for another killer deal on some storage. Nada, which also isn't unusual, and decided for some random reason to go check out the furniture department.

Lo and behold, screwed to a cheesy desk, is a brand new magnifying lamp, big lens, nice bright fluorescent tube...just what I've been looking for. No price tag. Snagged a floor walker, he had to go rummage around and try to find a price. Came back and said "$34.95" or something like that. I nabbed it and took it up to the cashier who scanned the tag and said "$21.05" which is $19.95 plus Maine's 5.5% sales tax.

I grinned all the way out to the truck.

I have two of the Feit shop lights from costco plus a standard 75W florescent. I don't have issue seeing anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I converted 4 different 4 foot fluorescents to LED just recently.
It was a little work but great afterwards.
They look great too, cleaned up the old ones, took out the ballasts and painted a cool looking black.
Used Hyperikon Tubes from Amazon > 4K color temp is just right for me.

Some of the Hyperikon ones require changing the sockets and rewiring them to have 120v at them. I don't suggest using this kind, as you can short them out changing the light bulbs or shock yourself. We don't use them in commercial spaces because the employees are too dumb not to shock themselves.

For most people I recommend using direct replacement ones that use the existing T8 ballasts. You loose a fraction of the efficiency due to heat loss in the ballast, but who cares about a watt or two between friends? Or just replace the who fixture with a LED fixture.

PS I am an electrician and I only have a couple LEDs in my house. They don't last as long as advertised and don't save much money in electrical costs either. I am going to wait until there is an industry standard on the products and some with longevity. They change every two months so if you have one prematurely die, you can't buy a replacement that looks exactly the same a few months or a year later.

Would you, or perhaps some of our other bright folks, be able to point towards a couple examples of these?

Like others mine are standard flush-mounts on a finished ceiling. I'd rather not have the ends wired at 120.

For your house I wouldn't worry too much about the 120v feed ones. As long as you turn off lights when changing lamps no way to short them out.

I still prefer the ballast driven ones, just because it's a direct replacement. Also for someone who not an electrician you will not have the black and white 18awg wiring to change the colors from original ballast wiring to denote it as 120v.

Also for commercial locations lights can't be turned off to relamp nor or the employees smart enough to know that they need to be careful or insert it with feed end facing powered sockets.