As you may remember I bought the 4 foot 2light LED lights for my shop ceiling. I was working on the Dust collector pipes yersterday and knocked one off the ceiling. They are just held up by 2 screws that fit in a slot. I bumped it and apparently pushed it back in the slot so it fell. It pulled the cord out of the ceiling socket and hit the floor knocking the reflector off. I thought it was toast. Nope. Snapped the reflector back on and plugged it in and it still worked.
That's good to hear. Those lights looked great - I want to try to find one for over my electronics workbench.
I did find a way to destroy one LED bulb, one with a standard base. I had one in an outdoor wet location fixture up under an overhang at the barn (the kind of fixture with the glass "jar" and a protective metal cage. It went out one day and when I finally got a ladder to replace the bulb I found the glass jar completely full of water! The LED bulb was chock full of water too. I wonder if they tested the bulbs in those conditions...
How it got full of water is a complete mystery to me.
Could you let me know how those LED lights work as a task light. I am using fluoresent now and need more light. I don't think I have ever seen the lights you have at Home Depot.
Re: So what LED lights are you talking about? *LINK*
john lucas
Below is the link to the lights. I kept one extra one and I'm thinking about mounting it vertically on a stand to place behind things when I'm applying finish. I think that will really be valuable when doing table tops.
My bad, I thought they were two bulb lights. But they sell a two pack of single bulb lights? I have 8' two tube T-12 fluorescent and was figuring on replacing them with these lights. Would using two of these end to end put out about the same light as the older florescent?
This thread got my interest. Like many folks I have T8 and recently T12 fixtures. I did a quick internet search and find replacement T8 and T12 LED bulbs are available. Can use existing fixtures, just need to cut out the ballast and a simple rewire.
I can see getting some of these to replace my bulbs. One link, expect many other sources.
Well that looks interesting and a bit confusing. The pics make them look like fluorescents, however it does say LED. So they don't look like your typical LED bulb. I guess I'm going to have to check them out at one of the big box stores some day. I'm all for LED technology and this appears to be an advancement that I'm clueless about.
>Would using two of these end to end put out about the same light as the older florescent?
Barry, I saw those lights in action but don't know the specs. They looked plenty bright.
My experience is with the high brightness T5 bulbs - I put a bunch in my shop, seven fixtures in the main shop room. The 8-ft fixtures have four 4-ft bulbs, claiming 5000 lumens per bulb. I can believe it - these are incredibly bright, far brighter than T8s which are brighter than T12s
The ballast is electronic and comes ready to wire normally or so two bulbs stay off until you throw a second switch. I wires all my lights with that option and I only turn on the extra two bulbs on occasion. If I do, my friend gets out his sun glasses.
I don't know if I would choose LEDs instead today if they were redily available, I'd have to study the specs, frequency (if pulsed), color temperature, price, and warrenty - will they really last as long as claimed and if they don't, will the company replace them decades from now?
After an email exchange with John Lucas and some of my own internet research, I recently changed out all of the bulbs in my shop. I replaced all of the 4-foot florescent T8 bulbs with LED bulbs.
There are several different types of LED bulbs available. Some research and careful shopping is required. Prices and lumens vary widely, and different color casts are available just as in florescents. The 4-foot bulbs I was looking at varied from $10 to over $80, the primary difference seems to be in the lumens they put out. I settled on $20 bulbs to get a lumen level and color cast that was close to my florescent bulbs.
In general terms, there are two types of bulbs currently available that will go in to your existing florescent fixtures. With one type you have to re-wire the fixture to bypass the ballast. With the other type, no re-wiring is necessary, you just pull out the florescent bulbs and put in the LED bulbs. That is what I chose, and the results are what I think are slightly brighter lights using half of the power.
In my reading I learned that with florescent bulbs the light comes out of the bulb in all directions. Much of it bounces around within the fixture and never gets out, resulting in less light being useful. With the LED bulbs, they are directional. All of the elements are on one side of the bulb and the light all exits the other side of the bulb, straight in to your work area. Less light is lost within the fixture.
Just replaced a bunch of fluorescent bulbs with LEDs and no rewiring in a restaurant remodel we did. They put out more light than the old bulbs. Cost for bulbs weren't bad. Could check tomorrow and see which bulbs and what the cost was. I know our techs picked them up at HD.
