LED Shop Lights

[Juss1]

I need to upgrade my shop lights to LEDs.  7-8' ceiling.  It slopes down front to back.  What do you guys use.  I was checking Amazon and some are quite affordable but its hard to know which to get.

[Gregor1]

You don't say what you have now. I converted my 8' florescent fixtures to LED. I now have eight, 8', LED bulbs. I had to swap out the sockets to a single pin design, and removed the ballast. I also added two 8' LED fixtures.
" I can see clearly now..........." LED's are well worth the money in my book.

[Tapper]

If you have 4' fluorescent units they can easily be converted to LED's. Home Depot sells an LED light kit that consists of two bulbs and new Tombstones with wires for ~$19 last time I checked. You can discard the ballast as the new LED's are wired directly.

I've been converting mine as the fluorescent bulbs burn out.

Doug

[Kudzu]

I need to upgrade my shop lights to LEDs.  7-8' ceiling.  It slopes down front to back.

Just built a building and used the UFO lights (shaped like a flying saucer) and WELL pleased. But with your low ceilings that is not a good choice.

As other have said converting florescent is a good option if you have them.

Cheapest way is just us screw in Edison based bulbs.  Fixtures and bulbs are cheap and if you're comfortable stringing wire they are very easy to add if you need more.

[fredhargis]

When I built my shop the first ones I put in were from Costco (4', 2-lamp fixtures) and they did very well. However, I needed to add some lamps later as my layout evolved to get more light in certain areas. I bought these from Amazon. I like them better than the Costco (which are still working really well after 4 years) because they seem to be a lot brighter. I highly recommend them.

[Bill Tindall]

I need to upgrade my shop lights to LEDs.  7-8' ceiling.  It slopes down front to back.  What do you guys use.  I was checking Amazon and some are quite affordable but its hard to know which to get.

My brother in law is a lighting engineer.  He, and the local lighting shop, have kept me informed on this topic.  When buying shop lights you are buying both the intensity of the light and the color spectrum.  I used to dismiss LED shop lighting, but it has advanced to where it is preferable to other sources.  Two years ago when I was preparing for a club presentation on shop lighting I was told we were in the 7th generation of LED lighting technology.  Harbor Freight could only be in the 3rd.  

LED lighting is especially dependent on the fixture the LED's are mounted in. But the bottom line of it all is how many lumens is illuminating the bench and does the LED provide intensity across the visible spectrum so when you are done finishing something it looks similar in the living room during the day.  

Best is to get advice from a store that specializes in commercial lighting.  Paying $70 for a chisel seems affordable but spending $40 on a light fixture doesn't for most.  If you are going to guess buy the highest lumens you can find and a CRI of at least 85.

[BrentDH]

I just did this within the last month or so.  I am very happy with my decision.  My old fluorescents were getting close to 15 years old and had lost significant brightness.   The new LEDs are much brighter.  I cannot say how an LED compares to a new fluorescent but compared to old worn out ones is a drastic difference.  Here is what I ended up using.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085YF...UTF8&psc=1

I learned quite a bit while researching this and basically you need to know three things.
1. Color
2. Wattage (Brightness)
3. Ballast bypass, single ended, or double ended.

For color, I debated between the 5000K and 6000K and eventually went with the 6000K with no regrets.  I personally would not drop below 5000K for shop lighting.  It is basically how blue (higher/cooler) or how yellow (lower/warmer) you want the light to be.

Then I saw slightly different wattages.  I think 18W was the highest I saw for a 4' tube.  I was looking for as bright as I could get.

Then comes the much more difficult decision.  Do you want to rework your lights to eliminate the ballast, or just put in a direct replacement bulb that is LED but works with the ballast?  This was easy for me to decide.  I wanted to get rid of the ballast as they are complete unnecessary for an LED bulb.  They only make those direct replacements for people who want to put in an LED without any effort.  It seems to me that this reduces part of the advantage of LEDs - lower power and no noise.

After deciding to eliminate the ballast then you need to decide if you want to power the bulb from one end or both ends.  The type of tombstones you have might affect that decision.  There are shunted and non-shunted tombstones.  Basically this means either both contacts in the tombstone are shorted together or they are isolated.  If you have shunted tombstones (contacts shorted together) then it will be MUCH easier to use LED tubes that put voltage one one end and neutral on the other.  This way you will not need to replace the tombstones.  If you have non-shunted (isolated contacts) then ether single ended or double ended will work.  On the single ended you supply voltage to one the contact on one side of the tombstone and neutral to the other contact on the same tombstone.  The other tombstone on the opposite end is basically a dummy that is just there to hold the tube in place (no electrical connection).

I did the replacement with no additional hardware at all other than the new LED tubes.  I reused all existing tombstones.

I did this to ten 4 bulb fixtures and six 2 bulb fixtures for a total of 52 bulbs.

Hopefully this helps.  If I left something out let me know and I will try to clarify.

[fixtureman]

I bought mine from Green Light depot.  I got the 6000k ones and they are really bright

[Oldwood2409]

[font="Calibri", sans-serif]I just completed my new shop. Shop is 38 x 38 and I have installed 17, 6600 lumen e-cono light LED's - They are 5000K and I could not be more pleased. I did lots of research on what to buy and how many. AS we age, more is much better. The units I purchased are dimmable but power and dimming controls must be run separate. My shop has 12 ft eve height so I screwed a light angle to the roof purlins and hung from chains[/font]

[kurt18947]

I did the same as Brent, non-ballast tubes. I don't know that it matters power on one end or power on both ends. Just pick one and stay with it. I found re-wiring the fixtures really simple, it's like a simple lamp. Less wire than with a ballast and no confusion over which wire goes where.