Shop lighting

[Ultradog MN]

I converted my shop over to LED 12 years ago....
They (ballast) get hot,which means they are sucking juice.

Agree!!!

 

[m16ty]

Why leave the ballast in the circuit Use the no ballast LEDs

I tend to agree, but the “plug and play” LED bulbs are a lot cheaper than the ones that bypass the ballast. So if your ballast is good just changing to bulbs to LED is a viable option.

 

[Keith True]

It won't take long to eat up any savings by feeding wasted juice to a ballast.I know plug and play was a little cheaper years ago,but now it looks to be the other way around.The last wire arounds I bought were about $3.cheaper than the plug and plays.I bought about 25 four foot tubes,figuring I'd have a couple extras for spares,but that was a dumb idea.in 12 years I've had one go bad,and that was because I knocked it out of the fixture with an excavator.I put it back in,but it does funny things now.

 

[MarkB_MI]

Hmm. My T8 fixtures are over twenty years old and I think I've replaced just one bulb in that time. The electronic ballasts are all original and the lights fire up even when it's well below freezing in the shop. When I start replacing bulbs I'm sure I'll replace them all with LEDs, but for now there's no reason to do so.

 

[Keith True]

It appears that Batteries Plus is no longer selling the plug and play tubes.And,the ones I bought dozens of years ago are still the same price.When I started to convert all of mine I figured I would do a few at a time.But,I liked them so much I bought 70 of them and did all the buildings that used tubes.The lights in both my shop and the rental shop go on in the morning,and shut off anywhere from 5 to 10 at night.I got a call from the power company asking if I'd made any changes in usage or equipment.The total of bills for three meters had dropped 35%.Small percentage for the house,a big percentage for my shop,and a huge amount for the rental garage.That building has rows of lights on both the ceilings and the walls.When I told her I'd changed to LED's she said stop right there,you just answered my question.She was trying to determine if she should send somebody out to check for a faulty meter.

 

[Ozlander]

My 30 x 50 garage had 9 fluorescent 8’ bulbs with 2 bulbs per fixture. I was all the time replacing bulbs and ballasts.
12 years ago, I bought 10 8' LED HI output bulbs, took out the ballast and rewired the fixture.
Now I have 1 bulb per fixture that draws 43 watts vs 2 bulbs that drew 200 watts and I have brighter light.
And I could add a bulb to each fixture if I wanted. No failure yet.

 

[sms]

Amazon has High Bay Led shop lights. They are round and plug in a normal outlet. My brother put 4 in a 32x40 shop and has plenty of light.

We used them too.

 

[Don B.]

I don't replace many bulbs either with old fashioned t12s. I take advantage of the cheap/ free ones at garage sales. Get a few duds but most work at least for a while. I've taken down a few and tossed them when the ballasts have died, which hasn't been that many either. I've had my 30x36 garage 20 years now and I have a couple of 48" ones that stay on in 2 corners 24/7 and I can't remember the last time I changed a bulb or ballast in either one in all those years til last weekend I did 1 fixture and am doing the other corner tomorrow. I don't think that's bad
And those were used when I got them.
I do have a box of 10(8 left) of led conversion tubes. But I also have plenty of brand new bulbs left from what dad bought when he built his garage longer ago than I built mine.
As I use them up I'll look into something else. Until then ill keep using what I have
One thing I will say is these new ballasts are the same length as original but about 1/2 or less the ht and width of the original and about 1/3 of the weight
Not saying that has any bearing on performance (it probably doesn't) but just an observation