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I had the ballast go out in one of the fluorescent troffers I hang over my main bench. At Lowes, they had some LED troffers for a reasonable price, so, rather than stay on the annoying cheap fluorescent fixture replacement schedule, I bought a pair and replaced both fluorescent troffers. I'm impressed! They throw plenty of light, and at least offer the promise of a longer life. It feels like progress.

I was just at my son's shop and he has one. Amazing, I plan to get one.

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We've been gradually switching over, some with new LED fixtures, others with 4' T8 compatible bulbs. Our tool room is setup with motion activated switches, and when we went with to T8/LED bulbs in existing fixtures we burned out a few ballasts in short order. With some GE replacement ballasts that are more compatible however, they've been working great.

I'm very picky about lighting, and find a strong preference for bulbs in the 5100k temperature range. Currently we have a good mix of fluorescent and LED (along with an almost guilty amount of windows for natural light) that we are quite happy with. With what we've experienced with the LED's though, I see us moving even more in that direction in the future.

The initial cost can seem high, and the cost recovery in energy savings can seem rather long range, but the rewards of better lighting color and brilliance can be of more immediate value.

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I have just done the same - cheap fluorescents don't last long.
I would just add that you want to consider the temperature, I have ended up with a very white light which you may not always want. And also the power. They throw out a lot of lumens so consider just what you need.
Oh and the instant startup is good.

Cheers Dave

We finished our initial conversion to LED lighting in the overheads a few months ago, choosing to keep the CFL and halogen bench lights and machine task lighting until the selection of replacement bulbs gets a bit better (higher CRI, mainly). As Mr. Collins mentioned, there is value in sourcing the correct color temperature, as well as higher Color Rendering Index (CRI) bulbs - especially where finish touch-up work or color matching of materials will be done. 5000K is close to the natural lighting associated with traditional nearest pole-facing window/skylight indirect lighting preferred for craft work, and are available in lower CRIs for about $10 per bulb. We will likely upgrade most of these bulbs when 90+ CRI T-8 and T8/T12 bulbs become available at affordable prices in the next year or so.

We opted to go to direct wire versus the drop-in ballast-compatible bulbs that are currently a bit less expensive at home centers - the direct wire is easy to do for 4' and 8' overheads, gets rid of the failure-prone, noisy magnetic ballasts in older commercial fixtures, and reduces energy consumption versus retaining them.

The primary driver for these changes was one of our 'usual suspects' developed a marked sensitivity to eye fatigue as a result of prolonged work under fluorescents. Following the conversion to LED 5000K lighting, his eye fatigue issue disappeared, and my own comfort level with working in the shop for prolonged stretches improved.

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I replaced a pair of fluorescent bulbs with a pair of LED bulbs from Costco ($17.00 range) but didn't read the fine print. Put them in my cheap shop light fixture over my main bench, and couldn't believe how much brighter and better it was, until it went dark. Then it came back on in about 40 minutes. I figured something was incompatible, so I read the fine print. Replaced the cheap ballast with a T8 ballast for about $9 bucks from Home Despot, and problem solved. Costco also had a fixture with two bulbs for around $29.00 which would have been a trade off. Now that I'm used to it, it's great. It has some of the properties of incandescent light that you lose with fluorescent light, and does not have the flicker that makes your eyes so tired.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

We are converting as as they go -- found that one of these is as bright as two 40 watt florescent tubes, you'll have to do a simple re-wire but no ballast required.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L7 ... chtitle-20

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Just to clarify, the troffers I put in are strictly LEDs, not retrofit bulbs. I suppose the retrofit bulbs make for a smooth transition if you are not ready to replace the whole fixture, but I was more than ready to replace the whole fixture (two of them) in this instance. I will probably replace the hanging shop fluorescent fixtures in other parts of my shop each at a time as each ballast starts having problems.

A friend of mine is a lighting designer, and says that when switching to LEDs it's a good idea to buy ones that have a name you can pronounce. A lot the cheap ones don't last very long, apparently. I recently got tired of dealing with old shop lights that give out at bad times, and have started to buy LED fixtures to replace them.

This spring I did a lighting overhaul in my shop and went with these LED shop lights from Costco. http://www.costco.com/4%e2%80%99-Linkab ... 84402.html

I replaced all 7 of my old florescent fixtures, plus added one on the wall right by my new go bar deck. I'm very happy with the total change and all the light in my shop. As I don't spend as much time in my shop as the pro's who've commented I honestly don't know what the difference would be with these versus the 5100K bulbs David mentions.

All I know is that I have significant light now in my shop and my eyes are much happier for it.

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Rod - an interesting thing is that although I really like the 5000-5100k range for overhead general lightning, I tend to go with a lower range, more in the 3500-4000 for bench and task lights. Could just be what I'm conditioned to - daylight colors overhead with closer to incandescent at the bench.

I've played with it a lot, and actually find I like a mix of a few sources. Our overheads are a mix of LED and ~5000k fluorescents, bench lamps we still use CFL, and we added a few track strips over the benches with a combination of CFL and LED.

Even with all the non-LED's we still have though, we replaced the entire shop's lighting 2-3 years ago, and the shop is easily twice as bright, while we've cut the power consumption to less than half what it was.

I am absolutely thrilled with the changes in available lighting technology we've seen come available over the last 10-20 years.

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I've put two versions of LED replacement bulbs in T8 fixtures. One thing I won't do again is use the one's with the individual elements(?) exposed. They are brutally bright.The version fully diffused through frosted plastic I can still use to back light a straight edge to see if something is flat. The un-diffused one's blind me temporarily if I so much as glace at them.

LED's have really been a boon for lighting up the inside of instruments, especially ones with small sound holes.

The lighting nut I can't seem to crack is finding task lamps that don't blow apart at regular intervals. I've tried them cheep and $200+. They all have me making metal replacement parts to patch them back together. I guess I'm pretty hard on them. I've had a few close calls where I realized something was failing just before a lamp came down on an instrument.
I've gotten some funny looks when I'm discovered at a dentist or doctors office putting an exam light though its positioning paces and lusting after it.
I'm afraid if I went to one of those used medical equipment sites I'd find too much cool stuff I wanted.

A fringe benefit which my not be apparent when you consider lighting is that switching to LED should improve FM radio reception. Some ballasts create massive electromagnetic interference resulting in strong white noise.

My florescent fixtures were causing so much of this background noise that I couldn't use the radio. I wasn't ready to switch them all out so I now stream my radio and music via a tablet computer, but I will swap out my lamps when I can.

I'm currently replacing the roofing on the house and shop, fascia, soffit, eves, and all of the flooring in the house, so shop lamps will have to wait!

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They are excellent. My LED lights have far better clarity while also being more gentle on the eyes than high-end florescent tubes which I was previously using. Highly recommend them. Chuck the ballast and save your $$$.

Andy

I replaced all of my T8 fluorescent fixtures with LED fixtures a few months ago. It was a weekend's worth of work. I think it was 10 fixtures, 20 bulbs, or thereabouts.

I made the move for a few reasons. First, you can't buy fluorescent bulbs in CA anymore, and a couple of mine burnt out. Second, the LEDs create a LOT less heat per lumen. This means my shop stays a lot cooler. Third, it saves substantially on electricity, both because the bulbs use a lot less power and because my AC isn't having to work as hard to remove all of that heat from the shop.

The bulbs work great. I'm happy.

I was just reading an article on FB about the dangers of LED lighting by a dr Wunsch so called expert in photobiology.Is this true ?? are there any downsides to LED lighting ??just curious . I would also like to swap out my flourescent bulbs fo something brighter especially in winter .

Seems best not to eat them.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -concerns/

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I did some reading up on on Dr. Wunsch and interviews with him and looked up his scientific publication record and, as someone who spent 25 years as a research molecular biologist, he doesn't strike me as terribly credible. What he has said in interviews and what he has written are riddled with red flags, IMO.

That said, there do seem to be some questions/concerns relative to health effects of LED lights that have a high content of blue frequencies. This is similar to the concerns that have come up over the past couple years about viewing computer and smart phone displays late at night having disruptive effects on sleep due to the blue light content. The American Medical Association has raised concerns about high intensity LED street lamps that have a high content of blue frequencies. How relevant these concerns are to those of us building guitars under them is another question. If this is a concern for you, then it would be good to read up on it from multiple credible sources and then decide for yourself.

Here's and interesting recent article on the subject: http://www.archlighting.com/technology/blue-light-hazard-and-leds-fact-or-fiction_o

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Thanks jay .I did read some info on the internet abt blue light and have changed the setting on the computer for that. Allegedly watching computers late at night interferes with ones circadian rhythmns.In lieu of that I usually quit looking at the computer by 9pm. But the lighting in my bsmt storage area is not good , so this is something I will check into . for sure .Thanks for the article.

Has anyone installed flood LED lights (think kitchen cans) in their shop?

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Rod,
Did you wire these lights in directly or are you using plugs and the pull chain. I started buying the same lights at 1 a week to replace the florescent fixtures in my shop, and was hoping to direct wire them.

Bob