Garage lighting question

[Waterjunky]

Edit, I also agree with bones,

Ditch the ballasts. Especially the old heavy magnetic ballasts.

Either rewire the light fixture so the Hot and Neutral land at the appropriate lamp pins, or just remove the entire fixture and put Barrina tubes up.

This! No questions.

 

[Nordie]

I didn't read all of this, but I took out all my ballast and installed the LED tubes. What a huge difference

 

[Chili Palmer]

Yea, got some of them. . . they are really nice!!!!!! Would like to get some more but they are out.

Hopefully, they re-stock them soon

Check online, just because your store doesn’t have them doesn’t mean they don’t have them at their distribution center.

 

[~JM~]

I see, so there's one LED driver that will power up to 5 lights, so the cords are low voltage

Each fixture could be wired stand alone, or daisy chained up to 5 units.

There are 3 different wiring assemblies to choose from in each package of 10 lights. Check out the pics in the Amazon Ad listed above.

My 24'x24' garage had 2 incandescent light fixtures. They were removed & I ran 5 fixtures off of one & 4 off the other. I like the 5000K light. Plenty of light & provides an uplifting feeling.

Super easy to install. Very lightweight & can be hung from drywall. I snapped lines with a chalk box for the layout. Used evenly spaced drywall screw inserts, then a screw per snap in mounting bracket.

 

[SPFRONTMAN]

Who makes these and where did you get them?

Home Depot or Lowes. They have the 5 paddle type and a 3 paddle type.

 

[Mikes56]

Home Depot or Lowes. They have the 5 paddle type and a 3 paddle type.

Thanks, I bought the 3 paddle type. Didn’t know they had a 5.

 

[TimeBandit]

I spent about 5 hours installing 14 of the new LED tubes I bought on Amazon. Taking apart seven 30 year old 2 tube shop lights that were not meant to be taken apart took time.

Then I removed the ballasts, soldered the power wires directly to the tombstones and took them outside and washed them! they were nasty after so long.

Now I have bright white light and no buzzing in a cold garage.

The three old fixtures I have not yet done put out a very yellow looking light from the old T12 bulbs by comparison.

Do it!

 

[Justfishing]

Here is what I learned Changing out my bulbs to LED.

I bought LED bulbs that used the existing ballasts, 4 bulbs worked and 4 turned off after 20 minutes. Turns out that the bulbs would only work with certain ballasts and while I bought the fixtures at the same time there were 2 different ballasts . I returned the bulbs and bought bulbs that required the removal of the ballast and have had zero issues, it's been almost a year and a half.

We ended up using Toggled bulbs

Ther

Here is what I learned Changing out my bulbs to LED.

I bought LED bulbs that used the existing ballasts, 4 bulbs worked and 4 turned off after 20 minutes. Turns out that the bulbs would only work with certain ballasts and while I bought the fixtures at the same time there were 2 different ballasts . I returned the bulbs and bought bulbs that required the removal of the ballast and have had zero issues, it's been almost a year and a half.

We ended up using Toggled bulbs

48 in. 16-Watt Daylight Deluxe T8 Dimmable Linear LED Tube Light Bulb (2-Pack)

www.homedepot.com

There are 2 types of ballasts. The older t12 bulbs had magnetic ballasts. The smaller diameter t8 bulbs have an electronic ballast. The socketsarethe same.

To eliminate the ballasts the wires from one end would be connected to white wire and the other end connected to the hot/black wire. Very simple to do

 

[Orange Juice]

I would think these “conversion bulbs” would defeat any energy savings.

 

[LargeOrangeFont]

I would think these “conversion bulbs” would defeat any energy savings.

They are just regular LED bulbs in a different form factor.

Even the ones that are designed to use the ballast use about half the wattage of a fluorescent tube. If you bypass the ballast, they use less.

 

[TimeBandit]

WIN WIN

The 20 old florescent tubes I removed drew a total of 784 watts/6.53 Amps, Plus 100 watts/.83 amps from the ballasts while running (per google search).

The 20 new T8 LED 24 watt tubes I direct wired draw only 480 watts, or 4 Amps total.

3+ Amps less energy usage plus WAY brighter lighting with no cold "hum".

 

[fat rat]

Took down 4-2 tube and 1-4 tube fluorescents and installed 5 of these in my garage. You do have to change to screw in type fixtures. Its like daylight in my garage now, you can't even look at them there so bright.

Is that one of those screw in I see on TV?

 

[SPFRONTMAN]

I just saw them on the floor at Home Depot and tried out 1 to see how bright it was. It was bright enough, bought another 5.

 

[Tankerchief]

One thing to consider is the age of the ballasts. Ballasts will short out and smoke when the old insulation breaks down. This is definitely true with older inductive ballasts, not sure about modern electronic ballasts. I always delete the ballasts and order my lamps accordingly.