No-Fluorescent Shop Light

[Steve Friedman]

Hi,

Had anyone come across shop lights that are not fluorescent? I realize they're cheap and efficient, but they give me a headache. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Steve

[Jamie Buxton]

I use halogen flood lights. They're not as efficient as fluorescents, but the color of light is much better. They also don't have the flicker issue that might be giving you the headache.

[Chris Mahmood]

Sounds like you need modern electronic ballasts. The old magnetic ballasts were 60Hz and could cause headaches and weird (and dangerous) strobe effects on rotating tools but modern ones are in the tens of thousands of Hz and don't have those problems. But the color still sucks.

[George Bregar]

Like Chris said, but you can get decent color if you spend a few more dollars.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Like Chris said, but you can get decent color if you spend a few more dollars.

You can also get silent. When I moved, I spent the $$ and got lite-industrial-class, electronic ballast, SILENT. And a lot of 'em, with moveable floods as task lights over the primary bench.

That buzzing from the cheap stuff was killing me.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

There are cheap electronic ones too as I've found out. I swear that some of my very old magnetic ballasted fixtures are better performers. However, I agree that electronic are better bet today than magnetic.

One nice thing about fluorescent fixtures is that they spread out the light instead of being a point source as a common incandescent bulb. The typical shop light is 48" long. Sometimes 96" long. With the relatively low cost of the fixture, you can have several fixtures in the overhead as to have very even lighting and avoid shadows. That's nice. They also don't cook the top of your head when standing under them.

There are also different color bulbs as mentioned above. Cool white is the most common, and kitchen & bath bulbs (which are warmer/redder) being second. Fluorescent bulb color goes by the temperature of the bulb's plasma gas in degrees kelvin, so that's how you compare them. There are bulbs that provide full spectra of light (commonly used by aquarium enthusiasts and color labs) that mimic daylight. But, they are quite pricey.

Jeff

-Jeff

[Logan William]

I'm in the process of installing new lights in my garage/shop and took the Craigslist approach. I picked up 20 some 3 bulb 4' fluorescent troffer fixtures that were coming out of a building they were gutting and am converting them to T8 bulbs with electronic ballasts. Now I haven't gotten any of them powered up yet(thats this afternoon hopefully) but its costing me 8 bucks a fixture, then 14.50 each for the new Sylvania ballasts and it took about 15 minutes per fixture to strip the old ballasts out and install the new one. I also bought the 6500k daylight bulbs which are a bit pricier(3 bucks each when bought in cases) but I hope with this approach I should have very comparable fixtures to new ones at less than half the price.

[Ron Natalie]

I have fluorescent lights in my shop, but my wife insisted on natural light if she was going to work in there so she put a couple of solotubes in to augment it.

[Phil Thien]

Sorta on-topic: I've seen the "Daylight" bulbs, but the lumens look reduced compared to "normal" bulbs. Will I notice that much in use or does the wider spectrum light somehow make up for this?

So far I've used one cool white and one warm white bulb in each fixture, and I'm pretty happy. But of course, I always wonder if it could be better.

[Josiah Bartlett]

The phosphors used to make full spectrum bulbs don't glow as brightly as the cool white bulbs for a given energy input. Personally I prefer dimmer full spectrum light to bright narrow spectrum light. The high efficiency narrow spectrum bulbs Walmart uses make my eyes itch.

[Andrew Joiner]

I use a mixture of incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent. I love the warmth and warm light from the incandescent light bulbs. You tend to get more shadows with incandescent light bulbs so I wouldn't want to rely on incandescent alone for light.

I get radiant heat and light for the same dollar with 250watt clear (not red)heat lamps above my benches. It is all the heat I need in Oregon's mild winters. In the summer I screw CFLs in my heat lamp fixtures.

[Don Bullock]

I have some halogen shop lights that I bought from Hartville (http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/10915). Actually I bought one. When I had trouble with the switch I asked if I could get a replacement switch. They sent me a new switch and a second light. In my old shop I installed one over my table saw and another over my work bench area. In the new shop I haven't hung them up yet. One will go back over the table saw and the other over my new router table.

[Don Jarvie]

I put the Lithonia T8s from HD that cost around 18 bucks a piece. I added the bulbs that are around 5500 color. The provide plenty of light, are silent and don't interfer with the radio.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I put 300 watt incadescents in my first shop, they worked just fine. They met my very small budget nicely and if you use enough of them, they are as good as flourescent, imho. Secret is to put them up as high as you can and place them so that you never have just one bulb behind you, so all spots are covered by multiple bulbs.

[Jim Laumann]

I've got a number of 4' fixtures in my shop. I am using 6500 degree Kelvin bulbs - 32w t8's I think. The light is supposed to be equivalent to daylight. It has a "blue tint" as compared to the "yellow" light given off by the halogens/conventional incadesents I was using.

Jim