Costco LED shop lights - $19.99

[Larry Frank]

I am gradually replacing my fluorescent lightweight the LED. I bought mine at Sam's Club and were 5000k, 4500 lumens and about $35. They are much brighter and I like the color temperature.

I really like not having the risk of breaking the fluorescent bulbs and no flicker.

[mark mcfarlane]

In my case I am building a new 1000 sq foot shop from scratch and needed 30 fixtures. New fluorescent fixtures with good ballasts and good tubes are fairly expensive. The commercial ones I was looking at were $60 / fixture without tubes. I skeptically bought one of the Feit Costco lights along with a set of replacement LED tubes for an existing T8 fixture (the style that doesn't require bypassing the ballast). I was pleasantly surprised with the quality and amount of light.

Good T8's may or may not be better, but these lights will save me ~$2,000 over buying 30 T8 fixtures. Due to their light weight they were also very easy to install flush mounted. I would not replace good T8s with these LED fixtures, there are too many great options for T8 tubes, but @ $20 per fixtures, these made sense for me as new fixtures. Ask again in 5 years how it is working out.

[Dave Cav]

but @ $20 per fixtures, these made sense for me as new fixtures. Ask again in 5 years how it is working out.

That's my position exactly. And in five years, something new will be the latest and greatest thing. Heck, my current (old) shop is lit by about 30 or so CFL bulbs bought for $1.00 each with a utility rebate, and that was a huge improvement over the original lighting.

[Eric Sarno]

I also saw these and bought 10 boxes for a total of 20 lights. With membership after shipping and taxes it ended up being under $24 per light, they didn't have any local in the stores. I just moved into a new house and my basement is 22x32 so I think they will do well. I've never worked in a well lit basement shop, so I think it will be nice! In my limited experience the cheap T8 ballasts have ended up being the problem compared to the lights. I've had multiple either die completely or start flickering after not very much use. So hopefully with the 5 year warranty on these and Costco's good return policy I won't have too many issues.

[Brian Bres]

I installed the lights yesterday. I am a happy with them. More light than I have ever had in the garage and all the same color temp too! I am considering added another 1 or 2 more. For 20 bucks each, why not.

I had enough receptacles to convert all the fixture locations for the plug in style lights, just need to find the duplex plates now. They are around here somewhere.

I have 6 48" 2 bulb fluorescent wrap fixtures for sale, with bulbs, if anyone is interested. LOL

[Greg R Bradley]

If they were 48" T-12 wraps, the best thing would been to have cleaned the fixtures and installed Direct Wire 18-24w LED. This works very well on a ceiling that is 8' or even a bit less like many basements. That will give you 3600-4800 even lumens per fixture. That would be about $16 per fixture.
If they were 48" T-8 wraps, cleaned and good T-8 such as Sylvania 21681 would give you 6200 even lumens per fixture and the same expected life as the Costco LED. A bit less under lots of on/off cycles, A bit more under all day use like a business. That would be about $9 per fixture as long as you don't need ballasts.
Both of these solutions eliminate the Costco LED nasty harshness at right angles to the fixture when mounted lower than 8'. This seems to be a bigger problem in the current batch that have the shorter ends and pull chain that goes down instead of out the end.
The fluorescents means you can still do some color matching or staining and know the colors will be reasonable. If you add a bunch of extra Costco LED to not loose light and to get light that is even enough, you have pushed your energy consumption way up. Costco warranty will cover you for a failure in the period they cover, which I think is 90 days. Feit's warranty will be useless as the freight cost is almost the price of another lamp. Feit's warranty and unreasonable claims for bulb life is the subject of a current class action suit.
At $20 these fixtures are a great deal for adding a few over places where you need extra light on a temporary or intermittent basis. If you have a reasonable amount of even lighting adding one or two over a workbench or a table saw is a great idea.
A typical 1000 ft shop would use nothing even approaching 30 fixtures of any kind of normal lighting. 30 Costco LED would be a total of 111,000 lumens. This would be accomplished with 7-8 T-8 or T5HO fixtures in a typical shop at $90-110 each. If you have a low ceiling you would need more but less expensive fixtures. I agree that the Costco LED are silly light weight and super easy to install. The more you are a few hour a day user and turn them on/off a lot, the more they make sense. Makes sense to choose the right tech for the use and don't let their nonsense such as "45 year life" and "saves $393 in energy use" sway you. These are 88 lumen per watt, basically identical to good T-8 fixtures.

[mark mcfarlane]

...
A typical 1000 ft shop would use nothing even approaching 30 fixtures of any kind of normal lighting. 30 Costco LED would be a total of 111,000 lumens. This would be accomplished with 7-8 T-8 or T5HO fixtures in a typical shop at $90-110 each. ...

The 30 T8 fixtures came from this thread: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ighting-layout Considering the FEITs are lower output than two T8 bulbs, I'd probably need more. With a 10 foot ceiling, 7 fixtures won't provide adequate coverage.

Greg, I paid no attention to the marketing blurbs, just hung up some lights, liked them, and bought some more. If I have to replace them in a few years, I'm only out $600.

[John C Bush]

I plan to replace my old T-12 fixtures with these LEDs and am not sure how "piggy back" limits relates to my existing circuits. One circuit has 3 rows of two in-line 2 bulb shop lights all on the same dedicated breaker and switch. My non electricion guess is that since they are on the same switch and breaker that is a "piggy back". The other half of the shop as a similar arrangement. So the question is- does the one switch/breaker for that circuit and bank of 6 lights constitute a "piggy back" and what is a reasonable rewire plan? Thanks.

[mark mcfarlane]

I plan to replace my old T-12 fixtures with these LEDs and am not sure how "piggy back" limits relates to my existing circuits. One circuit has 3 rows of two in-line 2 bulb shop lights all on the same dedicated breaker and switch. My non electricion guess is that since they are on the same switch and breaker that is a "piggy back". The other half of the shop as a similar arrangement. So the question is- does the one switch/breaker for that circuit and bank of 6 lights constitute a "piggy back" and what is a reasonable rewire plan? Thanks.

John, My suspicion is the 4 light 'daisy chain' rating limit is due to the current carrying capability of the internal wiring of these LED fixtures. String together 5 lights, they would pull too much current and you may melt the insulation on the internal wiring. From a single duplex outlet you could hang 8 lights, 4 on each side.

This is independent of the current carrying capability of the circuit, which also needs to be taken into consideration.

At 42 watts per fixture, @ 110V, thats 0.4 amps per light, so on a 15 amp lighting circuit (that is not used for anything else) you could theoretically have 37 of these fixtures. With a safety pad, say 20 fixtures per circuit. Someone else will check my math, hopefully.

[John C Bush]

Thanks Mark,
I will have just 2 LEDs daisy chained so rewiring shouldn't be a problem Thanks, John.

[David Helm]

Just picked up a few more.

[Al Burton]

Can these be hardwired and flush mounted? I don't mind altering a bit as long as it can be done easily and safely.

[Alan Bienlein]

I went with the Sam's club version in my shop. I replaced 4 T1296 HO 110 watt two tube fluorescent fixtures totaling 68,800 lumens to 10 of the lights of America 4' led shop lights totaling only 42,000 lumens and they totally blew away the t12's. Instant on, no additional heat for my a/c to try and deal with, no more waiting for them to come to full brightness on cold mornings and best of all no more interference with my stereo.

Actually the best benefit to these lights is the fact I can have my shop doors open at night in the summer when it's cool enough and not have it full of flying insects distracting me as for some reason they just don't like the led lights!

[mark mcfarlane]

Can these be hardwired and flush mounted? I don't mind altering a bit as long as it can be done easily and safely.

They have keyslots for flush mounting but there is no knockout or 'point of entry' on the top side of the lights for direct wiring. You could clip off the plug and direct wire them, but it may or may not be up to NEC code.

[mark mcfarlane]

...
Actually the best benefit to these lights is the fact I can have my shop doors open at night in the summer when it's cool enough and not have it full of flying insects distracting me as for some reason they just don't like the led lights!

Strangely I have noticed the bug thing also with the FEIT LEDs. I don't get as many bugs in my shop at night if I open the garage door. Hopefully this isn't because the bugs are detecting some kind of weird radiation...