George’s Upgrade to LED Lights
George VondriskaDescription
The lighting in George’s shop was due for an upgrade to LED lights. This video isn’t meant to be a comprehensive how-to, but more of an overview of the decisions George made when choosing his new LED workshop lights.
Looking at upgrading
George’s shop has 8’ fixtures that take two T12 bulbs, and 2’ x 4’ fixtures in a drop ceiling. When George first explored LED workshop lights he would have had to completely replace the 8’ fixtures with new LED fixtures. Very expensive. Today, 8’ LED bulbs that DON’T require a fixture change are available. When you install them you remove (and recycle) the ballast. Rewiring is pretty simple.
The drop ceiling side of the shop
On the drop ceiling side of the shop, which uses 2’ x 4’ fixtures, George did an experiment. In a couple fixtures he swapped out the fluorescent bulbs for LEDs. This requires a high speed ballast. He also completely swapped out a couple fluorescent fixtures for 2’ x 4’ LED fixtures. In the final analysis, he prefers the light that comes from these fixtures.
The gain
LEDs use less electricity than fluorescents, and are better able to fire up in cold environments. They’re also dimmable, if you get the right bulb, though that isn’t much of a benefit for a shop. Plus, LED bulbs should outlast all of us.
For your shop
Do some research, crunch the numbers, and see if an upgrade to LEDs is a bright idea for you.
More tips
We want to help make your shop as pleasant and efficient as possible. Get the most out of your shop time by checking out our great shop tips.
I have been in this shop about eight years. And if you look way back at videos from when I first got in here, one of the very first things I had to do was upgrade the lights I had at that time, that upgrade was, it was just dingy and gray in here, and it meant new ballasts, new bulbs in these big eight foot fluorescent fixtures that I have above me. More recently, I been looking at can I get away from fluorescence and into LEDs? And this video is not about, this is not a how to, about changing to LEDs. This is my experiential Look at what happened in my building. Part of what really intimidated me on this side of the shop, 'cause it's two bulb, eight foot fixtures, was the idea of fixture by fixture replacing that with an LED specific fixture. And my experience with that, like in my office, I bought one of those fixtures for about $100 and hung that in there. And there's a lot of eight foot fixtures out here. So to do 100 and 100 and 100, I'm like, yeah no way. More recently, when I started to look into this again, that was a couple of years ago, What I found is that I can in fact get T12 style, eight foot fluorescent replacement bulbs in LED. That's what we have in the ceiling now. So this was crazy cool. 12 bucks in a pack, 12 bulbs in a pack. It was about $155 for that whole pack. And the replacement was really easy to do. You take out the ballast altogether, and then you recycle that. Do not put that in your garbage. You remove the ballast and then in each fixture, So Chris, if you get on the bulb. What happens is one end of that bulb is a negative. The other end is a positive. One end is hot, one end is neutral. So once you're up inside that fixture, you've taken out the ballast and you grab the hot and the neutral from your feed, from your switch. And you just use the existing wires, and connect a hot to one end and a neutral to the other and put it all back together. So, once I did a couple of them, I was down to where in 15 minutes or so. I'd have the old ballast out and be ready to go. And then the other thing, Chris, that clip in the middle of the light. reviews I read about these lights and these clips were important. The bulbs are just a little bit loosey goosey. You know, it's kind of like holding a Twizzler. So the clips in the center, are to keep them from sagging over time. I don't think they would have sagged on day one but I can see where over time they might've had some sag in them. So part of what I spitballed out of this, is that based on, the electrical input into the ballast in the bulbs that I had, the electrical input into these LEDs and how much time I'm in the shop. How much time these lights are on, every day. I'm gonna save about $130 in electricity in the first year. That's just calculating this side of the shop. We haven't even talked about that end yet. So, I'm my bulb payback is pretty fast and what the life expectancy on an LED, I should never have to replace these bulbs. So I did find with the fluorescence, even though I had done that ballast replacement, eight years ago, I was still periodically changing out a ballast. I was changing bulbs, that should never happen again, on this side of the shop. The other LED benefit, and this isn't my issue, 'cause it's always heated in here. But if your space is not heated, LEDs will fire in a low temperature condition, where fluorescence might not. Now, the other end of the shop is a little bit different. These are two by four fixtures and a drop ceiling. So this, you might be more familiar with because you've got this baby hanging from your basement ceiling. And on this case, what I'm really doing here is I'm waiting for a fixtures to get hinky. And then I replace them. And I've done a couple of things here. What we're looking at here, is an LED two foot by four foot fixture, ordered it from Amazon. And that drops in it completely replaces the fluorescent fixture. I like this. This is the way I'm going now. If you look at this one, Chris, this is also LED. This is a different deal. That's still a fluorescent fixture and you have to have a high speed ballast in there. And then you can replace your fluorescent four foot lights with LED four foot lights. So this upgrade was, I think about a $40 change to get to this. The upgrade to get to these other ones was just under $100, but this light is so much better. It's a more uniform light. We don't have the stripes of the bulb showing up in the fixture like I do in the other one. So that first one, putting in LED lights, in an existing fixture with a high-speed ballast. That was an experiment to see do I like that? And the answer was no. So on this side of the shop, I am slowly swapping out over time, LEDs for fluorescence as the fluorescence go. The other thing that's cool about putting in LEDs, If you get the right ones, they're not all this way but if you get the right ones, they're dimmable. So that would give you even more control. Now, is that a shop thing or a basement thing or both? I don't know. You have to decide. I'm not, I don't intend to dim my lights in here but it is a cool aspect of LED versus fluorescent that we have that capability to dim them. If you do go that route make sure the bulbs are dimmable or the fixtures. These are not bulbs. That's an entire fixture. And you have to make sure you get the right style of dimmer to go with dimmable LEDs. Net, I am really, really happy with the changes I've made. Money out of pocket, but it's one of these deals that my payback in the long run is going to be electricity savings, and then any place there's an LED, I am done buying bulbs and I'm done buying ballasts. So really happy with the route I went. Maybe some of this information will help you make lighting changes in your house or your shop.
I also changed my fluorescent bulbs in my shop/garage to LED’s but found a couple I did went out after less than a year, I then ordered permanent LED fixtures from Amazon and installed…very happy so far
Fluorescent TUBE, not Bulb!
Thanks! You just saved me more than the cost of membership of WWGOA.
Are you paying attention to the color of the led tubes? Meaning the heat color or kelvin temperature of the outputof visible light. Also, which color are you using?
Thank you for the video. My 20'x20' shop has fifteen two tube, four foot, fixtures and the LED replacement costs have been fairly expensive. If I can find them at somewhere close to the price you mention, you may have convinced me. By the way, Bud (down below), doesn't leaving the ballasts hooked up negate some of the electricity savings?
Why does the ballast need to come out? Then do you have to desire it?
Hi I have changed my work shop tubes to led .All you need to do is disconnect the supply cables and reroot them to one end of the tube as marked on the LED tubes
Hello George, any advice from an expert about the best light color temperature to use in a woodworker's shop? 2700K, 4500K or 7000K ? Thanks!
George, What did you mean by "the florescent lighting may fire if your shop is not heated"? Do you mean they may catch on fire? Regards, Patrick
You can Get the 4 foot T-8 and T-12 on eBay a box of 25 just over $107 They change the same as your 8 foot bulbs Take out the ballast and Wire Directly, Note When you Buy the LED's they Wire in one of Two ways, the Line "L" and the "N" either on one side of the Bulb or the L/line/Black on one end and the N/neutral/white wire on the opposite end, They come in 18 to 22 watts and from 3400k to 6000k choice of Milk or frosted Bulbs, Warm light or Cool white, Your 6000k is a pure white light and the Warm is a yellow light like the screw in tungsten E 26 bulb. I prefer the 22w cool White 6000K and it is the closest to Sun light in colir and it is Best for matching color when painting. https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-100-T8-22W-4ft-LED-Tube-4000K-6500K-Fluorescent-Replacement-Milky-Clear-Lens/263325044446?hash=item3d4f654ede:g:UBAAAOSwbeNdAh2f