Led shop lights,

[ncfowler]

over the years light in shops have been always never enough, I have 4' shop lights strung all over the celing, mind I have lots of light but always the quality of light has been well lets say sufficant, I work for a company that manages properties, My devision handles switch rooms and data rooms, About a year ago I went to a counter day at the local supplier and GE was there with led lighting, I asked if they have made a direct drop in light for T8 45' florcent lights, it was in development at the time, I asked for samples, after testing we are now using 4'led lights, I am impressed on the qulity of light it produces, so much so I replaced all my shop bulbs with them, mind they are not cheap, but the quality and lum's surpass regular t8's. if lighting is important give them a try, and another issue is no color shift,

[wtnhighlander]

Are you talking about the LED systems that replace the tubes in your flourescent fixture, but still use the ballast? I hear those give you most if the LED advantage, but with 2 notable exceptions. The lamp life isn't quite as long as for a purpose built LED fixture, and power consumption is not as low. For the absolute best result, replacing the entire fixture us the way to go. However, the possibly lower cost, and simple installation of the tubes may offset the extra savings.

[ncfowler]

for the application I use for work it is more cost effctive to just use the drop in lights, using the existing fixtures and t8 balast, If you are installing new fixtures going with led design is the ticket, but, using the direct drop in for people who already have lighting in place is a great alternative, Right now we are doing a test on our buildings that we have installed the drop in's to check power usage, life of the bulbs, one thing is when we have a three light fixture we are only allowed to install two led lights, due to the amount of lums allowed per spec of operation, the led lights are much brighter and the quality of light is better, we also have found people who had problems under florcent lights ,like migrains have became less,

[drzaius]

Actually, if quality of light is important, you are still better off with fluorescent. They are available with CRI in the mid 90s while the very best LEDs are only in the low 80s. Don't get me wrong, I love LEDs, but if color accuracy is important, it's all about the CRI.

[JimReed]

I am very interested in the drop in LED replacements for 4' fluorescent lights.  Does anyone have a good recommendation of where to buy these units at a reasonable price?

 

Thanks, Jim

[Mzdadoc]

If you're interested take a look at my Big Ass Lights that I just finished installing in the Review section.