Brightest 40 watt T12 bulbs

[Royal Payne]

Hey guys I want to brighten up my shop. I have 6 double 4' T12 fixtures with 8-10 year old 40 watt and 25 watt bulbs, The lumen rating is not printed on them. Regardless of the wattage difference, they appear to be equally bright.

I took the advice of a Lowes employee and bought some 40 watt "day light" bulbs with 2100 lumens and 6500 color temperature, He said they were the brightest T12 they had, But after comparing them, they seem to be even less bright than my original ones and a little too much blue in color for my liking..

So now I'm looking for the brightest 4' T12 40 watt bulbs. I was considering these with 3300 lumens with 3000 color temperature from Home Depot, What do you think? http://www.homedepot.com/Electrical-Light-Bulbs-Compact-Tube-Fluorescents-Tube-Fluorescents/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbm3zZ1z132onZ1z11x7p/R-202504382/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

I was also wondering what color temperature you guys prefer in your shops.

[davestanton]

I recently fitted new lights to my shop. I used twin 36 watt tubes in a diffused fitting, The tubes are 5000k in temperature. The fittings are spaced 8 feet apart. There are 6 fittings / 12 tubes in a 20 x 20 feet area at 9 feet high above the floor. All the walls are painted white. The ceiling is raw plywood.

In Australia, the power supply to power points and lights is 240 volts. 3000k is way to warm.

Hope this is of some use.

[wilburpan]

I have Philips Alto Soft White T8 bulbs which have a color temp of 3000º. I actually like them quite a lot.

My feeling is that most of my house is lit with bulbs that are close to that color temperature, so if I get close to that in my shop, my projects will look more like what they will when they get upstairs than if I had natural daylight bulbs like you started with.

[PeteJr]

I have 5500k T8 and they are about the best for woodworking after testing the other color temperatures.

[gonecrazy21213]

Ya to be honest the best bet is to get rid of the T12's and get T8's ... t12 is becomming absolete and and wont be available soon ... alot of places are making them special order and only carring T8..... T8 is is more energy efficient to boot ....... Look for F96T8HO these are high out put and work great in shops (You will need all new fixtures )

[tstephenson]

Any truth to the rumor that T8's don't perform well in high temps? My garage/shop is unfinished and unairconditioned.

Tom

[gonecrazy21213]

Out of all the ones i have installed in garages and shops i have had no complaints about them not performing well in higher temps and i have installed thousands of them ...... But thats here in Maryland also ... Nor have i heard anything about it .

[Vic]

I would price out both new T8 fixtures and the cost to retrofit your existing fixtures. The T12s you have will be bi-pin fixtures. If the tombstones are in good shape you can get away with keeping them. Many times, they are brittle if they have any age on them. You'll more than likely need to go to an electrical warehouse to obtain the ballasts you'll need. I recommend sticking with a more well known brand name. The height of the fixture will determine whether you want to buy low, normal or high output ballast. The difference in the three is how many lumens they push given the rated lumen output of the lamps you'll buy. High output ballast will push the lumens by 1.15., Normal is .88 and low is .78. Because you are complaining that the 40w lamps aren't giving you enough light, I'd go with the high output ballasts.

For lamps the Wilbur is correct in the fact most home lighting is in the 3000K range (warm). But a more important aspect of a lamp is the CRI (color rendering index). This number represents how closely a fluorescent lamp will come to presenting color in any given Kelvin temperature. This has been the biggest problem with the laws to get rid of incandescent lamps and replace them with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). I actually hoard the 100w incandescent lamps, as they are first on the chopping block from the federal government. So far, there are zero alternatives that will render the great color these will. I plan on keeping them specifically for finish work.

OK for lamps, the general rule of thumb is 4100K in an office environment, 5000K in more production environments. The whiter (cooler and into the blue range) of these lamps make it easier for your eye to see detail (not color). I currently have 4100 in my shop and will start replacing these with 5000K as I get older and need better visual acuity.

My favorite ballasts are the GE Ultra Max line of ballast. They sense when a lamp is burned out and reduce the power output, to prevent overdriving the remaining lamps, but as long as you replace the lamps when they go out, that won't be a concern.

In the energy incentive program I run these are the criteria for the lamp/ballast combinations.

Ballasts: Power Factor > or = .98; Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) < 10%.

Lamps: life spans at a 12 hour strike 35,000hrs or greater

Lamp/Ballast combo: Initial system lumens/watt = to 95 or better. This calculation is as follows: ((Initial lumens x # of lamps) x Ballast Factor)/input watts.

You'll need to read the specification sheets of the lamps and ballasts to obtain that information.

Good luck. Let me know if you have any more questions.

[TimV]

I try to mix up my bulb color temperatures. I like my shop bright but I don't want to distort the colors I see. I think that any house doesn't have the same tone of light all the time. There is always a blend of daylight and lighting fixtures. So, I mix in different temperature range bulbs into my fixtures making sure that I have plenty of light at the machines and bench.