Re-lighting my shop

[BeeKool]

Re-lighting my shop. It's a 40' × 60' with a 15' ceiling. Built in '82 it's 6' fluorescent lights have become a nuisance. So after a few years of procrastination I decidedon't to do something about it. I borrowed a scissor lift to make it easier and got the removal and 2 of the 3 rows replaced today. (It's great to have a girlfriend who is secretary of a construction company.)

Before

Replacement light

2/3 done. Will finish tomorrow and show pics

 

[kiwigtx]

Those lights are the best when LED is out of your budget range.
Nice job....you will get a ton more light than the old 6-footers.

 

[69L48Z27]

Nice shop! Looks bright.

 

[747mopar]

I feel ya, still have T12s in one shop and what a pain they're getting to be.... go buy bulbs, oops only one bulb will work in this one, oh look new bulbs and still nothing... Feels like your chasing your tail! I'll be following suite soon though.

Nice shop, definitely got enough room in there .

Nice Kawi! Grew up on those.

 

[BeeKool]

I feel ya, still have T12s in one shop and what a pain they're getting to be.... go buy bulbs, oops only one bulb will work in this one, oh look new bulbs and still nothing... Feels like your chasing your tail! I'll be following suite soon though.

Nice shop, definitely got enough room in there .

Yeah theYeah were a pain in the ***. Ballast were going through a lot of bulbs.

Those lights are the best when LED is out of your budget range.
Nice job....you will get a ton more light than the old 6-footers.

Thought about LEDA but it would have cost almost 3k.
We did it for 1600$. Pipe and wire included

 

[BeeKool]

Nice shop! Looks bright.

It was about like a dungeon. It was time to upgrade. I wanted to do it before I pull my car in to work on it for a month. I waited until I had maintenence all my equipment first.

I was young when we build the shop, but I remember how my dad hung the original lights. He loaded a hayrack with small square bales and made a movable scaffold. I prefer my method. Lol

 

[67Satty]

I feel ya, still have T12s in one shop and what a pain they're getting to be.... go buy bulbs, oops only one bulb will work in this one, oh look new bulbs and still nothing... Feels like your chasing your tail! I'll be following suite soon though.

Nice shop, definitely got enough room in there .

Nice Kawi! Grew up on those.

When the ballasts go bad you can just keep the same fixture and bypass the ballast by changing the wiring and going to an LED bulb. Way brighter and uses less energy.

 

[BeeKool]

finished

 

[747mopar]

Awesome!

 

[747mopar]

When the ballasts go bad you can just keep the same fixture and bypass the ballast by changing the wiring and going to an LED bulb. Way brighter and uses less energy.

My buddy was just showing me the other day a light fixture he had done that with however his had a lense, would the LED just be exposed on a T12 fixure?

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

Like daylight! I over estimated how many I will need.

 

[eldubb440]

T5 54w are the bomb....... those bulbs are 10 bucks each in home depot, I get a box of 25 from 1000bulbs.com for about 80 bucks shipped

 

[Glenwood]

My buddy was just showing me the other day a light fixture he had done that with however his had a lense, would the LED just be exposed on a T12 fixure?

You can get lamps that are the same size and shape that are LEDs so a lens isn't necessary.

 

[conv67bdere]

Great looking "lighted" shop . . . awesome . . . For me, as I get older, I need all the light I can get to see things better too . . .

 

[Glenwood]

T5 54w are the bomb....... those bulbs are 10 bucks each in home depot, I get a box of 25 from 1000bulbs.com for about 80 bucks shipped

That's a great deal!

T5HOs are a nice bright fluorescent. I retrofitted the entire factory with them that I used to work at. I found that they do have a few issues though.
They tend to heat up quite a bit, particularly at the sockets which can cause overheating related problems such as making the sockets brittle.
The thin tubes of T5s seem to flex more than T8 or T12, causing them to loosen and pull away resulting in flickering, etc.
We went through an enormous amount of ballasts for one of the fixture manufacturers we used. They had a defect that burned out an electronic component. Thankfully, this manufacturer had a 5 year warranty on them, but we still had to re&re all of them.
Avoid cheaper made in China fixtures. Like many things made from there, they are crap and may not last much past the warranty.

 

[Mike67]

Havent had an ounce of issues w our t5's, going on 3 years. Love em!
Congrats!

 

[conv67bdere]

My attached garage had (3) T12 - 8 foot lights - and they were not doing so well ( as everyone has noted ) . . . so as they failed, I'd replace the ballast with T8 ballasts, and buy new T8 bulbs . . . all (3) of them now have T8 and they are much brighter than the T12s . . . I think the T5s only come in 4' lengths - so the conversion from 1-8' to double 4' was not found by me . . .

Yeah - I could have replaced all the fixtures . . . but this worked out well.

 

[conv67bdere]

That's a great deal!

T5HOs are a nice bright fluorescent. I retrofitted the entire factory with them that I used to work at. I found that they do have a few issues though.
They tend to heat up quite a bit, particularly at the sockets which can cause overheating related problems such as making the sockets brittle.
The thin tubes of T5s seem to flex more than T8 or T12, causing them to loosen and pull away resulting in flickering, etc.
We went through an enormous amount of ballasts for one of the fixture manufacturers we used. They had a defect that burned out an electronic component. Thankfully, this manufacturer had a 5 year warranty on them, but we still had to re&re all of them.
Avoid cheaper made in China fixtures. Like many things made from there, they are crap and may not last much past the warranty.

Very Interesting - I had heard that the T5 would generate much less heat than the T12 . . . Thanks for the update and for sharing your actual experience ! !

 

[Glenwood]

Very Interesting - I had heard that the T5 would generate much less heat than the T12 . . . Thanks for the update and for sharing your actual experience ! !

When I first looked at them with a contractor, it was the first thing I noticed. I used to work at Cadbury where we produced Halls candy. Sugar dust in concentrated forms can be explosive, so heat was a concern. I can't say if they are hotter than T12s though. We were replacing HID fixtures and the energy savings were outstanding with T5s. LEDs were too expensive at the time so the ROI wouldn't work for the finance masters.

 

[HEMI-ITIS]

My attached garage had (3) T12 - 8 foot lights - and they were not doing so well ( as everyone has noted ) . . . so as they failed, I'd replace the ballast with T8 ballasts, and buy new T8 bulbs . . . all (3) of them now have T8 and they are much brighter than the T12s . . . I think the T5s only come in 4' lengths - so the conversion from 1-8' to double 4' was not found by me . . .

Yeah - I could have replaced all the fixtures . . . but this worked out well.

The 8 ft t5s were 4 bulbs.