Im getting new 8ft LED shop light fixtures with 4ft led tube bulbs what kalvin should I get 4000k or 5000k or.....? Im thinking 5000k
I have some from HF. If memory serves, they are 3 or 4k. Mine are singles. They hang about 8 inches or so down from the shop rafters. Plenty of good light. I think my rafters are 9/10 feet about the floor. Just to give you an idea. Sure beats the florescent bulbs.
I've had cataract surgeries on both eyes, and I think it's made me a bit more sensitive to artificial lighting temperatures. Slightly warmer, yellow-ish lighting is more comfortable to me. That said, most LED lighting (especially the bargain priced stuff) tends to be too cold and blue-ish for me. I find it annoying, like some of the LED headlights or LED string lights placed around the windows of some of the local "Quik-E-Mart" gas stations. I lean away from the 5000k and higher stuff and more towards the warmer 4000k lamps, which are closer to daylight color temps. Do you know the color temp of your current flourescent lighting? That may help you decide which way to go. The warmer lamps may put out a little less lighting but should still be sufficient in the right quan***y and not hung too high from your work surfaces. You might want to go with individual, smaller, brighter task lighting over work benches or shop equipment where you really feel the need to flood the area with more light. If your eyes are sensitive to the flickering of flourescent lights (60 cycles per second, A/C current) you may find some LED fixtures that have a higher refresh rate which helps to reduce the flicker.
I'd have to look at a box, I bought a bunch of 4 ft. LED shop lights at Costco when they had sale prices on them. They do take plug ins rather than being hard wired but I have two brothers who are journeymen electricians who can help with that.
I had to convert my shop lights and home garage from VHO 6500k, 14,000 lumen (new) 215 watt, daylight fluorescent tubes, due to no longer available. What I replaced them with are LED 6000k, 14,500 lumen, 90 watt double row 480 element tubes. Mine have a different R17D base as more common fixtures, due to being an VHO fixture. They are brighter than the old VHO tubes and I am happy with the light. In my experience, the higher in K factor (whiter light) will show imperfections in paint, like swirl marks, sanding scratches, towel scratches etc, that normally can't be seen in the sunlight. If you can make the paint look good under those lights, it will look great in natural light. Between my shop and home garage I needed 58 tubes to due the conversion. After much research, I got my tubes off of Amazon. They were around $190.00 with tax, for a case of ten. Bill
I have these in my ba*****t, and my garage. They put out a lot of light. Very inexpensive to boot. They are 5K, but I love 'em. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LQ852BQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_***le?ie=UTF8&th=1
Good advice. I also have had cataract surgery and have found that my eyes are much more sensitive to lamp 'color'. But even before that, I learned from doing lighting retrofits for power saving that lamp color makes a big difference. The human eye is evolved to use 4000K light spectrum to determine color, contrast and detail. It's called 'natural' light because it's closest to the spectrum that comes from our sun. Raise the temperature and light output and detail improves but color rendition and contrast suffers. If modern LED or HID car headlights coming at you bother you, installing these 'hotter' lamps will bring that light indoors. Want to piss off SWMBO? Install 5000+K lamps where she applies her makeup... Sometimes the results are it looks like Bozo the Clown was advising her. She won't be happy. The other major problem with modern lighting is spectrum width. While incandescents and their souped-up brother halogen produce the widest spectrum and closest to natural light, their efficiency at producing light is only about 4% at best, the rest is converted into heat. In the quest to improve this, the answer was to reduce the width, 'clipping' the lower frequencies off and concentrating on just the higher, 'brighter' ones. Your eyes 'see' this, but your brain has difficulty translating this into what it wants to 'see'. Some people will be bothered by this, some won't. Mounting height and ceiling construction will also affect this. Up to about 10', fluorescent strips will work ok in most cases, go above that and high or low bay fixtures will work better but cost goes way up. If you stick with strips for a high ceiling, increase your fixture count or suspend them lower. Open rafters or a finished sheetrock ceiling will make a big difference with fluorescent strips also. There is a lot of light loss with open rafters, a finished ceiling with fixtures with a up and downlight component will be superior. Bare 'open' strips don't focus the light well, a reflector will improve that considerably, particularly with open rafters. There's a ton of science involved with fixture design... I've seen both good and bad designs, with the worst one being a high-bay school gym/cafeteria fitted with metal halide fixtures. Nice and bright, but the kids wouldn't eat the school lunches because the food looked very unappetizing because of the poor color rendition...
Geez, never thought about the lights. I always thought the headaches were due to being a business and commercial property owner and maybe the beer, for the last 43 years. Never thought about the lights in the shop. Bill
One other thing should be mentioned... Eye color. Yeah, nobody thinks about this, but it can make a difference. If you have light-colored eyes like blue/hazel/green/grey the chances of you having issues will go up. Brown/dark brown eyes literally won't 'see' this.
I used these...very happy and waaaay better than the flourescents they replaced. But I don't work in there 8+ hours a day so no issues for me. I also don't really care for the yellow looking light lower color temps give off. These replaced the 24 4foot tubes in 6 fixtures that were in there. They made my 24x30 workspace usable, although I could probably use a couple more over the benches. Barrina LED Shop Light, 4FT 40W 5000LM 5000K, Daylight White, V Shape, Clear Cover, Hight Output, Linkable Shop Lights, T8 LED Tube Lights, LED Garage Light 4 Foot with Plug (Pack of 10) - - Amazon.com
Years ago there was a sticky on the garagejournal with excellent advice. I havent been over there in years. Maybe that thread has been updated.
I recently installed 2 lights from Primelights. Each on has 4 4’ led bulbs at 5000k. The bulbs are a clear plastic instead of the frosted style. I use them mainly for shop lights. But the clear bulbs help with finding scratches and swirls in the paint as I am detailing the cars.
I had cataract surgery too. I can see now I like 2700k led bulbs in my house....... ****tttt .......... garage/shop is a different story. Since a tree took out 3 of my 8 ft fixtures and destroyed them , I'll get 3 new fixtures and the other fixtures I will do the 4ft bulb LED conversions
I have 4' long 5000 KV shop lights hanging 4" below the cream color painted drywall ceiling. Those lights are single bulb covered lights. I started replacing the old 4' long open tube with reflectors fluorescence with them several years ago, before I retired in 2018. I managed to get about 4 of the 8 fixtures replaced. The difference between the LED and the fluorescence is night and day in brightness. I just don't seem to be very motivated to replace the remaining old fixtures, but that may be because I'm not working under them every day anymore. I don't seem to have any problems with the LEDs, but maybe since the fluorescence are also still in use, that auto corrects the differences. I'm an old welder, I figure I'm lucky to be able to see at all. The addition of the few LEDs I did invest in sure lit up my world.
I had the H12 and then when the cafeteria at the school I taught at were replacing their H8 fixtures I brought home twelve of them. Better than H12. Now my son fixed them up with LEDs and way better still. But I also bought a carton of those three paddle type lights which I’m not sure are worse or better than the LED tubes. But upon mention how some light is too cool which make tiny tiny scratches in paint show up maybe my lights are too cool as I’ve been ******ed over some of those twenties tiny scratches in my paintwork I did last summer!
My son just sent this to me today. Amazon.com: 10 Pack 4FT Linkable LED Utility Light Fixture, 4400lm, 42W, 5000K Daylight for Workshop, Garage, Hanging or Surface Mount, with Power Cord, ETL
Hello, We have gone through plenty of years of hanging tubes and lighting in our garages. They all provided light to work on cars. But, over the years, it was better to work on cars during the daytime and not during family time at night. So, those dangling tube lights bit the dust. Now, the garages use the bright LED solid state circuitry and no need for constant changing of bulbs or hitting our heads on the dangling lights. But, there is no use for a light or lights to make the dark garage lit up like Disneyland electric light parade. Afterall, the place you are supposed to be doing work is relatively small. As @ClayMart mentioned in his post: “The warmer lamps may put out a little less lighting but should still be sufficient in the right quan***y and not hung too high from your work surfaces. You might want to go with individual, smaller, brighter task lighting over work benches or shop equipment where you really feel the need to flood the area with more light…” Jnaki I have found out that the smaller brighter task lighting set ups give more direct light to what you are doing. During the pre Christmas rush for a secret gift, I had to be in the garage at times, day and night. Daytime rainy days made it a little dark for daylight work. The nighttime work also needed a specific light to shine on the exact detail work necessary. A small direct brighter light did the job necessary to see what the detailing work required. If a search in one of the cars is necessary for an errant earring or small item that tends to get lost, the small corded light shines brightly to get access to the darkest interior area. (without having to use one hand only since the other option was to use a high intensity flashlight for the search…) We already have a whole garage 5000 led solid state light high above the tall cabinets that give the whole two car garage some light. It was chosen due to the connection to the wall switch near the entrance door. But its intent is not to do work on cars or counter work. It is to give my wife and me some brightness to just go to a specific area of the cabinets or to one of our cars, without falling in the dark or tripping. Old folks on the floor of the garage is not the best place to be… ha! YRMV
My white painted shop has several 8' two-lamp fixtures that used "cool white" T-12 florescent tubes for about 18 years. I was always comfortable with the light, so when I decided to go LED, I chose 8' 4500k frosted byp*** tubes. I am very happy with the results, as the new shop lighting has about the same look and "feel"as the old T12s, along with over 20 watt per tube power savings.
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