Depends on the era they were made. Only old ballasts had PCB's in them, so all newer non electronic ballasts have "No PCB's" written on the label. And all electronic are OK to toss away. When I looked at the prices on retrofit LED lamps it was double the price of a whole new 4 ft. strip light. So I tossed all my old fixtures in the scrap bin.
Good Info G-son ! While I agree that the light is a different color (more white than yellowish), I have to say that its literally "nite to day" difference in how easy it is to see things now. Kinda like going from one of the older style greenish view welding helmets to the newer clear view ones. I have to say that I really do like the new lights much better than the old ones whether its fooling my eyes or not.
I've also recently had problems with the lighting in my garage, particularly with the new light bulbs I've installed. They worked very poorly; some even burned out. It was unclear why these light bulbs work so poorly because they are not cheap. Then I ordered smart light bulbs, completely different from another store. As soon as I installed them, I realized the difference. Those light bulbs were just bad and of poor quality, and there are no other reasons. New bulbs worked like clockwork, without any problems. Even the app control worked perfectly. It's very frustrating when such disappointments happen, but in the end, everything ends well.
Just get one light and set it on your workbench and open it up. Remove the ballast and all of the wiring except for about 12" of the wire coming out of the tombstones on one end. That means you will now have 4 wires about 12" long. Most likely there will be two different colors. Take a continuity checker and see which color wires go to the right side of each tombstone (one end of light fixture only). They will probably be the same color. Strip the ends and twist them together. Just to be safe, take your continuity checker and touch the end of the wires you twisted together and the other terminal on each tombstone. You should NOT get a continuity reading. All but one of my fixtures was that way, and thats what you want. Now connect your incoming power wire to the twisted together wires and put a plastic wire nut on it. At that point you are done with that side of the circuit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now repeat what you did above and hook the neutral (white) wire to the other two twisted wires and put a wire nut on them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If your power wire has a third wire in it, (green) then use a bolt or screw to ground it to the lights housing. Some cords will not have this third ground wire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Insert your bulb and plug the light in.........Its that easy. You do have to buy the bulbs that have "single end" power and use the correct end when you install it. You also do this at your own risk as I'm not an electrical professional.
New 50 x 30 shop only 4 big LED , at first I was sceptical but you can only tell night from day by the clear light cladding on the wall and roof. Absolutely awesome lights. A blind man could see. Shop is now full and functional.
3 3 x overhead LED fluros here for night time. Great illumination with 3 x overhead translucent light panels for day use.
I have found one problem with LEDs and that is when laying underneath a chassis and looking up to weld, the lights are too savage on the old eyeballs.
Every time Costco put their 4 ft LED shop lights on sale I would buy a couple of them. I have some in my old garage and they are far better than the old florescent lights.
They are also much safer. Had a friend working under a car fixing a leak in a gas line. The leak put quite a bit of gas on the floor. While dragging and pulling on trouble light the incandescent bulb broke and started a fire. He ended up in the hospital. LED screw in bulbs have plastic lenses making them harder to break and are also much brighter.
In a building with ceilings over 12', High Bay lights become necessary. Any electrical supply house can get them for you. I use Nicor brand at my shop and at work. We have ceilings up to 38'. In December 2020, we switched from High Bay Fluorescent to dedicated LED fixtures like illustrated below: These go up to 200W and have up to ~32,000 lumens each. There are no dark spots. A good friend of mine who owns a body shop was talking to an electrician about lighting. The electrician was saying "that's too many lights." His reply was "I want to light the rocker panels, not just the hoods." I think the point was made.
Respectfully disagree with that statement even though it may have some bearing in a building with really high ceilings. My ceiling is 12'6" high and I have all the brightness I want. My walls are covered by pallet racks full of "treasure" I can't let go of, so I'm getting no benefit from the white paint on the walls. I mean, I really have great lighting no matter where I am in my shop. My guess is that my lights would still be way better than the old flourescents even if the ceiling was 20 ft. I will say that my ceiling is white metal and thet may be a contributing factor. I think more lights spread around are better than a few really bright ones. That said, I think the brighter light like you had in the picture are good for warehouses and really large buildings. Thanks for posting an alternative, because your solution will probably suit some of the guys very well.
The Hamb can be a strange place, a few years ago I ask the same question and my thread was locked by Ryan and I was directed to the garage journal. Not long after that I ask a question about anvils and a compressor again it to was shut down and told. QUOTE="corncobcoupe, post: 13685636, member: 282"]Cars prior to 1964 on topic ..... ( exception 65,66 same body style as 64) Tools - off topic - Per Ryan that’s what he has the Garage Journal for. The only interpretation that Moderators follow is Ryan’s. It’s also possible a Moderator didn’t see or missed a prior questionable topic that required a clarification which another Moderator stating a different interpretation. Don’t forget, decisions by Moderators are basically editorial decisions, so Moderators use for the most part Ryan’s guidelines which from time to time need clarification. If any of you are unsure what is, or is not on topic - If you ASK Ryan or a Moderator first BEFORE posting - posts like this will be a thing of the past.[/QUOTE] I've been a member of the hamb a long time and have had more than a few post deleted over the years but it seems what is on topic today, in this case lighting, had been considered off topic in the past. HRP
I know I am not a long time member but I am not a member of any other forums, why should I have to join another site to ask questions about tools or equipment to use in building cars?
Hello, When we had a three car garage, we had household “can” lights installed in the ceiling. The garage had insulated drywall on all three sides and with the can lights in the ceiling, there was plenty of light for general car work. When we were doing something inside of the cars, then a corded handheld light was brought out for brighter close up work. But, those lights got hot and care had to be taken. The ambience of the overhead light was not to pinpoint specific work areas. The single garage side was designated for actual extra car work that would take more than one day. The garage space was well lit up at night, if/when work time was extended. But, the old days of fluorescent glass tubes is no longer viable. Glass breaks and the tubes hung low to get a brighter light on the room/backyard garage. But also, during our 1940 Willys Coupe build days, we had several bulb shop lights on cords for close up head work, minute wiring jobs, and inside of the coupe work. The lights hung on whatever ledge was available. Replacing those bulbs required removal of the wire cages. It was rather dark inside the rear cave... and even in the motor compartment. Jnaki There was less area to work in the cab, but the small work that needed to be done in the engine compartment did not get bright enough from any overhead lights. A wire cage protected bulb, shop light was always hanging around. Pun intended… Now, those old multiple shop fluorescent lights, corded wire protected hanging bulb lights and other of that nature are old hat. The new lights may look like the old glass tubes, but give off higher amounts of light power. Some are able to be linked to others in the same line for more light. But, in thinking of our current garage activities, several single powerful LED light strips light up the whole garage when we walk out into the garage, motion detected. Then on the counter, there are several powerful but flat, small rechargeable strips for close up counter work. The charged up counter lights can be set up for automatic on/off motion action. Walk by and the light comes on using a mini sensor. The old set up of giant glass tubes is still a functioning light set up for a lot of old hot rod garages. But in time, they will be replaced with longer life LED light strips or ones that look like the old fluorescent lights, if anything, for efficiency vs bulbs. Our granddaughter has several hanging fluorescent light units that come on as the majority light source in her garage. But when we were out in her garage doing our grandparents/granddaughter projects, we had a clamp on adjustable table light. It was to light up our drawings, scrapbooks and writing our stories for the various storybook publications we completed. The shop fluorescent lights just did not give off enough “specific light” for our needs...YRMV
I posted earlier about my LEDs,they are still working great.I also have a loft in my shop,it has 15 foot high cieling,its a barn shaped roof,it was hard to keep lit with regular type of 60 watt bulbs,i recentl bought 5 of the butterfly type lights that screw into a normal socket,man they are bright,it looks like someone took the roof of and the sun is out.I highly recommend them ,no work,just screw them into the socket and they work,they have a bunch of LEDs in them,were 25.00 each but worth every penny. harvey
Sometime back I had the same thing happen, and I had some conversation with Ryan (and the moderator I believe) Don't remember exactly how it went down, but basically I pointed out that hot rodders need tools to be hot rodders, and that most of us were interested in how others did things and what tools they used .....especially cobbled up ones. We also needed some place to work on them and how people set their shops up was of common interest and again provide good information and discourse. Some of the most long running threads are the ones on Shop Tips and Homemade Tools. I asked Ryan to consider letting these things also be included in the forum as long as they had an automotive use. Maybe try it for a while and see if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Ryan graciously gave it a try and I think that it has been well received. Thats how I remember it anyway............ Don't want to put the thread off topic, but thought you (and others) might have the same question..........so back to the LED lighting.
I made an LED light from 5730 strip 120 led / meter. (This is not the decorative accent type.) Been up and running for a year. Bonded the LED strip to galvanized siding starter 10' long, in 2 rows. That's 720 LED. Each LED is rated at 20 lumens, calculate it at 18 or so for the "china correction factor" and it's still approx to 5 4 foot T12 flourescents (2500 lumen each) Buy an appropriate 12V power supply for the number of LED in the system, or split it up. Have more strips and power supplies, need to assemble for other shop.
Well, with this thread playing in the background of my grey matter for the past year, I finally bit the bullet while Amazon was having their Prime sale a couple weeks ago and bought 48 each 4ft. LED fluorescent bulb replacements for my T8 bulbs in the shop. I spent all day today re-wiring all the fixtures removing the ballasts and installing the new bulbs...HOLY SUN IN THE SHOP BATMAN! What a difference! My old eyes are really going to appreciate working under this new found brightness. Very happy with the results.
You do realize those new fangled LED lights have listening devices in them so the government can hear what you're talking about?
Phooey - just get some Packard440 ignition wire & some Rajay terminals for your "test" mill. Nobody'll be listening to anything but groovy static for a couple houses all around you. . Don't know how or what, to suggest for the directional control of said groovy static. If you figure that one out, please let me know. Inquiring minds await, patiently... . Marcus...
I run 16 4 to 6 bulb T8 LED fixtures, one single T8 LED fixture over my primary workbench, to take away the shadows, and three panel lights, to get rid of a few more shadows Mine are 4,000K in color temperature, and came frome Primelights. It is as bright as daylight, even at night, and there are almost no shadows, anywhere.
I just have old hanging add on 4' shop lights, switched them to Costco led whole units when they were on sale (buy 2 get 1 free). SUPER bright in there I even converted my 1000W halogen stand that got extremely hot to cheap Amazon LED panels, something like 25w each.....bright for working outside.
Since this thread has popped back up again, all you procrastinators out there need to get crackin..........Winters coming and many places will have overcast days making your existing lighting less than optimal. The general theme here is that everyone who has stepped up and converted their light is extremely happy with their results.
The strip lights that I installed in the shop last year are great but.......RFI is making me crazy. Anyone have similar problems and did you find a solution? I got around it by moving the radio to another room and strung a mile of speaker wire but I'm not sure that is ideal.
Just a general observation for all of you doing this. Whatever you buy, make sure it's UL listed. Not everything for sale is, what with various offshore suppliers. Most of these use some sort of electronic trickery to work and this can cause issues in some cases, it can be hard to predict. One issue that came up when all this started was shared neutrals. These were common practice for years, until it was found that harmonics between circuits caused dangerous heating in the neutrals so separate neutrals are now usually required. Probably not a problem in a smaller garage, but may be in a larger shop, especially if wired under commercial codes. And keep in mind that in the event of an electrical fire, if it's discovered that a non-listed fixture was the cause, your fire insurance can refuse to pay off.
The Jalopy Journal
