On 10/5/2016 at 7:16 AM, Fred W. Hargis, Jr said:

It seems like if you removed the ballast you could just use the cheapest T8 fixtures, gut them, and use the LED lamps and it would be a lot cheaper than buying LED fixtures. I'll have to look into this a little more. In the last shop I bought quality T8 lamps/fixtures and it was fairly expensive.

 

Sadly yes....I am looking at other alternatives as I develop my shop.

Just replaced 8 ea 8' tubes with commercial grade T12 Very High Output tubes. Man O Man, what a difference. I'm no longer wishing for LEDs. And, it saved a 100 mile trip to Costco and at least two days work tearing out and re hanging. Not to mention the $$$ saved.

 

I noticed that HD sells T8 LED replacement bulbs for T8 fluorescent fixtures. These bulbs don't use the ballast and the instructions call for disconnecting them and wiring directly to the lamp sockets. They are 17 watt meaning they burn about one half of the energy of a 32 watt T8 bulb they would replace. However, I note when comparing the lamp output in lumens for a 4ft 17 watt LED to a 32 watt T8 fluorescent bulb shows that the LED output is only 1700 lumens compared to 2600 for the fluorescent bulb. It would seem to me that I would need 3 LED bulbs to get the same light output as an equivalent of 2 fluorescent bulbs. So I don't understand the comments about how much brighter the LED are compared to the fluorescent bulbs. The LED bulbs do have the advantage of a getting to full light output quicker and don't have the ballast issue but I can't see replacing my light fluorescent bulbs to get less 35% less light. To get to the same light output I would need 9 fixtures instead of my 6 fixtures. Overall energy savings of going to LEDs would be reduced to obtain the same light output. My design criteria is to have 75 foot candles of light brightness at my work surface, typically 30 to 36 inches above the floor. What am I missing? 

I've considered the lumens difference as well, but something gets lost in the translation...at least to my eyes. The LED bulbs always seem brighter, though I'm not smart enough to know why.

Edited December 31, 20169 yr by Fred W. Hargis, Jr

Maybe it's color temperature? Both types of lights can be purchased is the same color temperature range. I haven't done a comparison by eye for the same temperature. I know I replaced a fluorescent bulb with an LED bulb in a bedroom ceiling fixture and didn't see enough difference to write home about. However, the color temperature seemed to be different with the LED being whiter.

By the way, I have used Lithonia Lghting's website in the past to plan my lighting fixtures and arrangement. They have a program named Visual Basic, that can be run on-line. It lets one provide the area information (length, width and height) to be lit, and height at which the light intensity is to designed and the light intensity to achieve using their lighting fixtures. It happens that Home Depot sells Lithonia lights for work spaces, both fluorescent and LED, and so, if one is buying them from HD, the lights can be specified using the program. I used the program recently to compare how many fixtures and their placement for fluorescent and LED lights for my shop. I am getting answers consistent with my previous post. I came upon the Lithonia design program via a Fine Woodworking article in issue 209 on shop lighting. I recommend it for your consideration. It was written before the advent of lower cost LED lighting, but the same principles apply.