# Is this a dumb idea



## mickri (Mar 20, 2018)

My 12x36 lathe sits in front of a window in my garage.  The only place where I could put it.  I thought that this would be good lighting.  It turns out that the light from the window is always too bright and the front side of the lathe is always dark.   Hard to read the dials  I have very high ceilings in my garage so hanging a light from the ceiling doesn't work.  The original owner had mounted a light with a long flexible neck on the table that the lathe sits on.  This light always seemed to be in the way for me and I have removed it.  Lately I have been sitting a small reading lamp on the cover over the drive belts.  This seems to work fairly well but you have to hang on to it at times.
Over the weekend I picked up a reading light that I could easily permanently mount on this cover by drilling 3 holes in the cover.  It has a very small base. 



This is the lamp.



Here it is with the base removed.



This is where I am thinking about mount the light.

 I have not seen this before and am wondering if this is a dumb idea that I will later regret.


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## Tony Wells (Mar 20, 2018)

One downside to that is its inability to shine down in a bore. Many lights are mounted on the carriage so they travel with the tool, more or less. But if it's the dials you are concerned about that should help.


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## Ben Nevis (Mar 20, 2018)

You could mount a magnet on the lamp base, which would make it easy to move around if needed.


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## Tozguy (Mar 20, 2018)

Have you considered installing a horizontal blind so that you can modulate the light coming through the window?
Natural light is the best of all but you have to regulate the intensity. Without it you will need very powerful lights to illuminate the dark side of your lathe when the sun is shining in! Your eyes will water!
Is it possible to add reflective surfaces over, behind or beside the lathe so that the natural light is diffused to surround the lathe a bit better? I use bubble insulation with foil on one side to brighten some dark spots around my lathe.
Or can you turn the lathe sideways or 180 deg. so the window is illuminating the front of the lathe?
All this to say that fixing lights to my lathe might not be the way I would go in your situation. It would be a last resort.

If you must attach a lamp use magnets as mentioned above at least until you are sure of the location(s) before drilling and tapping the lathe. Be prepared to see the magnets accumulate chips and swarf forever after.


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## extropic (Mar 20, 2018)

Hang a 4ft LED shop light from chains over your lathe at the height and location that works best for you.
I would consider that desk lamp to be in the way and insecure. YMMV.


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## Tozguy (Mar 20, 2018)

Maybe a light on a floor stand that can be moved around easily like photographers use?


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## dlane (Mar 20, 2018)

I’ed go with blinds on the window maybe vertical so the oil stripe is easy to clean .
The cover is probably cast aluminum so magnet won’t work there but I wouldn’t drill holes in it.
I think i’ed hang a led shop light with chains or cable above you , it would be out of your way .


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## cathead (Mar 20, 2018)

In addition to whatever you decide to do for shop lighting, a small LED flashlight is really handy for those dark nooks 
and crannies.  I have several in the shop and keep a small one in my pocket most of the time.  A small mirror along
with an LED flashlight allow one to see places otherwise impossible to see (like looking behind your lathe carriage for example).


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## Tozguy (Mar 20, 2018)

Blinds in the window are a must. Then here is another idea
http://www.electricianmentor.com/tag/led-headlamp-reviews/


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## chips&more (Mar 20, 2018)

Try wearing one of those LED coal mining lights.


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## The_Apprentice (Mar 20, 2018)

> Hang a 4ft LED shop light from chains over your lathe at the height and location that works best for you.



This is something I have been debating on myself recently, and some other re-wiring issues in my basement shop. At the moment, I am pulling out my iPhone at times to use the built in flashlight feature, but there should be a better way. LOL


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## RJSakowski (Mar 20, 2018)

I use an articulated arm lighted magnifier on each of my lathes.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/Clamp-on-S...662536?hash=item284e7f60c8:g:fxMAAOSw7rdaY24F
I replaced the incandescent bulbs with A19 LED's .  Plenty of light, no heat, and relatively immune to breakage. 
I made my own socket from 1/4" black pipe.  The lamp is mounted at the right rear of the lathe and will swing to cover the entire working envelope of the lathe.  
The magnification is great for detail work and the lamp easily swings out of the way.


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## mickri (Mar 20, 2018)

Magnets won't work.  The cover is aluminum.
I have a headlamp that I have used when crawling into dark places on my boat and at other times.  The problem that I have found with led headlamps is that the light beam is very directional and has to be pointed directly at what you want illuminated. 
The lathe has to stay where it is.  My garage is not large and like every garage is filled with stuff.  My metal working stuff is in the back left corner of my garage and the woodworking stuff is in the right front corner  All of the rest of the wall space has either has builtin shelving or work benches.  My MG Midget, currently under going a resurrection, and it's stuff takes up most of the floor space.  And even the back left corner has issues.  The builder of the home for some unknown dumb reason brought the waterline for the house up through the garage floor roughly 2' from the side wall and 4' from the back wall.  The lathe barely has room to fit between this pipe and a side door and my mill/drill barely fits along the back wall between the pipe and the door to the house.
I like the idea of the articulated light because it would be easy to move around to where it is needed.  But I wonder if it would be long enough.  It is 3 1/2' to 4' from the back right corner of the lathe to the chuck area where the light is needed the most.
 I will try placing a piece of plywood to cover the bottom half of the window and see if that helps.  I will also try mounting the light that came with the lathe on the left front corner of the bench and see how that works out. 

I appreciate everyone's suggestions.  Thanks


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## Nogoingback (Mar 20, 2018)

How about something like this?  It can be aimed anywhere, and with a bright, white LED bulb it puts out plenty of light.


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## dlane (Mar 20, 2018)

Build a mezzanine? You say you have tall ceiling, build some storage up there and mount lights under it


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## mickri (Mar 20, 2018)

I mounted the light that came with the lathe in the left front corner of the bench and I think that it will work.  Seems to be out of the way and lights up the front of the lathe where I need light.  Even with full sun coming in the window this morning.  The window faces east.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions.


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## markba633csi (Mar 20, 2018)

Personally I'm not real fond of mounting things on the machine itself-switches or lights- the bench mount light sounds good
Mark


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## pdentrem (Mar 20, 2018)

I am still experimenting with how I like this lamp and will likely put in a couple more holes in the shelf as required.


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## NortonDommi (Mar 20, 2018)

I've just replaced the 50W Halogen bulb in the lathe machine light with a 5W COBB L.E.D. 6500K and the light is soooo much better! I still have the problem with reading the dials so use a small L.E.D. torch.  When I get around to it I want to make some small hoods to mount L.E.D.'s in to shine directly onto the dials.  I was thinking a piece of perspex with a hood. The light spill fromm the edge would be fine and directional plus it could be curved very easily for mounting.


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## PHPaul (Mar 20, 2018)

It seems like the OP has solved his problem to his satisfaction, but I just wanted to jump in with a "Me Too" post 

A friend pointed me at 4 foot hanging LED fixtures from WalMart for <$20.  So far I've bought 6.  Four in the garage, one over my model building bench and one over my lathe.  Excellent light!

I also keep a small, inexpensive single A-cell LED flashlight by the lathe.  As others have posted, it's just the ticket for peeking up bores or spotlighting hard to read dials.  My eyes haven't gotten older, they're just making the print smaller...


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## mickri (Mar 20, 2018)

Mounting the light on the front left corner of the bench seems to be working.  Last week I finished making a spacer for the spindle on a  trailer I have.  Today I went to mount the hub and discovered the race for the grease seal needed some clean up.   Chucked the hub up in the lathe and had it fixed in no time.  The light worked good.  Only negative so far is the heat from the old style bulb.  Will replace it with a LED.
And I do have a small LED flashlight that I use to see inside of bores.


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## derf (Mar 20, 2018)

Architects lamp with led bulb on an extended arm mounted to the wall...


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## whitmore (Mar 21, 2018)

I'm uncomfortable with '4 foot' and '8 foot' LED fixtures.   If they don't have a ballast, they'll flicker, and
the long series string of LEDs, like a string of Xmas lights, is only as good as its weakest element.
Flicker, with moving machinery, scares me; electronic-ballast (over a few kHz) fluorescents don't flicker.
After a few years, the LEDs will get dim, or die entirely, and some such fixtures aren't relampable.   You'd buy and install
a new fixture.   Changing fluorescent lampss is awkward, but easier than changing fixtures.

Also, an accidental break of a fluorescent tube puts some glass onto the floor, but a broken 
LED 'tube' could dangle a live wire.

For me, the solution today is to update a ballast and stick with fluorescents for big fixtures,
and low-voltage LED lamps for bright up-close lighting.


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## Nogoingback (Mar 21, 2018)

whitmore said:


> I'm uncomfortable with '4 foot' and '8 foot' LED fixtures.   If they don't have a ballast, they'll flicker, and
> the long series string of LEDs, like a string of Xmas lights, is only as good as its weakest element.
> Flicker, with moving machinery, scares me; electronic-ballast (over a few kHz) fluorescents don't flicker.
> After a few years, the LEDs will get dim, or die entirely, and some such fixtures aren't relampable.   You'd buy and install
> ...



I've replaced some of the fluorescents in my garage with LED's.  The ones I bought are direct wired to 110V and the "tubes" can
be replaced.  They were installed in the old fixtures after removing the ballasts and changing out the holders, which came with the
LEDs.  I've had them for over a year and have noticed no flicker at all: just bright light better than the old tubes. Mine came from
Home Depot.  As for price, I bought them when the ballasts started to go, so the cost was a wash.


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## Tozguy (Mar 21, 2018)

Now that LED lights are getting less and less expensive, we have the whole house almost completely converted away from fluorescent bulbs of all types to LEDs. Around here you can't give fluorescent bulbs or fixtures away. There is nothing a flour. can do that a LED can't do better it seems.


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## Cheeseking (Mar 21, 2018)

Nogoingback said:


> whitmore said:
> 
> 
> > I'm uncomfortable with '4 foot' and '8 foot' LED fixtures. If they don't have a ballast, they'll flicker, and
> ...



Same here! Just posted this in another thread here. Cost $15/bulb $30 per fixture so it didn't make sense to toss fixtures. These are also replaceable when they burn out. No glass or mercury. The tube is plastic so over a lathe no worries of shattering.


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## RJSakowski (Mar 21, 2018)

I have converted house, shop, barn, and outdoor lighting to LED for the most part.  The remaining lighting is either something used like ten minutes a month or in torchieres having built-in dimmers not compatible with LED's,  I have been using LED area lighting for more than ten years and have yet to have one fail. As my remaining incandescent and fluorescent lights fail, they will be replaced with LED equivalents wherever possible.

About the only place that I would use an incandescent bulb would be in the oven.  I find that the LED's work well at -10ºF, the coldest temperature experienced last winter, even though they weren't rated for cold weather use.


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## Round in circles (Apr 22, 2018)

dlane said:


> I’ed go with blinds on the window maybe vertical so the oil stripe is easy to clean .
> The cover is probably cast aluminum so magnet won’t work there but I wouldn’t drill holes in it.
> I think i’ed hang a led shop light with chains or cable above you , it would be out of your way .



  I'd paint the window out with a white wash style emulsion paint , to diffuse strong day light & stop nosey people looking in  . It will also act as a light reflector surface if you are working at night in your " Man Cupboard " .

Then when it's dry  , go hang a four foot LED strip tube light "Middle for Diddle "  ( centrally along the bed length ) above the lathe about an inch forward from the centre line so the centre  line is an inch in front of the front of the bed ways   & then put a small deflector lip ( say card boars , thin strip of plastic or wood etc. up in front of the light so you are not blinded by the fantastic light they produce whilst you stand at the lathe .

I didn't have the opportunity to use an LED strip so I used a 20 watt LED flood at each end of the whole lathe , set some two feet above the head stock height on a specifically place length of 2x 2 " timber .  The lights being angles as ......  RH light on to the chuck area  , LH light angled about five inches to the right of the chuck .. it gives a good spread of clean white light  and they tend to stay free of any lathe thrown up oil splashes, chippings etc.

For some jobs , such as parting off I found I needed a magnifying glass to set the alignment of the cutting tool edge height to the chuck's centre height with me using the point of a sewing needle ( eye cut off )  .  The needle being held & tested for being central in the chuck by spinning the lathe under power for a few seconds ) .  For this I ended up buying a brand new  angle poise magnifying lamp with a five inch dia x 5 mag lens ... that I mounted on the lathe stand on the RHR edge. It's also a good light 7 method for getting any offset close to what's needed before the final testing cuts   or setting the lathe back to near true once you remove an offset  & then do the final true turning check. 


If you need an extra bright white light  to bathe the work area ,  I found that having both the LED floods & the angle poise  light on then carefully angling the lens of the angle poise with the poise light switched on  ,  I was able to get a five inch dia beam or more , of  bright pure white shadow less light beam on to the work area .


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## Round in circles (Apr 22, 2018)

Tozguy said:


> Now that LED lights are getting less and less expensive, we have the whole house almost completely converted away from fluorescent bulbs of all types to LEDs. Around here you can't give fluorescent bulbs or fixtures away. There is nothing a flour. can do that a LED can't do better it seems.



 Look on eBay there are so may LED light units now available that you rarely ever have to throw or give an older fitting away . That also applies to LED strip light replacements ,.
 Some of the later LED strips lights have a starter unit to plug on the end of an LED strip light tube.  Others are actually built in the end of the strip tube  , some need a different starter unit that plugs in the side of the light fittings housing just like the fluorescent strip did & some apparently .... like mine don't have any visible ones of any sort on view .

 Though buying a new unit specially made for LED strip light  is a sounder option if you can afford to , for eventually the adaptors & adaptations will no longer be made or more likely allowed to be imported / used in you country .


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## Round in circles (Apr 22, 2018)

deleted


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## Round in circles (Apr 22, 2018)

Someone said in an earlier post that fluorescent lights don't flicker .. they do unfortunately  at 60 cycle per second , most of the time it's not noticeable but is of a very dangerous problem to industry . if you run your lathe at 60 rpm on the same single electrical phase at  60 cycles per second as fluro lights 7 some incandescent bulbs  the chuck appears stationary . In the UK it's 50 rpm @ 50 cycles per second ( Hz) .


People who are prone to having epileptic fits are often affected by 60 / 50 hertz flicker . One solution is to either have a phase shift device on some of the lights I an area or in large workshops have the lights evenly split across all the three different phases of the power supply . That way the machinery will always be showing it is moving if it is powered up & in gear etc.

As far as I know ,  inside an LED strip light all the LED's are run off low voltage groups of almost pure DC generated from smoothed  bridge rectifiers so they do not  flicker at all . 
One LED  light source failing in these LED tubes does not usually kill the whole tube either as they are wired up  in parallel . 

Re the deterioration of LED light out put quality . It's not a great as the deterioration of fluorescent tubes apparently , though I've not actually measured it as I'm now well retired , mentally,  physically & emotionally .

We used to have to take LUX light meter readings every six months for the light levels in all rooms then change out  & record the change of all tubes & positions that were found to be below the required light output levels .
It was rare for a tube in an office to be more than two years old because of the reduced light out put it gives over time ( replacement depended on the work being done in the area or if it was a toilet , walk area etc. ) Each light fitting was then decorated with a bar coded sticker printed off our hand held work terminals, so we could see the history of the light & fitting  on our computer records back in HQ where planning & ordering of spares was done.  We did this to thousands & thousands of florescent tubes every year


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## whitmore (Apr 22, 2018)

Round in circles said:


> Someone said in an earlier post that fluorescent lights don't flicker .. they do unfortunately  at 60 cycle per second , most of the time it's not noticeable but is of a very dangerous problem to industry . if you run your lathe at 60 rpm on the same single electrical phase at  60 cycles per second as fluro lights 7 some incandescent bulbs  the chuck appears stationary ....
> 
> As far as I know ,  inside an LED strip light all the LED's are run off low voltage groups of almost pure DC generated from smoothed  bridge rectifiers so they do not  flicker at all .



Magnetic-ballast (old style) fluorescents have light modulated at 120 Hz (twice the 60 Hz input) because they flash both on
the positive and negative half-cycles.   Electronic ballast fluorescents, though, at 4 kHz or more, need not flicker because the ionized
gas doesn't have time to quench (stop glowing) between half-cycles.  This GE blurb states 
"High-frequency operation virtually eliminates lamp flickering typical in T12 electromagnetic systems"

<https://products.currentbyge.com/si...266_T12_Multi-Voltage_Electronic_Ballasts.pdf>

Some LED strips are low-voltage, using a DC power supply, and those don't flicker.   The 'no ballast required' ones, that
run off straight AC, DO flicker, and it's almost impossible to tell (in a store, looking at a box) which is which.  The scheme of
using many LEDs in series to match (at 3V per diode) the 120V or 240VAC is very inexpensive, but not trustworthy off
most power grids (in Florida, for instance, 2000V spikes are expected, from lightning transients).

Some of the LED flood (not strip) lights I've examined are driven by low-voltage DC supplies, and are lovable, if clunky.


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## Silverbullet (Apr 23, 2018)

I just had to replace a curly florescent in my light by my bed . I ordered four of the 23 watt ? Led lights it's pretty good replacement . My son n law has sinced moved in with us and he works for Amazon so he brings these programmable lights mine he set up so it operates from my phone , the one in the front room uses voice control alexes or some nonsense. Variable control output even. Most all of my shop florescent lights need changing out I still have a few bulbs for the eight footers and the four ft ones. At the cost of those it'll be a long time for me . That's if I ever get out of pain , it's back as bad as it was before the last bout of nerve blocks. Worse cause I've terminated the morphine going into my body , the poison caused more then it helped. Hope this specialist helps but now I'm doubting..


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## Round in circles (Apr 30, 2018)

whitmore said:


> Magnetic-ballast (old style) fluorescents have light modulated at 120 Hz (twice the 60 Hz input) because they flash both on
> the positive and negative half-cycles.   Electronic ballast fluorescents, though, at 4 kHz or more, need not flicker because the ionized
> gas doesn't have time to quench (stop glowing) between half-cycles.  This GE blurb states
> "High-frequency operation virtually eliminates lamp flickering typical in T12 electromagnetic systems"
> ...




 Thanks for the info , things have moved on apace wrt LED lighting that's for sure.  Do you know if there are any gas discharge tubes  in the latest LED strip lights  that will reduce the effect of any high mains borne spikes . 
 We've been wiped out by lightening strikes happening about 400 mtrs away from our home , twice in the last seven years.   Losing all manner of electrical stuff including  all of the 21 low voltage incandescents that were on at the time of the strikes . Happily the insurance company picked up the cost of getting things sorted out .


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## Pro70z28 (Apr 30, 2018)

Sometimes in cases like this I wear a head light. LED light is bright and is always shining where I'm looking. Not good if someone comes in the room and you look up to say hi though.  My wife tells me the light is annoying for that reason. lol


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## Suzuki4evr (Apr 30, 2018)

What if you try to use the natural light by using mirrors in some manner above the lathe. Just a thought.


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## jdedmon91 (May 4, 2018)

I have a light mounted above my lathe like this. This is a older picture






This is how it’s now. You can’t see the light in it 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Cheeseking (Jul 3, 2018)

I did similar above my lathe. 4’ led with a flexible lamp w/led bulb that can be adjusted to illuminate a bore etc. Just for good measure its next to a 48” window well so in the day I get natural light as well. 
No light issues here!! Lol


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## francist (Jul 3, 2018)

Nice lathe.

-frank


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