Is this a dumb idea

[mickri]

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.

 

[derf]

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

 

[whitmore]

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.

 

[Nogoingback]

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.

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.

 

[Tozguy]

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.

 

[Cheeseking]

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.

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.

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.

 

[RJSakowski]

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.

 

[Round in circles]

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 .

 

[Round in circles]

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 .

 

[Round in circles]

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