Led Shop Light Retrofit

[Eddyde]

I lit my basement shop with 9.5 w LED "bulbs" (60w incandescent equivalent). I used 12, mounted in porcelain utility fixtures spaced about 3' off the wall then about 6' apart on center in each direction (18' x 26' room). The arraigement provides excellent area lighting, I have supplementary clip-on lights on some of the machines. The cost was about $10 per point for bulb, fixture and box, wire not included.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

You're welcome Mike! Always happy to provide nudges I even got to use that 3/4-16 tap that you swapped with me to thread the backplate I'm making. Just have to do the finish cut on the register, drill 3 holes and then I'm done!

Guys, be careful with those multiwatt LEDs, they'll need a lot of heatsink surface area to keep cool if you're cooling them passively. Depending on ambient temp, up to 100sq.in/W is recommended as LEDs get less efficient as they heat up. Cooling down a couple of 10W LEDs passively is tricky, doing 10 will be a real challenge. One of my bike lights had 2 10W LEDs and it would trip the drivers thermal protection in about 30s if left on full at a standstill - that was with around 30sq.in of surface area. Also, make sure you use a decent constant current driver with them - the lights Mike and I have made are pretty simple low current lights and so cheap drivers aren't a big deal, but when you get up into 10s of watts things can go bad pretty quickly.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

I'm working on a similar lighting project for my lathe. I found 10 watt white LEDs for $3 each, and will mount them to a piece of aluminum angle for a heat sink. The aluminum angle will mount to the bottom of a shelf over my lathe. The leg on the angle will shield my eyes from seeing the LEDs directly. I have 2 of the LEDs to experiment with. They are very bright, and only draw 4 watts of 115v each. The final layout will use about 10 of them. When the project is out of the design/experiment stage and in the build stage, I'll get some photos.

GG

Thanks for reading Garage Guy!
i'll be looking forward to seeing your build and results!
sounds like a nice array!

 

[Hankus]

Just last week I replaced a 4' shop light above my lathe, with a item from my local Costco Warehouse that looks just like the previous shop light but is 100% LED. Cost $39 and plug and play.

 

[JHP]

I just replaced the tubes in a four (T-12) tube fixture in my kitchen with Four T-8-LED tubes. The results are astounding; more, brighter light, won't have to change bulbs for about fifteen years or longer, more than 50% less power consumption, no additional heat added to room. The conversion is very easy, even for older fixtures without "Rapid-Start" ballasts. You may need to do some minor re-wiring, but the result is worth it and you can re-use all those old Fluorescent fixtures that you already have. The company I dealt with (through Amazon) even included new non-shunted tombstones (tube holders) in case you have the old shunted type. The cost was $74-/4. These tubes are instant on, rated at 2016lumens, and 5000Kelvin color temperature (bright white).
Here's a link: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S5TTT0K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I also replaced the bulbs in a three lamp conventional fixture over the sink with three 15W recessed can bulbs. These used to be three 75W incandescents, then three 23W CFLs, now I get more light, less heat from 45W total. the key to brightness with these or any bulbs is "Color Temperature". The higher the number, the whiter, brighter the light.

 

[WDG]

All interesting. I have a few bulbs given to me that are in a drawer so I'm thinking I need to get them out. Only about #100 on my bucket list though. I have a comment on the large head on the screws, did you ever consider plastic screws or would the heat get to them?
As for the bulbs I have, I don't know what wattage they are or anything about them so I don't want to burn them up. I do have a 4-20 mv box that I think I can use Ohms law and figure it out. I have several AC to DC xfmrs so I was wondering about using them to power the bulbs. Any ideas?

 

[Ulma Doctor]

i think the plastic screws may succumb to heat, but i like your thinking!
the led's only pull 1 watt each, i'm sure you could make a suitable driver
i found a link somewhere wher you could use 12 led's a capacitor and a resistor to directly apply 110vac to the led's, linked in series.
if i should happen to find it, i'll be sure to post.

 

[WDG]

Well, check this out. All you people and your fancy circuit boards take notice. I couldn't stand it any more so I got the bulbs and my Altek 4-20mA supply and here we go. The first has the flash which drown out the LED's, then you can see my Jumboclip circuit board and the the LED's without the flash and overhead lights. I'll admit I have some tweaking to do but I'm on my way!

 

[WDG]

By the way, the bulbs seem to be at their peak around 10 mA and are pretty bright even at 6 mA. I just put fresh batteries in so I'm guessing without my VOM that the voltage is 27 VDC. (3 X 9 in series) I think I'll have a beer now I'm so proud of myself .

 

[FOMOGO]

Looks like the mother ship has landed Dr.. Now you just need to add some tonal scale back round for the full affect. Mike