Looking for lighting fixtures for the shop.. Advice needed

[Matt Allan]

Just got in a new house and the shop is going in the basement. No nice high ceilings either. I just finished ripping out a drop ceiling to get a few more inches and need to put in all new lights. I would like to use 2 bulb T8 fixtures that I can tuck up between the joists a little bit.

Have been trying to research fixtures/ballast as much as I can, and the general comments are to avoid the cheapo ones. Since I don't need that many I would like to find some better quality ones, but all the ones I have seen in stock at the home centers are only the cheapo sub $10 ones. So where does one find ones that a little better? All will be hard wired if that makes any difference

If anyone knows any place I should check out, or specific models to check to see if maybe the home centers can order it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[John Hart]

I did the same thing Matt. I put my shop in the basement with a low overhead so I recessed the lights between the floor joists. I don't know how much I paid, but they weren't the cheapos....I got mine at Home Depot. If you're interested, I'll get part numbers for you.

[Matt Allan]

If you are happy with the ones you got, when you get a chance I would love the part/model #s. Mine was out of stock when I went but I assume I could have them order some in if I knew one I wanted.

Thanks

[John Hart]

I just went down in the basement to see what I have.
They are Lithonia 2GT8 2 32 A12

I looked in the HD website and didn't see them listed but they did have the 4 bulb model which was part number 2GT8 432 A12 120 1/4GEB

I guess you'd just change the 432 to a 232..according to the Lithonia website

Anyway...yeah, I'm very happy with the lighting. The shop is painted white and I have the lights spaced 6 feet apart per the specification. I drywalled the ceiling to save space and just cut a hole and mounted them flush. There's a good refraction with the lenses so I have no shadows. It's better than I had hoped for. Maybe I got lucky. Now that I think about it, I think I paid $35 a piece.

Good Luck...It's worth the sweat.

[Steve Roxberg]

I have the eight foot fixtures, four 4' T8 bulbs. I bought them at both Home Depot and Lowes. Lithonia is one of the brands and I can't remember the other one.

I lucked out and got them on clearance but they have a normal everyday price of $39.99. Electronic ballast, quiet, and fast.

[Matt Allan]

Thanks so much for all the info on your lights, going to look for that model. Sounds like exactly what I need.

My HD might even have them, I didn't even look at anything with a lens/cover. I was just looking in the open fixture section but this might be even better.

Thanks again

[Steve Roxberg]

Mine are open bulbs, but I did purchase the plastic tubes to protect me in the event (meaning when) a bulb breaks when someone makes a mistake and hits it with a board or something.

I won't be showered in glass. :eek:

[George Matthews]

Lamp 'color' is something to consider. Avoid 'cool white' as they are too blue and harsh. 'Warm white' matches traditional incandesent lights. 'Day light' is what I chose, and is the best for 'true color' finishing for a variety of lighting conditions.

[David Dixson]

I just recently bought the bright daylight ones from home depot, they were great.

[Jeremy Bracey]

the BORG has a a 4' cheapo fixture that is great. For around $10 it is even extremely quiet electronic balast. I have cheapos that are not electronic balast in my "old" shop, Im getting ready to move into my new shop and really like these HD chepies.

Just my .02 cents (Im to cheap to give any more!)

[Lou Morrissette]

I bought a couple of fixtures at HD for around $20. and they have electronic ballasts. Outfitted them with T8 daylight bulbs and I love them in my basement shop.

Lou

[John Hart]

I have the cool white lights in mine...and you guys are making me think I oughta switch to the daylight type. I'm gonna waffle on this for a couple of weeks I bet.

[James Biddle]

I bought the $5.80 fixtures from the BORG and first bought their "daylight deluxe" lamps for it. Those lamps were 6500K, which has far too much blue in them for my taste. I took them back and ordered a true daylight lamp, 5000K, 85 CRI from lightbulbsdirect.com, paid $2.69 each (shipping was $10.90 because of the packaging) and am much happier with the results.

[Matt Meiser]

I used some of the cheap fixtures from Home Depot for my wife's scrapbooking room. The fixtures I used specifically said not to mount them directly against ceiling. Make sure you look at the installation do's and don'ts on whatever you buy.

On color temperature--I wanted to use daylight bulbs in my shop, but they were cost prohibitive because I have 12 8' fixtures that each use 2 8' high output bulbs. I went with standard bulbs, but bought a halogen work light for lighting when finishing. Halogen is supposed to be the closest to daylight from everything I read. I was going to put some pendant lights over my bench with halogen bulbs, but decided against it due to the fact I also had put in overhead air and electric drops and didn't want things getting tangled up. You might look at something similar.

[Mike Holbrook]

I just installed new lights in my shop. I thought the 4 light, 4' lights fit my area better. Got the T8 lights form HD. The fixture has an easy to remove rough plastic cover and real oak planks on the end (which is not why I bought them but did seem somehow prohetic ). I got the daylight bulbs and they are great. I am putting Track lights with 3 lights each (75 watt halogens) at each end of my shop so I can point them at dark spaces or specific work areas. Had I known how bright the daylight T8's were I might have just used more of them.

[Mike Deschler]

Hi Gang:

Brand new member here.........

I thought I would share my solution to shop lighting with the group.

After struggling with marginal lighting for years by hap hazzardly adding fixtures randomly, I ran across an article about increasing light output by modifying exiting flourescent fixtures equipted with electronic ballasts. In essecence what one would do is to modify the two bulb fixture by adding a second ballast so that each light has its own ballast. I tried it on a couple of old fixtures I had with T40 bulbs and the difference was very noticeable. according to the article, light output is increased 70% per fixture, I agree.

Next step was to gather a few fixtures and go to work. H.D. recently had a 30% off on some 4 ft fixtures and the final price was $4.06 per fixture. I bought 20 fixtures and modified them for finished lights. I also added pull chains to each fixture. My final cost is as follows; 2 fixtures - $8.12, 2-T8 bulbs - $3.97, 1 switch - $2.27 total = $14.36 per fixture. The downside is that I had to cut up some perfectly good sheet metal so I could get in into my garbage container for pickup.

It is absolutely amazing at the amount of light I now have in my 24x32 garage/shop. I was truly worth the effort.

[John Hart]

Wow...that's pretty cool Mike...By the way...Welcome...I'm fairly new m'self. This forum is outstanding...and a phenomenal group of people.

So...If I were to try and up the power of my existing output, I would have to match the ballast right?....If true, then I'd either have to buy matching fixtures or order replacement ballasts.

I need some specs to read. Do you have any details about the article or where I can see some kind of schematic?

Thanks

[Mike Deschler]

John:

You don't need identical ballasts. Take the existing one off of the two sockets and parallel them to one set of individual bulb sockets. Add the new ballast to the remaining sockets. Do not attempt to do this with magnetic ballasts, this olny works for electronic ballasts. If I can figure out the link process, I will attach the article I referenced. You can use either T8 or T40 bulbs but the T8's are much more intense as they have a smaller surface area. BTW, the bulbs do run warmer but you can still touch them. This is really a low cost way to get much more light.

[Joe Mioux]

Today, I was changing out bulbs in my design room (my personal floral design area, not the other designers). I tested natural daylignt fluorescents and wide spectrum. While the wide spectrum gave the best color rendition, moving from my design area into the general design made my eyes go crazy. All I could see was green. So I went back to natural daylight. They are alot brighter than regular fluorescent tubes. Tomorrow I will put a light meter on them and measure the light.

Joe