Questions for those that converted T12 4 foot fluorescent fixtures to LED.

[Mike Monroe]

Thanks in advance for any insights.

Is there a huge difference between frosted vs clear light emitting diode (LED) bulbs?

Can one discern the difference between a 84+ color rendering index (CRI) bulb and a 90+ CRI bulb?

Is there a huge difference between a 4000 Kelvin (K) bulb and a 5000 K bulb?

What's your favorite brand of 4 foot LED bulb?

I need to replace thirty T12 bulbs. One has been flickering and humming. I started really looking at them the other day and they are all getting a dark ring on the ends, some more than others. Also, it's obvious they are all not putting out the same amount of light or the same color for that matter. I'm very comfortable performing the required bypass ballast wiring, the single end power or double end power bulbs will work.

As far as I can tell the frosted bulbs cost a little more than the clear ones. And the higher the CRI, the higher the cost. The warmth of the light, 4000 K vs 5000 K, doesn't seem to figure into the cost though. The frosted bulbs come with a beam angle of 140 degrees, the clear with a beam angle of 120 degrees - I don't see that the beam angle makes much of a difference since the fixtures are mounted 8 feet up.

I did the math (or tried to) and it looks like my return on investment (ROI) on the LED bulbs is 2-3 years based on my estimated light use vs. if I went new T12 bulbs. I.e., new T12 bulbs are roughly a third of the cost of LED bulbs, but they cost a little over twice as much to operate and electricity cost is most likely increasing for me as the electric company wants consumers to fund their planned wind turbine venture.

[Bill Dufour]

It may be easier to use bulbs that get power from both ends. With those type the tombstones do not matter. many tombstones are linked so the two pins are electrically connected. If you have those type and your bulbs are connected at only one end you have to replace half the tombstones.
Bil lD

[William A Johnston]

Mike,

There is a sticky thread about shop lighting in Work Shops. I'm sure there is a lot of valuable information about led shop lights in there.

Bill

[Greg R Bradley]

8' is likely too low even for frosted bulbs. The narrow pattern will create challenges to get even light and you may have glare problems. It really depends on your layout but you will be getting more light directly down and a lot less coverage. I am assuming you don't have any lenses on your existing lights and they are bare bulbs in the fixtures. 8' over a bench Is fine.

8' is WAY too low to even consider clear lens replacements. I tried some at 10' and they were nasty. We have glare problems at 12' when you are in line with a row of fixtures. I'm very happy with clear lens when hung at 15'. Then the narrower pattern actually helps.

[fRED mCnEILL]

I replaced the 12-8' bulbs in my shop.Ceilings are 10' and the bulbs are frosted. Heat range is 6500. . Wiring was changed to have connections at both ends. The difference in light was DRAMATIC. And no flicker when its cold. I'm now going to do the 4' bulbs in the kitchen but have to decide on heat range first as my wife wants a softer light.

[Peter Kuhlman]

I just installed some 4 foot LED lighting in my small shop and love them! From Lowe’s - Lithonia dual strip light fixtures and cost 45 dollars. Rated 4000 or 4500K depending on where you look on box, 80 CRI. Nice bright white light compared to the old T8 lights. Not much more energy efficient at 50 watts but so much better to work under. This is with just under 8 foot ceilings yet the design allows for a nice wide spread of light. Couldn’t be happier.
Not sure what the bulbs cost for what you are considering but these entire fixtures are fairly reasonable.

[tom lucas]

I replaced 24 T12 4-footers in my shop with frosted 5K's. They are eight feet off the floor. Love them! Really bright. I got the ones that do not use the ballast, because it is the ballasts that are the problem. My fixtures are 4 bulb and I had to jumper them together after I took out the ballasts. A little bit of work, but worth it.

As for temperature, the lower temp bulbs will be blueish in tint. I wouldn't use anything less than 5000 Kelvin. The higher the temperature, the closer to natural light they will be.

I purchased mine from greenlightdepot.com. I think I paid $7 each. That was 2 years ago. Cheaper now, I think.

[Ole Anderson]

As for temperature, the lower temp bulbs will be blueish in tint. I wouldn't use anything less than 5000 Kelvin. The higher the temperature, the closer to natural light they will be.
I think you meant HIGHER temperature are more bluish. Lower temps start to emulate incandescent around 2700 degrees. Cooler temps look warmer in color.

Here is what I used when I relamped all of our troffers at church, about 6 cases IIRC. https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/192824/PLT-10848.html

[Bob Landel]

I am confused. I have a bunch of 4ft lighting fixtures. Mainly 40 watt T12, plus one or two fixtures rated 4x 32 watt T8.

Who makes the brightest LED's bulbs (giving off more light than I presently have per fixture)?

I can always use more light. Brighter the better for me even in my home. (Cataracts have been taken care of.) I am guessing my house is visible from space in the evening.

[Jim Becker]

For the few T12 fixtures I retained in my shop, I used the Feit replacements from Costco and they shine just as bright as the LED fixtures from the same source. I chose not to do any re-wiring or ballast removal at the time. These lights are SUBSTANTIALLY brighter than the original T12 fluorescent tubes were, even when new.

[Tony Joyce]

407945Light Color Chart

[Joe Adams]

I installed seven 48" four bulb T12 florescent in our 24x24' shop 16 years ago. They were commercial grade Lithonia wraparound fixtures and have served us well.

It's always been a chore to keep all 28 bulbs going at the same time. Everything is fine for a while but then it seems like one fixture or another needs a bulb replaced.

Recently, some of the ballasts have been acting up and some bulbs don't come on at first or at all. Most have their original ballasts but one has had them replaced several times. I don't think they make them as good as they used to.

There are two ballasts per fixture at $20 buck each so $280 to replace them all. I briefly considered replacing the fixtures with those LED shop lights sold at Sams and Costco that many woodworkers seem to like.

I did some research and found a ballast bypass LED replacement bulb from Hyperikon. Basically, you remove the ballasts and wire the existing tombstone sockets directly to the incoming power. The new bulbs are T8 size but fit in a G13 tombstone for a T12. After removing the ballasts, it's really no different than installing a standard light fixture.

That's it. Fixture upgraded with energy efficient, long life LED bulbs. It takes less than 30 minutes per fixture for the conversion start to finish and I work slowly around electricity (even when the breaker is off). Total cost for 28 bulbs was $290 or about the same as replacing the ballasts. They are rated for 45,000 hours with a five year warranty so I hope to have carefree light in the shop for a long time. Even better, Hyperikon doubles the warranty to 10 years when you register them.

I'm super pleased with my "new" shop lights and wanted to share. No affiliation at all with this company. Just a new fan.

FYI - I went with the 4000K Daylight Glow and like the clean light.

They're available through Amazon or direct from the manufacturer.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S5O83BG/

[Timothy McMahon]

When setting up my shop, I was replacing 6 incandescent lights with 30 4ft led lights. I utilized the Lithonia 4ft shop light fixtures and the 95CRI T8 bulbs from Waveform lighting. The bulbs are supposed to be compatible with ballasts and direct wire as well as voltage from 120v - 240v. The ballasts in the fixtures turned out to be incompatible, so had to bypass to do my initial testing.

I tested both the 4000k and 6500k lights. My ceiling is roughly 8ft. With only a single fixture to test, the 4000k seemed a little warm. The 6500k light appeared harsh, but more clear.

I went with the 6500k. With enough fixtures, the harshness seems to have gone away and feels very natural. I do not know for sure if this is due to the high CRI rating or if the cooler temp requires more output to look natural. Whichever it is, I am very pleased. There is a 5000k version of the bulb available, but was not released when I started testing.

[Bill Dufour]

I do not know what country you live in but in the USA many power companies will come out and do a light survey and recommend how many fixtures and what type you should be using. They do this to reduce the power you need. there are also government programs that will pay rebates for installed energy efficient fixtures.
It seems backwards but the power companies make more money if they get their customers to save energy at peak demand times so they do not have to pay for expensive peaking power.
See what your local and national government has to offer.
Bil lD

[tom lucas]

You can't compare wattage for equivalent light. The LEDs will be more efficient (same lumens, less power consumption). You have to compare lumens. I'm using 18 watt LEDs and I believe they are brighter than the 40W T12's they replace.

I struggle to understand why anyone would get the ballast compatible bulbs, just to save a few minutes on installation only to have the ballast fail later.

[Frank Pratt]

I struggle to understand why anyone would get the ballast compatible bulbs, just to save a few minutes on installation only to have the ballast fail later.

And the ballast uses power which ends up as wasted heat.

But there is an issue with ballast bypass in that it involves modifying the fixture which voids the electrical approval for the fixture.

[Jim Andrew]

I have twenty some 4 bulb troffer fixtures in my shop. Changed all them out a year ago. Removed all the ballasts. Bought a few bulbs at Menards at first, then switched to ebay, as they cost half as much. Prefer the clear, but have some frosted, can't tell the difference. Not one bulb has failed in the last year.

[Scott Winners]

I had T8s flickering. I got all new LEDs at Sam's club at $20 per fixture. I am mostly ecstatic.

I maybe could spread the new fixtures out a little further apart, but I figure they are going to dim over time and it hasn't bothered me enough to get the ladder back out.

YMMV. I really liked the GE "reveal" series incandescents, I still have a notable collection of those that are not for sale under any circumstances. FWIW the failure rate for me on the Sam's fixtures was +/- 10% but the prompt courteous exchange rate with receipt was 100%.

Do check out the lighting sticky in this section. I installed close to 125 candles per square foot in the main area of the shop, am over 50 years old, loving it.

[Bob Landel]

Tom, obviously the way to compare light fixture against light fixture, regarding light output, is to compare the lumens.

That is the only answer I was looking for. WHO MAKES THE LED REPLACEMENT BULB WHICH HAS THE HIGHEST LIGHT OUTPUT FOR 4' T12 and T8 replacements. The specific manufacturer/s and specific bulb name/#

[Brice Rogers]

I bought a bunch of LED replacements.

I opted OUT of retaining the ballasts. Why? Because they draw power, get warm, and when/if they fail, I'll need to spend perhaps $20-30 for a replacement ballast that is doing nothing. It is like buying an fake electric fireplace that requires a hook up to natural gas for a pilot light. Huh?

I cut out all of the ballasts. So all of the power goes to the LED tube.

4000 or 5000 degree K? It is a matter of personal preference. I opted for 5K.

The big box stores seem to favor direct plug in (keeping the Ballasts). But on-iine there are lots of alternatives.

What I like about the LEDs is their light is focused downward. So the sawdust settles on the side that doesn't put out light.

[tom lucas]

Tom, obviously the way to compare light fixture against light fixture, regarding light output, is to compare the lumens.

That is the only answer I was looking for. WHO MAKES THE LED REPLACEMENT BULB WHICH HAS THE HIGHEST LIGHT OUTPUT FOR 4' T12 and T8 replacements. The specific manufacturer/s and specific bulb name/#

Sorry Bob, I wasn't trying to be a smartaxx. I guess I misunderstood your question. Unfortunately, what you ask may not be so easy to attain. If one were to compile the data, say from 30 mfr, how much of it could you trust? Their LED source may also change over time, introducing yet another variable.

I just know I'm happy with my 18W from greenlightdepot.com. BTW, they have a great deal right now if you buy 25 18W, ballast by-pass type, they are only $3.99 each. Cheaper yet for the ballast compatible $3.55. I'm sure the 20W bulbs are brighter still.

They also have the "refrigerator bulbs" which do not require a fixture at all. Simply screw included brackets to a joist and wire directly. These also can be daisy-chained with included connector/sockets. I think up to 8 in a string. If I didn't already have fixtures, I would have installed this type. You can put them right where you want them.

[Alan Lightstone]

I went for clear Hyperikon T8 90+ CRI , 4000K LED Replacement bulbs. Ceiling height is 15.5 ft.

I am very happy with them. I needed more of them than I thought. The bulbs are direct wire, so the ballasts were thrown out, which was another big plus maintenance-wise.

[Curt Harms]

I bought a bunch of LED replacements.

I opted OUT of retaining the ballasts. Why? Because they draw power, get warm, and when/if they fail, I'll need to spend perhaps $20-30 for a replacement ballast that is doing nothing. It is like buying an fake electric fireplace that requires a hook up to natural gas for a pilot light. Huh?

I cut out all of the ballasts. So all of the power goes to the LED tube.

4000 or 5000 degree K? It is a matter of personal preference. I opted for 5K.

The big box stores seem to favor direct plug in (keeping the Ballasts). But on-iine there are lots of alternatives.

What I like about the LEDs is their light is focused downward. So the sawdust settles on the side that doesn't put out light.

I imagine most people prefer ballast compatible because they don't require modifying or replacing the fixture. I too removed the ballasts; why have something inline that is not required, is a potential point of failure and uses power without producing light?

[Alan Lightstone]

I imagine most people prefer ballast compatible because they don't require modifying or replacing the fixture. I too removed the ballasts; why have something inline that is not required, is a potential point of failure and uses power without producing light?

In my particular case, with the lights up so high, I didn't want the extra maintenance of the ballasts failing, and needing to get up that high to replace them. It took just about 5 min a fixture, at most, to remove the ballasts.

[Lisa Starr]

I used Tom's info and purchased LED bulbs from greenlightdepot last weekend. They arrived during the week and my husband and I replaced all the T8's in both of our workshops yesterday. 60 bulbs in total. We chose to eliminate the ballasts, so it took a few minutes per fixture to re-wire, but the improvement is dramatic!

A big thank you Tom.

[John Kee]

Download a light meter phone app that you can use as a light meter to give you an output reading. It really doesn't matter how accurate the reading is as you just use it to compare the outputs. I have 32 T8 bulbs in the shop and thought I would try some of the LED replacements. The output was 15% lower with the LED replacement bulbs. I also installed some new T8's for comparison to my 10 year old bulbs and found no output difference from old to new. I opted to replace with high output T5's in 2 locations to get better light. The T5's effectively doubled the output in these areas. I have an 11' ceiling and the light reading were all taken at working height. The LED tech is still evolving and effectively you have to replace the whole fixture when you have a failure, I'll stick with a time proven tech for now.

[Mike Monroe]

I ended up going with Satco S9723. Here a link to the specs: https://www.satco.com/s9723.html One thing I noticed when looking at T8 LED bulbs, like many things, there are really cheap ones and then the not so cheap ones. And there are many, many bulb choices out there and as many places that sell them. I prefer to purchase from established manufactures, with that in mind, I had narrowed my search down to Keystone, Satco, and RAB.

This is single end bypass ballast using 15 watts and putting out 1800 lumens. I went with the 5000k version. I have the old T12 40w bulbs so going to 15w will save me 62.5% on my light bill.

I found a place that has this bulb on sale for $5.95 (normally $10.95), add in a 10% off coupon, reasonable shipping cost and it was an easy decision.

[Greg R Bradley]

I ended up going with Satco S9723. Here a link to the specs: https://www.satco.com/s9723.html One thing I noticed when looking at T8 LED bulbs, like many things, there are really cheap ones and then the not so cheap ones. And there are many, many bulb choices out there and as many places that sell them. I prefer to purchase from established manufactures, with that in mind, I had narrowed my search down to Keystone, Satco, and RAB.

This is single end bypass ballast using 15 watts and putting out 1800 lumens. I went with the 5000k version. I have the old T12 40w bulbs so going to 15w will save me 62.5% on my light bill.

I found a place that has this bulb on sale for $5.95 (normally $10.95), add in a 10% off coupon, reasonable shipping cost and it was an easy decision.
RAB has tried to give me bulbs to try for free. It is such low end trash that we declined to even try them. Any lighting designer can look at the marketing garbage and see it is crap. With 996 T8 in one building, the scammers from RAB come by from time to time. They have a warehouse a few miles away. Satco and Keystone seem to be the same. Such low end junk that they don't even provide an .IES file, which any decent manufacturer would provide so that you can design a lighting layout. Established manufacturers? If there is no downloadable .IES file, keep looking.
There is actual good product available at about $10.00. The normally $10.95 marked down to $5.95 or the crap peddled on ebay is just a scam. Start with Unvlt.com Universal Lighting, a division of Panasonic. If you've never heard of the company 20 years ago, it is crap.

[tom lucas]

I used Tom's info and purchased LED bulbs from greenlightdepot last weekend. They arrived during the week and my husband and I replaced all the T8's in both of our workshops yesterday. 60 bulbs in total. We chose to eliminate the ballasts, so it took a few minutes per fixture to re-wire, but the improvement is dramatic!

A big thank you Tom.

You are welcome, Lisa. Glad they worked out for you. There are many right answers here.

I would like to add that LED T8/T12 replacements are not rocket science. Easy to manufacture. Easy to get good quality. So I say don't overpay for "name" brand. It's a mass produced LED purchased by everyone for every purpose.

[Mike Monroe]

Uh okay...

408495

[John Kee]

Just wondering if any of you converting to LED's actually look at Lumen output of the bulb. A typical T8 bulb is around $4.00 and puts out 2800 lumens and in my case have run 12 hours a day for the last 10 years. Mike the bulbs you are buying are 1800 lumens just for reference.

[Mike Monroe]

I downloaded the Lux Light Meter app. I'll post before and after workshop Lux readings. My day job work surface, which is in a recently remodeled office, reads at 416 Lux.

[tom lucas]

I downloaded the Lux Light Meter app. I'll post before and after workshop Lux readings. My day job work surface, which is in a recently remodeled office, reads at 416 Lux.

As part of a study of "typical office" light, using a calibrated meter we measured lux levels in many offices, conference rooms, and laboratories. As expected, there was a lot of variability. However, in general "normal office light" was in the 400's. I have not measured the lux in my shop, but the lighting is far brighter than my office. Maybe I should measure. It would be an interesting data point. BTW, sunlight consistently measured around 2000 lux. Not sure if the sensor was saturated in that case. but another data point anyway.

We also captured spectra-graphs of wavelengths between fluorescent bulbs and sunlight. Huge difference, as expected. We did not test LED lights of any temperature. That would be interesting too. I suspect there are plots available on the web somewhere, if I cared to look.