LED Disc Lights for Shop

[Mark Kuzee]

I am building a new home and I need to get a plan together for lighting my shop which is 25 by 16. It has a 9foot ceiling and will be drywalled and painted. I'm a hobbiest but I am a man of a certain age (64 ish) so I appreciate a nice light.

I will have a garage door at one end if that matters.

I was the Disc LED's by our lighting designer.

Has anyone had experience with that arrangement? Upsides/Downsides?

I have not been shown a plan yet (light layout) but I will be able to get that in a few days.

I guess my question is regarding the workability of these lamps in a shop environment.


Thanks,

Mark

[David Gutierrez]

Need more info on the LED light and layout? did the lighting designer provide a photometric plan? that would give you light distribution in lumens. Hard to comment with out more info.

[Mark Kuzee]

As I stated, there is no layout plan available.
My question is more about if anyone has had any experience and what that has been.

[Thomas Bank]

Is Disc LED a product name? I’m not familiar with them and a Google search turned up a variety of different products.

[Mark Kuzee]

Is Disc LED a product name? I’m not familiar with them and a Google search turned up a variety of different products.

I have little experience but I think it is just a generic name.

They are just a small fixture that mounts on and mostly in a standard electrical box. One of those round boxes I assume.

Thanks

[Thomas Bank]

Without a specific fixture, it’s impossible to give you any input. As I said, Google gives you dozens of different items when you plug in “Disc LED” for a search.

[Jim Becker]

I have little experience but I think it is just a generic name.

They are just a small fixture that mounts on and mostly in a standard electrical box. One of those round boxes I assume.

Thanks

I have them in our master bedroom closet and am putting one over the new shower in a mini bath renovation. They do not, IMHO, put out enough light for a shop situation, especially with 9' ceilings, unless you use a whole lot of them. It would be much more cost effective to use the LED "tube" type fixtures that replace typical shop lights. I recently retrofitted my shop with these and it's like being in daylight. (I have 8' ceilings just for reference)

[Bill Adamsen]

The Jack Lindsey article (Lighting the Small Workshop) linked to from the "Shop Lighting" stickylink in this forum is great for estimating the required lumens. Lumens, temp, CRI ... you can do a pretty good job with a pencil and paper for estimating your needs. I followed the guidelines and while I'm still using T5HO, I love the lighting and everyone that comes into the shop comments on just how easy it is to see and work. My calculations for my shop indicate an illumination of ~2500 lumens per meter square (lux) with six T5 HO bulbs per fixture and six fixtures.

[Mark Kuzee]

I have them in our master bedroom closet and am putting one over the new shower in a mini bath renovation. They do not, IMHO, put out enough light for a shop situation, especially with 9' ceilings, unless you use a whole lot of them. It would be much more cost effective to use the LED "tube" type fixtures that replace typical shop lights. I recently retrofitted my shop with these and it's like being in daylight. (I have 8' ceilings just for reference)

Jim,
Thanks. That is the type of info I needed. I know that the lamps come in different Lumen ranges but it still may not be enough to illuminate the space.

[Jim Becker]

Jim,
Thanks. That is the type of info I needed. I know that the lamps come in different Lumen ranges but it still may not be enough to illuminate the space.

I love these round fixtures for utility...they are so much better than the original CFL fixtures that were in our closet for sure. But for the shop...."light is really important".

There are more than several threads in this Workshops forum area about lighting and LED lighting.

[Mark Kuzee]

Jim,
Yes there is no shortage of info regarding lighting but little about LED Disc lights for a shop.

Thanks for your thoughts.
Mark

[Jim Becker]

Agreed...AFAIK, you're the first to ask about "LED disc lights".

[Alan Lightstone]

I have an entire home basically lit with halogen 50W MR-16 lights. You can imagine my electric bills.

I've been trying for 2-3 years to replace them with LED replacements. It would save me a fortune in electricity. They are in round downlight fixtures. I have returned every one I have tried, and I've tried a lot of them. Their light output is just a fraction of the original halogen ones, and their CRI is way too low and they just down provide enough light. But I keep checking, and one day they will be great.

One issue in a workshop, is that unless you have many, many of them, they throw shadows everywhere. Not really optimal for a workshop, to say the least. I agree with the other posters. I would go with LED strip lights.

[Curt Harms]

I have an entire home basically lit with halogen 50W MR-16 lights. You can imagine my electric bills.

I've been trying for 2-3 years to replace them with LED replacements. It would save me a fortune in electricity. They are in round downlight fixtures. I have returned every one I have tried, and I've tried a lot of them. Their light output is just a fraction of the original halogen ones, and their CRI is way too low and they clear just down provide enough light. But I keep checking, and one day they will be great.

One issue in a workshop, is that unless you have many, many of them, they throw shadows everywhere. Not really optimal for a workshop, to say the least. I agree with the other posters. I would go with LED strip lights.

I just bought a couple R20 lamps from our local Ace hardware to replace the PAR20 halogens in a range hood. I'd never heard of R20 but figured I'd buy a couple and try them. I wanted dimmable and those were proving elusive. The difference between R20 and PAR20 appears to be about 3/4" -1" in length, the R20 being longer. But HOLY COW are they bright, really too bright on high setting. 1 lamp instead of two is about right. I'm going to use these in a bedroom light bridge where more light is better and get a couple PAR20s from Home Depot. I hope they're the right length and not as many lumens.

The lamps from ACE are labeled Greenlite LED Sleek. The label says 550 lumens light temp. 3000K. I don't know that these are normally stocked, I don't see them on Ace's web site. I think this is it:

http://www.greenliteusa.com/en/shop/...r20-sleek.html

Ace had 'em for $3.99 ea. The web site calls them BR20, the package says R20.

[Jim Becker]

I"m with Curt...most of the MR16 Halogens in our house have been replaced with LED and it's more light. Same with the PAR20 CFL --> R20 LED replacements in the master bath...instant on, brighter and better color temperature. The only place I had to "deal" was in the kitchen as the original MR16 halogen fixtures have transformers that just don't work with MR16 LED lamp replacements due to their age and design. There, I had to carefully "remove" the old "new work fixtures" and install new "old work fixtures" that could work with LED lamps. If the fixtures were not going bad, I would probably have stuck with the halogens for awhile, but I was getting increased failures and had to do something.