High CRI Workshop LEDs

[Alan Lightstone]

I've been spending tons of time looking for high CRI (>90, hopefully 93-95) LED bulbs / fixtures for my workshop build.

I'm having a real tough time finding LED tube fixtures with high CRIs (looking for 4000-4100K fixtures).

I can find Edison base bulbs or floods with high CRIs, but linear lights (which I think would create far less shadows in a workshop) seem difficult to find.

Any suggestions?

[Allan Dozier]

I got all my strip lights from Bees Lighting as well as my high bays. You will really pay a premium, as you have probably found, for 90 CRI over 80 CRI. Here is one option I saw on a quick search for 90 CRI:
https://beeslighting.com/cree-ls-led...S4-40L-35K-10V

I ordered these for my shop: https://beeslighting.com/search?page...categoryId=702

But I needed so many I needed to keep the expense down and they are half the price of the 90 CRI. They are up and running and I am very pleased.

[Paul F Franklin]

Consider having just one area of your shop lit with the high CRI lamps. You'll save a lot of expense and still have an area you can use for grain matching or color matching. Spend the saving on increasing overall brightness, which will be a benefit to everything you do in the shop.

[Bob Bouis]

My suggestion would be to retrofit T8 fixtures for the LED t8 replacement tubes. You can get 92 CRI "hyperikon" bulbs from Amazon that are very good -- highly efficient and quite cheap (~$10 each). Rewiring is pretty straightforward.

I replaced some T5HO fixtures with T8/LEDs recently and, for the same electricity useage you get 1.5x as much light. Very nice.

[Alan Lightstone]

My suggestion would be to retrofit T8 fixtures for the LED t8 replacement tubes. You can get 92 CRI "hyperikon" bulbs from Amazon that are very good -- highly efficient and quite cheap (~$10 each). Rewiring is pretty straightforward.

I replaced some T5HO fixtures with T8/LEDs recently and, for the same electricity useage you get 1.5x as much light. Very nice.

Which are the 92CRI Hyperikons? I could only find 80 CRI ones.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Alan...try this one at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Hyperikon-Dua...ulbs+CRI+90%2B


It shows a CRI of 94.

[Bob Bouis]

Yeah, that's the ones. IIRC they were 92 when I bought them. The march of progress.

[Lane Hardy]

I replaced all of my T8 floucent tubes with led lamps at 5400k my shop is very bright, I removed the ballast also. If I had it to do again I would select led tubes with frosted lenses the light is diffused and scatters the light Better in my opinion I have both frosted and clear lenses, the clear lens lamps really jump out at you visually from a distance. The frosted lenses do not do that.

[Alan Lightstone]

Alan...try this one at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Hyperikon-Dua...ulbs+CRI+90%2B


It shows a CRI of 94.

Thanks. Odd that you do better finding retrofit bulbs than new fixtures.

[Allan Dozier]

If you are building new then I would not go with retrofit and buy separate empty fixtures. Good point by Lane about diffusion. I wanted frosted covers and plenty of fixtures so there are no shadows. My goal was a very minimum of 100 footcandles (about 1000 lux) at workbench height. I ended up with quite a bit more than that but wouldn't want a drop less.

[Alan Lightstone]

It will be for building new. What are good fixtures with high CRI LEDs then?

Are having LED tubes better than multiple downlit floodlights (cheap and easy to find high CRI bulbs, but I would think shadowing would be terrible)?

[Bob Bouis]

The LED t8s shoot light at a bit less than a 180 degree angle. But you can turn the bulbs slightly in the fixture if you want the light to skew to one side more. If you have a lot of them the light gets diffused pretty well. I guess it just depends on the fixture.

Splitting the lights into multiple, standardized tubes means you have a huge selection of fixtures and you'll always be able to get replacements if one fails prematurely. The standardization also makes them much cheaper than dedicated fixtures. And because they're so popular, you know what you're getting from the many reviews. I wouldn't go with anything else.

[Bill Adamsen]

As Alan mentioned ... if designing from new just be sure to work backwards. How much light do you need at the top of the workbench? I went with 2500 lux in the shop and don't regret it at all. I would just assume 90+ CRI is required, which annoyingly I have not been able to find to replace my T5HO florescent.

[Thomas Crawford]

What color temperature bulbs are good for a workshop? I'm thinking 3500-4000 or so?

[Alan Lightstone]

What color temperature bulbs are good for a workshop? I'm thinking 3500-4000 or so?

I settled on 4100K for my workshop, but I'm interested in what others use.

Still working on the shop, so not up to lighting yet, unfortunately. I'd still love any links to high CRI LED tube bulbs. Still haven't found any great ones.