LED Lights Power Draw Measured

[Joe Jensen]

Its interesting the comments on replacing Fluorescent tubes all the time. I live in Arizona with a very hot garage. I have 36 four foot bulbs. they used to be T12 and a few years ago I upgraded the ballasts and switched to t8. I bought the troffer fixtures in 1990 used (very used) with bulbs for $10 each. those bulbs lasted a long time and between 1990 and maybe 2014 I replaced less than 12 (bought a full box and didn't use them all). I put in T8s like 3 years ago and have not had a failure yet.

I am building a new much larger shop and I am currently thinking I will go with these bulbs.

https://www.lonyung.com/displayprodu...?proID=2273585

1.5" by 1.5" by 8 feet and they connect end to end. Looks like I can do the entire shop with the right foot candles of illumination for $1500 or so. But I will need to buy a bunch of spares as I expect fallout from the chinese LEDs. Or is it silly to go with something like this. I really want low profile. Has anyone found fixtures without ballast for LED tubes? That format will likely be around a long time. But those of course will hand further out from the ceiling.

[Curt Harms]

Joe, if you're so inclined you could pretty much 'roll your own' fixtures. You can buy tombstones with a hole to be able to bolt the tombstone to a flat surface so the thickness is little more than the tombstone + wire. Something like this but with a round hole for the screw/bolt instead of square.

https://www.amazon.com/JACKYLED-20-p...cent+tombstone

[Greg R Bradley]

Its interesting the comments on replacing Fluorescent tubes all the time. I live in Arizona with a very hot garage. I have 36 four foot bulbs. they used to be T12 and a few years ago I upgraded the ballasts and switched to t8. I bought the troffer fixtures in 1990 used (very used) with bulbs for $10 each. those bulbs lasted a long time and between 1990 and maybe 2014 I replaced less than 12 (bought a full box and didn't use them all). I put in T8s like 3 years ago and have not had a failure yet.

I am building a new much larger shop and I am currently thinking I will go with these bulbs.

https://www.lonyung.com/displayprodu...?proID=2273585

1.5" by 1.5" by 8 feet and they connect end to end. Looks like I can do the entire shop with the right foot candles of illumination for $1500 or so. But I will need to buy a bunch of spares as I expect fallout from the chinese LEDs. Or is it silly to go with something like this. I really want low profile. Has anyone found fixtures without ballast for LED tubes? That format will likely be around a long time. But those of course will hand further out from the ceiling.

You are buying into a proprietary fixture that only hooks to others from the same "manufacturer". There will be 100 new manufacturers this year and 100 gone. How are you going to get anything warrantied and there will be lots of failures.
This week, I bought 4 of each chinese LED ready T8 fixtures. All the 8' were wired incorrectly with both hot and neutral to the same tombstones on on end which connect to on pin, a dead short. Nothing connected to the other end. The 4 4' had one correct and three different impossible combinations. Two tombstones but slots for one, etc. I only had to take them 3 blocks back to the distributor, but what if they had to go back to china?
21 months ago we cloned an office into another building. Instead of 12 T-8 wraps, this office got 12 1x4' flat panels from the box store:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commerci...D-G2/301637287
3 of 12 are dead with another failing. And typically, no advantage over good T-8 flourescents even if they did last the specified 50k hours. These FIXTURES are supposed to hit the trash with a 30% light loss after 50k hours. The old office uses good T-8 that last 50k hours with a 10% light loss, when they get new tubes. These LED have a little less efficiency with the less efficiency resulting in more heat. Same amount if light directly below on the desks with a bit less in cabinets and book cases at the edges of the office.
Clearly NOT my idea to go from 58 watt 5800 lumen florescents to 50 watt 4000 lumens LED.

I'm also concerned about your desire for low profile possibly meaning you have a low ceiling. If so, you need to have care for even lighting as LED tend to have narrower light patterns. Can you post the shop dimensions and layout?

[Peter Christensen]

.......I am building a new much larger shop and I am currently thinking I will go with these bulbs.

https://www.lonyung.com/displayprodu...?proID=2273585

1.5" by 1.5" by 8 feet and they connect end to end. Looks like I can do the entire shop with the right foot candles of illumination for $1500 or so. But I will need to buy a bunch of spares as I expect fallout from the chinese LEDs. Or is it silly to go with something like this. I really want low profile. Has anyone found fixtures without ballast for LED tubes? That format will likely be around a long time. But those of course will hand further out from the ceiling.

I bought the 5 foot version of those fixtures for my place. 6 for the garage and 16 for my 640 square foot shop (100 foot candles per square foot in the shop). They have been in use for 14 months without any issues. You can connect up to 200 watts worth of lights together. So in my case up to 5 lights as they are equivalent to 40 watts but I only have 4. If you wire them individually they can be dimmed, not when in a line. You get a 10" or so connector to wire to the box and to connect the lights to each other they give you a 10" cable and a short plastic connector if you want the row uninterrupted. They don't look to be proprietary to me but I haven't run around looking at others. With the cables you could bend the row around a corner. If you want longer cables tell them when you order and they will add them for a small charge. A couple bucks for a 3' one. You get some clips to attach the fixture to the ceiling, each with a single screw. I'll buy from them again if/when the time comes.

[Joe Jensen]

Here are some images of the shop footprint and the vaulted ceiling heights. The first pic shows shading where the vaults go. The yellow green has a been running up and down and the blue shaded area has a beam running left to right. The next two pics show the ceiling heights for each vaulted area. The last pic shows the footprint of the shop. There is also an 18ft wide by 7.5ft deep part of the shop on the left of the shop footprint drawing that has a lower vaulted ceiling, no details shared for that. I think it goes to about 12ft high in the middle.

trusses.jpgTruss blue.jpgTruss green.jpgshop footprint.jpg

[Peter Christensen]

My shop is 24’ x 28’ with 9’ at the low side and 11 1/2’ at the peak, much like your smaller room. I have no shadows. The light is even and very bright.

[Carlos Alvarez]

I bought the 5 foot version of those fixtures for my place. 6 for the garage and 16 for my 640 square foot shop (100 foot candles per square foot in the shop). They have been in use for 14 months without any issues. You can connect up to 200 watts worth of lights together. So in my case up to 5 lights as they are equivalent to 40 watts but I only have 4. If you wire them individually they can be dimmed, not when in a line. You get a 10" or so connector to wire to the box and to connect the lights to each other they give you a 10" cable and a short plastic connector if you want the row uninterrupted. They don't look to be proprietary to me but I haven't run around looking at others. With the cables you could bend the row around a corner. If you want longer cables tell them when you order and they will add them for a small charge. A couple bucks for a 3' one. You get some clips to attach the fixture to the ceiling, each with a single screw. I'll buy from them again if/when the time comes.

Those look great. I keep wondering why the LED fixtures are shaped to mimic the tube fixtures unnecessarily.

And no, they are not proprietary connectors, I have a bunch of those Mickey Mouse cords sitting around as they are used on various electronics.

[Greg R Bradley]

I was assuming these fixtures were plugged into each other so the "proprietary" part meant they wouldn't just plug into another fixture when these fail. I'm assuming a commercial shop so no way you are going to have exposed cords in between. Is this a hobby shop?

There are no IES files listed, a huge red flag that these aren't a serious item. Also, 80% "Lumen Retention" at 6,000 hours is pathetic. And that is their claim, not backed up by any photometric data. That is almost as bad as the Costco Feit LEDs. Now if it is going to take you a decade to hit 6,000 hours in a hobby shop that might be fine. That's 11 hours per week for 10 years. That's 1/10 the performance of good T-8 fluorescents. Even ancient tech T-12 do twice that good.

4' LED ready 2 lamp strips are $12-13 and good LED bulbs are about the same. That means $250 for 40' of continuous lighting at 1000-1500 lumens per foot. https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/200882/PLT-10916.html

[Carlos Alvarez]

The lifetime hours are a good point with shops. Many only get used a few hours a week. Mine is also a cigar lounge and general neighborhood hangout, so the lights are on more than they are off.

[Peter Christensen]

Greg you seem to have a bias against the lights and that's fine for your circumstances. You have lower costs than this side of the line because of market size. I have to add the extras of shipping, brokerage, taxes, exchange and availability that you don't. There are many US companies that won't sell to Canadians. That's why I bought the best I could find and cut out the middlemen by buying direct from China. They make most of the LED fixtures anyway and the money saved goes into other needs of my woodworking pastimes. Yup I am a hobby woodworker. My delivered costs were lower than the what you are recommending.

I bought mine because.
* I couldn't find un-ballasted fixtures anywhere on this side of the border.
* I wasn't going to get ballasted ones only to have to have to discard the ballasts. Ballasted fixtures cost more than what I bought.
* These are UL approved fixtures that the electrical contractor wiring the house would put in. He wouldn't consider anything non approved. That ruled out removing blasts from new or old fixtures.
* I didn't want to buy tubes from another source and pay as much or more that what I bought.
* Equivalent LED fixtures locally were at least 3 to 4 times the cost.
* The under 1 1/2" thickness means less hanging below the ceiling. Reduces but doesn't eliminate the chance of hitting it.

We all have different circumstances and act accordingly.

[Carlos Alvarez]

Peter, where did you buy them? I'm certainly going to get a couple.

[Peter Christensen]

I bought them through Alibaba because of their Trade Assurance Protection. Search for Lonyung LED Lighting and look for the ones you want or go to their site and look at the models there. You can buy direct from them if you prefer. The part number I bought is LY-T5SL 1500-40 and cost at the time $17.35US x 22lights = $381.70US plus shipping by FedEX for $168.00 for a total of $574.19US. I don't know what shipping would be for a couple lights. From when the order was placed to my door was about two weeks.

[Carlos Alvarez]

Huh, that part number doesn't work. If you saved a ilnk, post it, if not no big deal, I'll keep searching.

[Peter Christensen]

If you look at the T5 lights it will be in the chart of part numbers and specs for the different lengths from 2’ to 8’ (metric equivalents).

Try this link.
https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...6790457dytIKRu

There is a message box at the bottom of the page to ask questions etc. They can give you the price and what the shipping will be.

[Daniel Dupius]

There is one more benefit that LED has over florescent lights. Florescent lights flash like a strobe light. They flash at about 120 Hz (every time the sine wave crosses "zero"). Your eyes see it, but your brain cannot process the info that fast (about 100 Hz is the limit) so they look like they are on all the time. This strobe effect although not noticeable causes eye fatigue and with some people headaches. LED's are a DC device, so they don't flash and are better for your eyes.