Model Engine Maker

Supporting => My Workshop => Topic started by: GWRdriver on April 03, 2013, 08:00:37 PM

Title: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: GWRdriver on April 03, 2013, 08:00:37 PM
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has begun to use LED lighting in the workshop and how that has worked out.  I need to improve the task lighting around my machines and I figure that is the next step.  Please feel free to school me.
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: tvoght on April 03, 2013, 08:20:28 PM
On the taigtools mailing list I'm subscribed to, there has been a lot of discussion in the last couple of days about these LED lamps from Ikea:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20169658/

Comments are positive. I'm thinking of trying a couple myself. The price seems right.

--Tim
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: Tennessee Whiskey on April 03, 2013, 08:26:22 PM
Harry, our business was hit by a tornado on 1-30. You might have seen it on channel 5. We replaced all our lighting with LED. The light is amazing and these are just 4500 lumen. Four 4ft. Fixtures pull less than 3 amps. The light is just pure, no tinting or hazing. I have T5 fixtures in my shop and they may be a little brighter, but, they aren't as easy on the eyes or the meter.

Eric
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: b.lindsey on April 03, 2013, 08:36:36 PM
Tim, I got a couple of those a whilei back and they are easy to aim with the gooseneck and provide good concentrated but not general light. The only issue I have had with one of them is that the switch doesn't always make good contact and makes the light dim at times, I need to put a new inline switch on it or just buy a new one for $9.99 :)

Bill
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: Kim on April 04, 2013, 03:06:30 AM
Tim, I have a couple of those Ikea / Jansjo LED lights too, and I really like them. They are small and easy to move around, and I can point them where I want and they stay.  I've got one with a base and a clip-on one.  For my bench top machines, I find the one with the base is the one I used most. It has a longer goose neck and seems to work best in most of my situations.  I've been meaning to pick up another one!

Bill, Interesting comment on the switch.  One of my lights is sometimes dim, and sometimes bright.  I figured it was a loose connection somewhere, but never thought about the switch!  I'll have to play around with that.

Kim
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: bp on April 04, 2013, 04:07:36 AM
I've been using a clip on Ikea light on the mill, for a few months now.  Very good, well worth the money, thinking of getting one to replace the light over the lathe, which has an incandescent bulb.  Probably will change over when the bulb blows!!
cheers
Bill
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: swilliams on April 04, 2013, 04:19:11 AM
Wow those IKEA lights that are only 10 bucks in the US cost 30 bucks at IKEA here in Aus.

http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/60169661/ (http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/60169661/)

Talk about price gouging  :rant:

Steve
Title: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: ths on April 04, 2013, 04:49:29 AM
Just like apple, adobe, and all those other companies that don't deserve a capital letter. Problem is, Steve, instead of manning the battlements and boiling the oil, we keep shopping!

Hugh.
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: swilliams on April 04, 2013, 07:08:47 AM
Problem is, Steve, instead of manning the battlements and boiling the oil, we keep shopping!

Hugh.

Too true Hugh  :(
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: PeterE on April 04, 2013, 06:25:15 PM
I have started to use the IKEA Jansjo lamps as well. I selected the long goose neck ones as I felt that they could be fixed well away from the job area and still be possible to be close enough.

The one for the C3 lathe I fixed to the splash back as described here: http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,7235.msg77516.html#msg77516 (http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,7235.msg77516.html#msg77516)

... and the one for my SX1L mill described here: http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,7789.0.html (http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,7789.0.html)

Having used both for a while I am totally pleased.

BR

/Peter
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: TerryWerm on April 06, 2013, 06:47:59 PM
Too bad they are only available at the store, not available online.  I've got an Ikea about 30 miles away but very rarely get up that way. Guess I'll just have to keep it in mind for the next time I do.
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: CliffH on May 09, 2013, 07:35:28 PM
The Jansjio is £10 here - that's about $20
CliffH
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: GWRdriver on September 01, 2018, 04:22:28 AM
It's been a long time . . . and I'm just now beginning to catch up on the board .. but I'm happy to be able to post a follow-up report on what I ended up doing on my workshop LED re-lamping which I finished earlier this year.

After visiting a number of LED-lit work environments I found that most of them were too hot (too much "K"/Kelvin) for my eyes, so based upon that experience I decided on a K-range of 4000K (min) to 5000K (max.)  I also decided to rewire my 4-bulb T12 fixtures for "direct wire" (mains power - no ballast) LEDs, as the old ballasts had died, or soon would.
I soon discovered that only one of the electrical distributors in my area (USA) carried any direct-wire bulbs, a single 5000K bulb, so I bought one as a test which proved to be too bright and blue.  After an online search I found a supplier of reasonably priced 2350Lumen/4000k T8 x 48" LED bulbs.  (The brand is "TopStar", product number #L48T8-840-18P-G4-BP.)

Two additional 3-bulb ceiling fixtures were added as fill-in lighting and all fixtures were re-lamped with the T8 LEDs and Wow! what an improvement!  The light color isn't far above that of conventional "daylight" fluorescent tubes, just more of it, and it's very easy on the eyes.  In hindsight I probably could have used a 5000K bulb and not been blinded, but if I had, the Lumen count would have been less and I'm very happy with what I have.

As a part of this re-lamping job, and after being ignore for more than two decades, I decided to dismantle and thoroughly clean all the light-reflective surfaces and lenses of the fixtures, all of which had become dirty or yellowed by heat or whatever florescent lights emit.  The improvement in reflectivity and light transmission was immediate and amazing and was well worth the time spent doing it.

All in all a very successful conversion and for the technical record I now have about 145 Lumens/F² on the benchtop.  :ThumbsUp:
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: 10KPete on September 01, 2018, 05:21:03 AM
I am thrilled to have that data from an actual user!  My optimum change time will be next spring. I'm too cheap (broke) to pull good lamps out of service... :hammerbash:

Pete
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: Jo on September 01, 2018, 06:19:12 AM
My optimum change time will be next spring. I'm too cheap (broke) to pull good lamps out of service... :hammerbash:

I'm still of the view that I need the lights on in the workshop in the winter when I also need to heat the workshop: the old lights using extra power are actually a distributed low power (55W per tube) heating system that supplements the localised heat from the storage heater ;)

Jo
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: GWRdriver on September 01, 2018, 09:31:12 PM
Pete,
I'm very happy to hear that my experience may have some benefit for others . . . that's the whole point innit?   Here are a few additional notes and details of my installation and in the interim some things may have changed:

The reason only one direct-wire LED tube was available locally was because they had no demand.  According to one supplier, very soon there would be a wave of LED re-lamping, but at the moment building owners/occupants were choosing to keep existing ballasts as long as there was any life left in them.  The benefits of change-over had not yet become greater than the cost of doing away with ballasts, so there was no demand.  That may be different in your area.

Googling "TopStar #L48T8-840-18P-G4-BP" will take you to online distributors for TopStar, and the closest one for me was in Atlanta.  The other benefit I discovered was that this particular 4000K bulb was rated for 2350 Lumens which was significantly more than the typical 5000K bulb.  Fixture rewiring was a doddle, and there was something cathartic about ripping all that old stuff out of the fixtures.  Rewiring to "direct" was done with the existing wire and tombstones (the plastic lamp holders) although in some light fixtures the tombstones would have to be replaced or modified.  For direct-wire LEDs  power is fed from only ONE end, the far end is dead.  There is a ton of instruction online, but you have to be sure to keep the terminology straight because a lot of that instruction is how to install LEDs to work with existing ballasts.  Different animal than direct-wire.
Also, I had to purchase a "case" quantity of 24 pcs, but that was OK as I had 22 slots to fill.

I can't emphasize enough that thoroughly cleaning all the light-reflective surfaces and lenses of the fixtures was time very well spent.  I used various common kitchen & bath cleaners and In a couple of places, where the white paint had been yellowed by Ozone (or whatever) beyond retrieval, I shot the reflectors with Appliance White rattle-can paint.  Operation is silent, no hum, no buzz.

Now for what has changed . . . a year or so I was diagnosed with cataracts which sometime in the future would require surgical correction.  I'm OK for the immediate future, but recently I talked with a couple of friends who had this surgery done and they said "It was like someone came into the room and turned on the lights."
Hmmm . . . maybe what I needed was to have my eyes done, and not the LEDs?  Nah!  I want them both.
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: 10KPete on September 01, 2018, 09:46:58 PM
More good info, Harry! I've had cataracts removed from both eyes and other than the usual issues with having the correct specs made everything is sooo much better. Get it done sooner than later. If you're retired then Medicare pays for all.

Out local stores just don't have anything yet plus to get at most of my fixtures I will need to move stuff to get at each one. So that slows me down.

Thanks,
Pete
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: zeeprogrammer on September 01, 2018, 10:32:54 PM
I'm glad to get this information too.

I'm using task lighting and somewhat satisfied with it but the overall shop lighting is crap.
Another case of not listening to inner self. When we renovated last year (and I got a shop!) I wanted more lighting but the contractors convinced me I less was more.

The more light you have the better you can see. It's not about the light so much as it causes your eyes (irises) to close up and things are more sharp. Much like a lens.

Ever use just a hole in a piece of paper as a magnifying glass?

Hm.  :thinking: Was this discussed on this forum?
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: GWRdriver on September 02, 2018, 02:24:52 AM
Our local stores just don't have anything yet plus to get at most of my fixtures I will need to move stuff to get at each one. So that slows me down. - Pete

I had to deal with that in a couple of areas also, but I managed work-arounds without too much difficulty.
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: Ye-Ole Steam Dude on September 02, 2018, 01:15:12 PM
Hello every one,

Thanks to this thread I decided to buy some LED shop lights instead of the old florescent lights. Went online and found these units at Lowe’s and they are perfect for my application. They are 4-foot long and have a pull chain switch for the On / Off and they come pre-wired with a 115v plug. Even with the existing lighting in my shop there was not enough good light at either the Mill or the Lathe, I would have had to use a gooseneck at each station. Now as you can see from the photos I have really good lighting at both stations.

The only drawback is I might have to wear sunglasses while machining.

Thanks guys for all the good information shared on this thread.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: Kim on September 02, 2018, 04:27:22 PM
That's excellent, Thomas!  You can never have too much light :)
I added a bunch of LED lights with my recent shop renovation.  They are noticeably brighter than the high output florescent that I use in the rest of the shop.  Even considered replacing the old ones.  But I decided to wait till the tubes start going.

The 8' LED fixtures that I purchased have no ballast and are direct wired, but the bulbs are 'built in' to the fixture. There is no replaceable LED bulb.  Guess I'll be replacing the whole fixture when those LEDs start going.  I didn't realized that when I purchased them, but that's what it is.  Found that a bit odd, but they work very well.

Kim
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: Ye-Ole Steam Dude on September 02, 2018, 04:56:29 PM
Hi Kim,

The box that the lights came in state "No bulb" , intergrated LED. I can not see any way to replace the "bulbs" so I assume if and when the LED's burn out that you simple replace the entire fixture. No problem, the unit only cost $30 and LED's are supposed to last a really long time. The light is really clean and white and as you can see, lights up the equipment really well. I think I will replace the 8-foot units in the center of my shop when the bulbs burn out.

Have a great day,
Thomas
Title: Re: Workshop and Task LED Lighting
Post by: Twizseven on September 02, 2018, 07:35:53 PM
About two years back I replaced all my workshop lights with LED.  I had 10 off 8ft fluorescent lamps but the tubers were all going.  A friend of mine whose business is industrial lighting came to have a look and said I could used way less lights due to the increase in power of the LED.  I like my light where where they are as they act as worklights over each machine so I replaced 10 fluorescents with 11 LED. IIRC they are 48 watt 5Ft vapour proof IP 65 rated lamps.  The lighting is fantastic.  I rearranged the switching so I can be more selective over which lamps are on or not on.  I can now work for instance at the bench with one single lamp lit rather than the previous 3 lamps.  I have to say it wasn't cheap at around £85 per lamp.  Thing is there are no shadows.  I still need some minor task lighting but that is down to cr.p eyesight.

Because all my lamps were 8ft there were no LED conversions available for them.

Colin
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