Shopsmith Forums

I have began a program of upgrading my garage shop lighting. Since I need to keep costs down and really don't want to have to do any rewiring I have decided to start replacing my old 4' fluorescent with new fixtures and move from the old T12 40 watt bulbs to the newer T8 32 watt bulbs.

I have chosen to go with the daylight 6500K bulbs which I find are a lot more "white" then the shop bulbs that I have been using. I guess I'll get use to it.

The new sets claims to start down to zero. Since my shop is unheated but attached it has never ever come close to being that cold but it does on some especially cold days drop below freezing. Today it is 36 so while not warm enough to do much woodworking I was able to do a bit of the lighting getting up two fixtures with bulbs. If I warm up enough I might do the one remaining fixture I have on hand.

I have a total of 9 fixtures in the garage at this point, I've funded for doing 5 of them this year... one of which will be added at a new location. Then next year I can complete the job.

Power wise I have made a couple of changes that should help, first the fixtures I'm adding have local shutoff so in the cases where the power switch will turn on multiple lights I can now pick which one(s) in the set are on or off. The 9 fixtures are responsible for 720 watts if all on. The new bulbs even with the addition of one more fixture will only need 640.

Not going to pay for itself in a while but then what ever does....

Ed

Ed,
Did you switch out the whole fixture? I guess you did cause t-8 won't fit a
t-12 fixture. Duh! Not only are they brighter and use less power but, they DON'T HUM!:D

Isn't it funny that new fixtures don't put out as much light as they did when we were 25 years old?

Ed:

You have made an excellent choice. The old magnetic ballast T-12 fixtures have a lot of downsides. Not only do they flicker and hum, but since they operated at 60HZ, they have been known to create a visual strobe effect on rotating machinery.

The electronic ballast fixtures operate at 21,000 HZ - thus no hum or flicker or strobe. This frequency is above the human audible and visual range. Probably more important for us woodworkers is to look for bulbs with the highest color rendering index, so we can see the true colors when finishing and matching wood. The "daylight" bulbs that I purchased have a CRI of 86 (100 is the match for natural light. "Cool white" bulbs are cheaper, but are an inferior choice.

I try to go with the highest lumens. I have a window in my shop so I check color at the window but I want maxium light output. Biggest bang for the buck so to speak. I agree the T8 lights are head and shoulders above the old T12's but they do cost more also.

Anybody use protectors for their flourescent lights?
I haven't broken a bulb yet, but I have bumped the fixture when handling a long piece of wood. I've seen plastic tubes to slide over the bulb. I guess that would minimize the stray pieces of glass on the floor, but I don't think they would provide much protection to the bulb.
I bought some plastic egg crate type material and used safety wire to hang it from the fixture. It works but looks sloppy - the plastic is so flexible it sags. I may have to spend more than I want to buy commercial grade fixtures.

Just an FYI - I work at a Home Depot Store here in TN and right now there is a 4-foot T8 electronic ballast fixture with the shade on clearance for $16. It normally sells for 21.95. It is called "Red Steel Shop Light" These are not hard wired fixtures but have a cord with plug and the small chains to hang them. I have them in my shop and like previously mentioned, the cold does not cause the flickering you experience with the magnetic ballast. Don't know how long they will be in the stores as when things go on clearance they don't get restocked and usually are quick to sell.

All of the flourescent fiqtures in my shop have covers over or I suppose under the bulbs is more accurate. A neighbor is a fire safety whiz and pointed out that no flourscent fixture is safe without those covers. He went on to say an exploding floursecant bulb can do a large amount of damage to ones eyes or even skin.

I just replaced 2 of my T-8's because the ballist went out ,the ones at Home Depot had a two year warranty on them so that was good for me. they also were rated cold weather zero temp. but they say the cold is still hard on them.

wgander wrote:Anybody use protectors for their flourescent lights?
I haven't broken a bulb yet, but I have bumped the fixture when handling a long piece of wood. I've seen plastic tubes to slide over the bulb. I guess that would minimize the stray pieces of glass on the floor, but I don't think they would provide much protection to the bulb.
I bought some plastic egg crate type material and used safety wire to hang it from the fixture. It works but looks sloppy - the plastic is so flexible it sags. I may have to spend more than I want to buy commercial grade fixtures.

The covers for the bulbs are used more for your protection against busted glass than protecting the bulb from breakage.
I work in retail and we have them in our frozen cases for that reason and also keep little fingers from getting burnt.

I can see the benefits of containing the broken glass, but I was told that the covers were to help contain the mercury, so as knot to contaminate the area in case of a breakage.