LED shop lights

[ElvisBruski]

LED guru's, I need some advise on LED lights for my shop. I have a 40x60 with a 20x60 lean to. The shop has 12ft ceilings, I've been looking at various LED lights that are compareable to my metal halide's, I want to be sure to purchase the type that will put out the same amount of light because they are not to cheap.

[AnAppleSnail]

Dialight makes the ones we use. Do you need plug n play or.could you part together LED/driver/heatsink?I made a 4x XM-L light for my aquarium. Active cooling, smaller than a 4 oz soup can, and about 4000 lumens, $60 budget. But plug-and-go lights come with warranties and guarantees you won't burn the place down. Be sure to consider relamping costs.Have you considered T5 fluorescent lights? They're more efficient than most fluorescents. What work do you do? final assembly, painting? What lux levels have you got?

[purduephotog]

LED guru's, I need some advise on LED lights for my shop. I have a 40x60 with a 20x60 lean to. The shop has 12ft ceilings, I've been looking at various LED lights that are compareable to my metal halide's, I want to be sure to purchase the type that will put out the same amount of light because they are not to cheap.

Goto Home Depot and pick up the 6 tube silverized reflector T8 bulb system they have for 82$. It puts out as much as a 400W metal halide, all down, and draws around 250 ish watts. For better efficiency you can upgrade the ballasts to a 1.0 or 1.1 bf, but that'll drive up the cost by another 100$.

LED, in this case, is not a good choice- you probably want more light. Now, for spot lighting applications (such as a grinder, drill press, saw, etc) LED with a lense is a perfect choice.

[blasterman]

While there are some decent LED downfiring bay lights the cruel reality is that right now about 95% of them are less efficient than fluorescent baylights and cost a lot more. Pretty sad when LED retrofit bulbs are beating LED based shoplights in terms of price / efficiency ratios because you have a wallet and some lighting maker pays their marketing dept more than their engineers.

To add to what Purduephotog said, I've seen 4x48" shoplights on sale at said Home Depot for less than $50 with electronic ballasts and bulbs. That's ~8,000 or more lumens at ~70 lumens per watt legit for less than $100. I'm not sold on T5 *unless* you have a need for high power densities or are willing to spend extra money on a hyper efficient T5 reflector to get the most photons from them.

[purduephotog]

While there are some decent LED downfiring bay lights the cruel reality is that right now about 95% of them are less efficient than fluorescent baylights and cost a lot more. Pretty sad when LED retrofit bulbs are beating LED based shoplights in terms of price / efficiency ratios because you have a wallet and some lighting maker pays their marketing dept more than their engineers.

To add to what Purduephotog said, I've seen 4x48" shoplights on sale at said Home Depot for less than $50 with electronic ballasts and bulbs. That's ~8,000 or more lumens at ~70 lumens per watt legit for less than $100. I'm not sold on T5 *unless* you have a need for high power densities or are willing to spend extra money on a hyper efficient T5 reflector to get the most photons from them.

Wall Puck at Grainger was listed at 327$- and put out less light than the 6x T8. I was really shocked at the prices being demanded.

[brickbat]

I need some advise on LED lights for my shop.

My advice: Avoid LEDs. Purdue has it - go with T8 fluorescent fixtures. They're efficient and inexpensive. What more do you want?