Enjoying 6600 lumens of bright white light.

[Mark_Larson]

So i was reading the other thread with the really bright and really expensive full-spectrum flourescents and decided i needed a new room light (my tubes are on the way out)

So i went to Menards and they had a sale on their cheap shoplite for $ 5.xx (with magnetic ballast of course). I also picked up the Sylvania Deluxe Cool White model for $ 6.39 - $ 3.00 MIR. That's about the same as the "Plus" model.

The specs are 3300 lumens, 80 CRI and 4100°K color temp. The plus model has 3000 lumens and 70 CRI. The Sylvania Daylight model has 2160 lumens and 88 CRI. I feel my purchase is the best compromise.

Wow! The room is tranformed - its not this bright in daylight! (I have a transparent plastic sheet over my window and my blinds stay closed [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img])

Colors also look much better, although that may be due to the much higher brightness level - if i switch on my old shoplite, there is no noticeable difference in room brightness! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

So for less than $ 12 i've transformed my room from a dull place to a bright one. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[jtr1962]

Nothing like fluorescent lighting to really brighten up a room. I had a similar transformation in my bedroom going from two 6500K daylight tubes on a magnetic ballasted fixture to four 5000K full-spectrum tubes on an electronic ballast. It literally looks like I have a skylight in the room at night.

I'm guessing colors look better because your new tubes probably have a higher CRI than the old ones, and also because of the higher brightness levels. Most people only light kitchens and work areas brightly so they never have a chance to experience how nice other areas of the home look with decent lighting.

My 77 square foot workshop is lit up with 14,000 lumens. When the GE Chroma 50s in two of the shoplights go I'll replace them with 5000K tubes giving about 60% more light. The total lumens in the room at that point will be about 19,000. Considering that I do very close work on circuit boards, I actually need to light at this level.

[woodsman]

I know what you mean. I just replaced the two 40 watt bulbs in my ceiling fan with two 100 watters. I then replaced the adjoining bathroom lights from three 60 watters to a 100 watter and two fluorecent screw in type 150 watt (equiv) 42 watt actual bulbs. Now I have around 10,000 lumens in there. A huge difference!!

[Mark_Larson]

My room is pretty small, so i don't know how much brighter i can take it without running into diminishing returns.

[PsycoBob[Q2]]

I had a garage-sale find: a 4-bulb incandescent lamp.
Got 4 26w CFL's at Big Lots, and now I've got the equivalent of 400w of incandescent lighting. Best of all, the CFL's turned out to be the 'cool blue' variety. I detest the 'warm' versions: 'If I've got a neat light, I want it to be fairly obvious.

[jtr1962]

I hate the warm versions myself. What's the point of trying to imitate an incandescent anyway? It would be really funny if the reason CFLs never caught on was because the people who wanted to buy them didn't care for warm light, and those who liked warm light were happy with incandescents.