[BugHunter]

There's been a few threads here discussing lights, and I've chimed in with several of the types I've purchased lately. Well, I've been installing a new type in my shop where I"m removing T8 Fluorescent lights I bought about 11 years ago to replace T12s then.

I calculated then that certain lights which run 24/7 (night-lights) would pay for themselves in one month. Quite an illustration of how inefficient T12 8' bulbs really were. So, roughly I calculated that by changing those lights in the shop I saved about $27,000 in electric bills over the 11 or so years.

So, I had a new roof project done here which amounted to quite a lot more than 'just' a new roof. New foundations, structure, and all. Lighting has been a nightmare as that wasn't part of the contract. There's only so much money to go around so I saved a ton doing this myself. And will save for many years to come as it didn't get permitted as a new building, it was just a roof repair. In any case... I put in a bunch of high-bay lights and I'm pretty happy with them. But, I wanted to keep the old (11yr old) fixtures and use them still, and I didn't want to buy ALL new lights for the place. So I decided to swap over to LED bulbs when raising the fixtures from the old 14' height up to the new 23'. At a minimum I was going to put in all new T8 tubes even if I didn't switch to LEDs, but the cost was so cheap now I decided to just do it.

So for just over $5/bulb I bought new Line Voltage LEDs that you remove the old ballast and just power them from one end using 120V-277V. NICE! So I bought 50 to start and decided to get the ones with just a bit more lumens for another few cents per bulb. Ended up around $300 Shipped for 50 of em. Then I had to buy a bunch of new tombstones for these which are non-shunted. My old ones would not work. I got those on Ebay 40/bag. Didn't realize when I bought them I only needed 1 per bulb so I bought 120 of em... I'll be doing lots more so no big deal.

Finished up the first part of the building earlier today and wow is it nice now. On a meter these run about 14.8 watts per bulb, so less than half of a T8 fluorescent which is 32w each. I suspect these will last longer, but fact is I took out bulbs with 2011 install dates so it's going to be a while before I say these lasted longer.

Went to 1000 bulbs for the bulbs. https://www.1000bulbs.com/fil/products/209893

Ebay for the tombstones. https://www.ebay.com/itm/172817087751

Kept the same fixtures, just replaced one tombstone for each bulb, removed the old ballasts and stuck the things back together. These bulbs are available double ended, but I suspect if you did that you'd need to replace both of the tombstones because the old would have both pins shorted and you'd make a lot of smoke when the power came on.

I'll post a pic or two shortly.

[BugHunter]

They also have cheaper ones at $4.53/bulb (25 / carton). https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/210628/PLT-90032.html

Might be some pricing snafu but they have ones with more lumens than mine for less than I paid 2 weeks ago.
https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/22277 ... 20111.html

[BugHunter]

IMG_20220302_184214733 - Copy.jpg (230.37 KiB) Viewed 3260 times

[William Payne]

People don’t realise how efficient LED’s are. I have LED’s in my shop and house and it’s funny to think that all the bulbs in my house combined use the same wattage as the one of the incandescent bulbs I used back in the day.

I can’t say in overly sentimental towards lighting unless I’m going for an aesthetic look or something so it was an easy decision to swap for me.