4' LED Shop Lights In Costco?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I have no way to check this from down here but it's worth a shot. Reasonable value?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I have a driveway gate opener. Takes her 10 seconds to swing both sides open. Small driveway. When car is nosed to wall there is a meter clearance to the closed gate. Mexican screen door on the house. Probably weighs 100 pounds. Not screen it is perforated sheet metal. Sucker would probably stop an anaconda.

It's not the lighting in the dining room as it is my weak eyesight. I can look straight into these "100 watt" eqvt bulbs from 3' away without dazzle. The kitchen has a 35 watt corn light. The walls are white and I may be the victim of Chinese BS as far as power ratings and wattage is concerned. Here in bed' away the 100 watt eqvt standard LED bulb forces me to light up the screen on my kindle.

[Gdetrailer]

ford truck guy wrote:
Gdetrailer


Now that's a good looking garage !

3 and a half stalls wide, with a extra half stall behind one of them..

She's a beast.. Only wished I made it deeper behind all the stalls!

Plans started out to eventually build out over top of the new garage to expand the house.. After a while we decided that the house was big enough and making it bigger was not worth spending good money on..

Kind of the main reason we have those huge steel beams and 2x12 framing on top of the beams, those are two mobile home frame I beams welded together.. for each of them.. On the plus side, no need for any posts in the garage to hold the roof up.

[ford_truck_guy]

Gdetrailer


Now that's a good looking garage !

[Gdetrailer]

dougrainer wrote:
I guess some on this post use the 4 foot Shop lights for light and connect to the Garage door opener light socket with a screw in adapter. One thing I found out the hard way is, REGULAR 4 foot Shop lights use to much amps if you connect more than 2 bulbs to the light socket on the Garage door opener. It can burn out the control board or the light socket from use over time. Now, I use LED 4 foot shop lights. I have 2 LED 4 foot dual light fixtures connected to my each Garage door opener. About 160 watts, less than 2 amp draw and the light is great. I am a big fan of ALL LED lights. Less current draw which does not overload circuits in the house. The LED's I have do not have those little LED squares that are visible like glue on LED light strips. Doug

Doug, may be true of some garage door openers which use "solid state" relays (IE Triac based). Some garage door openers also use real mechanical relays (mine does, I can hear the relay click on/off).

4ft T12 Fluorescent fixtures with 40W bulbs could easily exceed the solid state relay specs if you ganged two or more fixtures so I could see that being a problem.

My garage door openers stated to not exceed 75W per lamp holder.. I used to use 14W CFLs, now I am using 14W GE "brightstik" LEDs which are rated equiv to 100W incadescents.. The 14W CFLs fit under the front plastic cover, the brightstiks didn't so out went the covers..

[Gdetrailer]

LED retrofit bulbs are an improvement in lighting..

I don't doubt that those non relampable "shoplights" will "work", but to myself, over the yrs I have learned that it is BETTER to buy fixtures which CAN be "relamped".

Had multiple outdoor light fixtures fail over the yrs that were never intended on having the lamp replaced.. Or used "proprietary" hard to find special bulbs with separate ballast.. More than once the failure was the ballast and out into the garbage with the entire fixture.

I make it a point to never buy any more non relamplable fixtures or fixtures which have special bulbs or ballast/driver that cannot be replaced. They build those fixtures as cheap as possible to entice folks to buy entire fixture at a low price point instead of buying a fixture with a replaceable lamp.. Down the road when the non relampable bulbs start failing you will be buying entire new fixtures (which won't "match") and paying a premuim price.

Myself, when one LED bulb fails, I can simply replace ONE bulb at a lower cost than replacing entire fixture.

LEDs DO, AND CAN FAIL and those non relampable LED shoplights WILL eventually fail.

Anyway, I did want to add a few photos of my LUX meter from my garage lights..

Light meter is sitting on a 4ft tall ladder.

First one is the brightness of a 4ft with T12 fluorescent bulbs shoplight..



471 LUX is the reading directly under the fixture.

Next pix is taken under one of the 4ft shop lights which I used Hyperikon conversion bulbs..


1145 LUX directly under the fixture!

Next is just basic "bare" Edison screw in LEDs in the garage..


24 LUX (had hard time seeing this threw the camera eyepiece)

Next is all LED shop lights turned on and meter is in the same spot as the Edison bulb photo.


568 LUX average light, not bad at all!

Pix of garage with all shoplights on..



Looks garage look like "daylight" inside even late at night with all lights on..

[Bionic_Man]

I bought lights from Costco, put them all through my attached garage, detached garage, and storage room in my basement. Also put some in my fathers motorhome garage. They do no interfere with out garage door openers. Had them for a couple years at this point. I have no complaints about them.

Costco LED

[dougrainer]

I guess some on this post use the 4 foot Shop lights for light and connect to the Garage door opener light socket with a screw in adapter. One thing I found out the hard way is, REGULAR 4 foot Shop lights use to much amps if you connect more than 2 bulbs to the light socket on the Garage door opener. It can burn out the control board or the light socket from use over time. Now, I use LED 4 foot shop lights. I have 2 LED 4 foot dual light fixtures connected to my each Garage door opener. About 160 watts, less than 2 amp draw and the light is great. I am a big fan of ALL LED lights. Less current draw which does not overload circuits in the house. The LED's I have do not have those little LED squares that are visible like glue on LED light strips. Doug

[Gdetrailer]

wopachop wrote:
5000k isnt so bad in some rooms. My trailer has tan wallpaper on the walls and ceilings with dark wood cabinets. I tried both warm and cool and was surprised how the 5000k actually looked warm when it reflects off the tan walls. The warmer color was much too warm.

5,000K IS not all that good, especially inside your home type of use.

Remember the old "mercury vapor" outdoor lamps?

Yeah, those are around 5,900K color temp and have a very poor CRI..

SEE HERE

Color temps as they go up get extremely harsh, 5,000K and up will throw hard shadows and will get pretty uncomfortable to be in after a period of time.

I have worked under HID "unshaded" HID lamps in a warehouse/manufacturing setting, those lights threw hard shadows, reflected hard off of monitor screens making my job miserable for yrs.. Management over time get fed up with everyone complaining about those lights and replaced them with banks of 6 bulb T8 4ft 4,000K fluorescent fixtures, life was much better!

Some folks don't seem to mind, I am not one of those folks..

I have also found for myself, working in 5,000K color temps requires considerably MORE lighting (bulbs). I found that out when relamping my garage with 5,000K curly CFLs.. Bought some 27W 5,000K CFLs to replace 23W 3,500K CFLs.. The garage actually appeared DIMMER when done, even my DW remarked that it was like a "dungeon"..

The 5,000K bulbs got pulled and the lower wattage 3,500K bulbs put back in and life was much better.. The 5,000K bulbs ended up getting relegated to my "outdoor" lights around my property..

Even used as outdoor lights they were not worth wasting the extra electricity over.. I should have taken them back to the store and gotten my money back.. Just about done with those 5,000K lights and the replacements are 4,000K LEDS which brighten the yard considerably.

Heck, I have been avoiding buying a new vehicle with LED headlights, the Halogens are bad enough for distance for my eyes, I wouldn't be able to drive at night at all if I HAD to depend on LED headlights.. For some reason everyone insists the 5,000K-6,000K LED headlights are "better".. Not for me, seems my vision is much better at night with 3,500K-4,300K..

Part of this can be due to some color blindness that tends to run in my family. My Dad was color blind in the blue-green area, mine seems fairly normal as I haven't really run into any major issues but my DD (surprisingly since color blindness tends to affect males more than females for running in family) has difficult time seeing certain hues of green and blue. Some hues of green looks blue to her and some hues of blue looks green to her.

Worked with a guy that had color blindness pretty bad for green, to him, the green light on the time clock when punching in looked GREY..

Color blindness doesn't always mean that you can't see any color at all..

[wopachop]

5000k isnt so bad in some rooms. My trailer has tan wallpaper on the walls and ceilings with dark wood cabinets. I tried both warm and cool and was surprised how the 5000k actually looked warm when it reflects off the tan walls. The warmer color was much too warm.

[RickLight]

Basic shop lights are a low end, commodity product. Sure you might save a few bucks with one source or another. In the long run though you'll get what you pay for.

I'd never put 5000 kelvin in a my house/rv/shop or probably even in a warehouse. The only reason would be to match very blue/north sky lighting. Or to save a tiny amount of energy. Very blue LEDs are a bit more efficient than warmer colors.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Harbor Freight Chula Vista had such bad people control I refuse to return.
I'll check Costco. I use a disabled cart which buys me some space.

Since I didn't build the critter I will accept a poor lifespan. Mine are single chip 50 watts consumed mounted on surplus computer heat sinks with fan. They do need a power supply. And overhead mounting is a hassle. They have a color index of 88. Whatever works. I am out of 36 volt power supplies.

[TurnThePage]

I put 4 of these Harbor Freight 4' LED shop lights in my garage last year. Love 'em! The whole garage is fully lit up better than ever. No interference with TV, stereo, or garage door.

[Gdetrailer]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
I have no way to check this from down here but it's worth a shot. Reasonable value?

Only "reasonable" IF, you don't mind that the "LED bulbs" are NOT "replaceable" and when the LEDs start dying, you ultimately will have to replace the ENTIRE light fixture..

AND, if that isn't enough to discourage you, they also only "reasonable" IF you LOVE the 5,000K color temp with very poor CRIs of 70 and lower..

Those fixtures are pretty much the bottom of the drum scum for quality and value which is why they can sell you an entire fixture for such a discounted price..

Will they "work"? Sure, but for how long and what is the light quality and efficiency?

If you already have 4 ft fluorescent fixtures you can "relamp" them with LED replacement "bulbs", while more expensive, you keep existing fixtures and you can buy the bulbs in the color temp the suits you!

The replacement 4ft LEDs can fit T8-T12 fixtures and if you have fixtures with T8 electronic ballasts you may not have to rewire (remove the old ballast) although for best efficiency removing the ballast is most energy efficient..

Here is some pix of the ones I have been buying..







4,000K color temp with CRI of 85+ clear lens HERE (4 pack for $41 ($10.49 each), expensive? You bet..

Worth it to be able to pick color or replace just the bulb? You bet!

You can also buy with a frosted lens for things like open shop lights (I would recommend using frosted lens in open lamp fixtures).

Hyperikon offers 3,000K, 4,000K and for those folks who really have to have the "blues" 5,000K and 6,000K temps..

The bulbs are also available in 2ft, 3ft, 4ft lengths and perhaps a few others although the health crisis of late has made finding these a bit difficult at times..

I have nearly relamped every 4ft light fixture in my home and even in my garage (I actually ADDED more new T8 fixtures in my garage that I used LED retrofit bulbs in)..

Costly up front?

Yep, not gonna lie about that aspect, but facing the fact that the last T12 fluorescent bulbs I bought were so junky that they often would just quit lighting after a few months of use!

But I can tell you that so far, I have not had any issues with Hyperikons, the oldest I have is in a bathroom fixture, I was replacing T12 Bulbs every 6 months, so far the Hyperikon LEDs in that fixture are now going on 5 yrs of use with no failures.

I am highly skeptical of most LED stuff huckestered out there after getting highly burnt on some big name brand (CREE) 10 yrs ago that were insanely priced that couldn't make it past 3 months of use.. So it took me a while to get up the courage to try a second dive into LEDs (but not Cree brand) or "Feit" brand (another brand that I got burnt on with Fluorescent lights that is sold at every discount chain).

[theoldwizard1]

About $20 "on sale". Great value ! I had to buy some chain to get them mounted lower.

For people with older garages with a couple of bare bulb fixtures, remove the fixture and replace it with a octagon duplex outlet plate adapter. Plug your you new shop lights directly in.

[OH48Lt]

I like the FEIT brand from Costco, have bought about 24 of them, only have 3 left. Paid 19.95 each on sale. They are 4000K color and 4000 lumens. Use them in my barn, works great. Was at Costco in Perrysburg OH yesterday, wanting a few more. Looks like they no longer carry that brand at that store, but do have another brand that is 4000K color and 4600 lumen, so a bit brighter. But, they also have a motion-sensor which is worthless for my application, and they are $30 each. I have had great luck with the FEIT brand, will wait and get them elsewhere, or on the Costco website, when they go on sale.