Lighting Upgrade

When I first set up my shop, I didn't know much about lighting.  I bought the cheapest florescent shop lights I could find.  Although they did produce light, they were slow starting in cold weather and some of them buzzed like a swarm of angry bees.  I only bought a few at a time, as my perceived budget allowed, and I ended up with several different styles.  Some had decent size reflectors while others had smaller or no reflectors at all.

The other thing I didn't understand was what type of bulbs to buy.  I looked at my lights this morning and could see that some bulbs were brighter than others and some even appeared to be slightly different colors.

Recently some of the lights have started to fail.  A couple of them will only light one bulb now and the buzzing was beginning to get on my nerves.  I had heard that changing to electronic ballasts could improve cold weather starts and eliminate the noise.  So I started pricing ballasts.  After some research, I found that I could buy a complete light with an electronic ballast for about the same as I could retrofit my existing mismatched lights.    

I found these at Menards

I bought one of these a couple of months ago to try out.  I also picked up a pair of 6500K T8 bulbs.  these were the brightest bulbs available and I could see an instant difference when installed along side my existing lights.

The bulbs I like.

The next time I was at Menards, I checked to make sure they still stocked these lights.  Not only did they still have them but they were on sale.  I brought home five more lights and a box of a dozen bulbs.  In hindsight, I should have picked up 10 of the lights.  But, I had been on a bit of a spending spree that weekend and the lights were an afterthought so I cheaped out.  Oh well, I'm sure they'll go on sale again.

Lights and bulbs ready for installation.

When I set up the shop, I put outlets in the ceiling about every five feet down each side for lighting.  So the first thing I did was pop the end cap off of one of the lights to see if I could shorten the cord.  Turns out the wires hook into the back side of the circuit board where you can't get to them and the board was mounted with rivets.  I considered drilling the rivets out and forcing my will upon the unruly cables but decided it was more trouble than it was worth.  Instead, I opted for some simple cable management.

 

The lights have a small depression down the center that acted like a trough to lay the excess cable.  I used some twine to keep the cable under control and in the trough.  This trough also gives the excess chain a place to lay when the lights are hung.

Chain hanger / wire loom.

The clips that connect the hanging chains to the body of the light worked out perfectly.  I was able to put the cable through them side-by-side.  This grips the cable well enough to keep it from moving but not tight enough to damage the insulation.

New light on the left outshines an old one.

Old lights on their way to a new home.

Some of the old lights will end up in my Dad's garage.  Even though these aren't great, they're still better than nothing and the price is right.

I decided to add an extra fixture above my bench in the center of the shop.  This really brightened thing up at the bench and helps eliminate my shadow getting in the way.  I will still keep a swing arm desk lamp on the bench to help with close detail work.

Lights both high and low.

Still photos don't really capture the difference the new lights make overall but if you look at the old lights at the far end in the photo, you can actually make out the bulbs.  The new light in the center of the shot is so bright that you can't even make out the shape of the bulbs through the blinding light.  Awesome!