Adding to and upgrading shop lighting

[Elcam84]

Well have a new project in the shop and I am spending allot more time in the shop (66 mustang build) Torn down to the shell lots of welding etc...

I have Ok lighting in the shop. I have 5 8' t8 fixtures and 3 4't8 fixtures. I have more 4' fixtures to hook up still.

Right now My lighting circuit is pulling 5.4 amps which is lower than the calculated 7.3 ish assuming all were 32 watt bulbs. All lights have electronic ballasts. The 8' fixtures are about 10 years old maybe more and even though they are electronic ballasts they take forever to warm up to full brightness in anything under 80*.

My plan is to replace the 8' bulbs with direct wire bulbs if I can find a fair price on them. Usually the LED replacements for them cost as much as new fixtures or more. The 4' fixtures will get direct wire LED tubes as those are dirt cheap now.


I will be using 5k color bulbs if I can find ones that are actually 5K as most are usually closer to 4K. I am also adding around 4 fixtures that I already have and probably adding more fixtures later on. Will recoup the cost of switching everything over to LED... Not really but It's more of an upgrade of better color lighting and much more lighting and trying not to increase amp draw too much.


I will update whenever I make some progress. What I really need is an efficient air compressor as that's the big amp draw followed by the 2 ton window AC unit..

[Daox]

Sounds like fun (the mustang and the light upgrade)! I've wanted to go with LED lights for years, but just haven't gotten to it myself. I look forward to updates.

[pinballlooking]

"66 mustang build"
Very cool, we want pictures!

[jeff5may]

I bought a few of the self contained stick lights over the winter for the garage. I was considering going with retrofit tubes, as everyone and their brother has the old fixtures up for grabs on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace for next to ( or absolutely) nothing. The local rural King store had the single and double fixtures in closeout for a lot cheaper than the retrofit tubes, so I bought a few. They work well, and you can string them end to end like Christmas lights. About the same time, my wife bought me a little cob floodlight that was a halogen shop light equivalent. Everything works great! Grand total: about $25.

[Elcam84]

Well I had great plans but everything got in the way.... This summer was extremely hot as in we had our last 101* day on the 6th of october. Yes 2 days ago... Went from 101* in the afternoon then the front finally pushed the high pressure away and it dropped to 58* by morning. We haven't seen temps under 78* in months.

So being that hot then other stuff then catching the bug along with horrible allergies then we were on vacation in Greece and now finally getting back to normal....


Here is a link to all the pictures of the car. I will be getting back to assembling the new front frame rails etc very soon. I need to finish building my body cart so I can get it high enough off the ground to work under it IE weld and sand blast underneath.. https://ibb.co/album/kAffFa


Here it is being pulled out of my friends building.(christmas eve last year)

[IMG][/IMG]



And basically where it is today. Old accident damage up front so it all gets replaced.
[IMG][/IMG]



As for lighting I put a bunch of these in my friends new shop and they are working quite well for the price. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Outdoor Limited]

Thnkyou for sharing!