I have 4' led 4000k shop lights over my layout. Each fixture uses only 40w.

They come in 2 packs and can be found at most hardware stores. Mine were around $50 on Amazon.

You can link up to four of them together, each one has an outlet on the side.

Way better lighting than any flourescent, no blue tinge throwing off colors or photos.

I bought three 2 packs for my 12x20 train room.

If your fixtures are in good shape, you could just replace the tubes with LED's. Just watch the color temp ratings, (deg K) on the replacements. If your existing lights are cool white, then 4100K LEDs will match. If you want to go warm white, then 3500K or lower are a good option.

Depending on the type of retrofit tubes you buy, you may need to re-wire the fixture by removing the ballast.

Fixture replacements are readily available if you want to go that route. Many options available including dimming and color changing via bluetooth and a smartphone app.

Bob

I recommend against the ones that attempt to leave the ballast in place.  Many times, the thing that is going bad is the ballast!  I had a ton of 4' florescent lights in my previous house, and the ballasts were dropping left and right after about 25 years in place.  I ended up replacing them with the LED's that require rewiring, they were great and way brighter than the old florescent bulbs were.  As a bonus, the LED tubes I bought were dimmable, so I could control the light intensity.  The rewiring is pretty simple, and I was lucky that I already had the non-shunted tombstones so I didn't have to replace those.

Note to John's comment.  Dimmable tubes usually take dimmers designed for that application/fixtures.

I took my last remaining fluorescent fixture down last year. It was in the laundry room and didn’t want a big remodeling expense so I just bought a similar LED fixture on Amazon. Wiring was easy and it fit in exactly in the area of the old fixture. The big plus was the nice bright light in comparison to the fluorescent AND no ballast hum.

@Mike CT posted:

Note to John's comment.  Dimmable tubes usually take dimmers designed for that application/fixtures.

Not the ones I bought, they connected directly to the power and any LED compatible dimmer worked fine with them.

The fixtures are solid state fixtures from Home Depot. The fail regularly. Fixtures are just hung from the rafters with the chains supplied. Any new fixtures and bulbs to be avoided?

On the big online retailer I bought the following in May 2021.  It has worked great.

FaithSail 4FT LED Wraparound 40W 4 Foot LED Shop Lights for Garage, 4400lm 4000K Neutral White, Wrap Light, 48 Inch LED Light Fixtures Flush Mount Office Ceiling Lighting, Fluorescent Tube Replacement

@gftiv posted:

The fixtures are solid state fixtures from Home Depot. The fail regularly. Fixtures are just hung from the rafters with the chains supplied. Any new fixtures and bulbs to be avoided?

What fixtures are you talking about.  If you're talking about the solid state ballast, those are junk!

I replaced all my fluorescent tubes with Toggled LED tubes from Home Depot.  Comes with everything you need to make the switch.  Very simple to do.

I also used Toggled LEDs from Home Depot. As Lehigh74 said, they have everything you need to convert the fixture to LEDs and get rid of the ballast, very handy. They are also dimmable. Cost was about $20 per fixture for either 4000k or 5000k at my local HD.

Fluorescent – thing of the past. Can’t find bulbs, flicker in cold weather, spare tubes take up space, housings are too bulky. Can’t get rid of the tubes.

These are bright and plug together. Just bought 4 of these at Sams Club...

Honeywell 5000 Lumen 4' LED Metal Shop Light (White Finish)

Item # 980353238

Model # SH450505Q185

CURRENT PRICE: $17.98ea.

Link - https://www.samsclub.com/p/hon...64?xid=plp_product_5

@SIRT posted:

Fluorescent – thing of the past. Can’t find bulbs, flicker in cold weather, spare tubes take up space, housings are too bulky. Can’t get rid of the tubes.

I recently tried to give some brand new, unused tubes to the local hardware store.  They wouldn't take them, but the guy told me a trick to make disposal safer.  There is a soft spot on the ends between the prongs.  Stick an Ice pick / scratch awl on the soft spot and tap it with a hammer.  That breaks the vacuum so the gas won't fly around so much when the tube is broken.

Done that using a 2lb hammer inside a garbage can half covered. No need for extra work these days or flying dust particles from the gas.

I stepped up into the 2020"s, LOL!

Last year I converted mine using the Halco 10-pack of LED ballast bypass replacement tubes that Home Depot sells. The thing about these is that you have to label the fixture for future lamp replacement as one end becomes the hot and the other the neutral. They give you stickers to accomplish this. But I hope to never need to replace them.

Another thing is that it did not seam that much brighter, but I later learned that LED tubes are more directional (i.e downward),  whereas the fluorescents have light that reflects from the fixture and the ceiling.

Yes, the solid state ballasts are junk. I am going to replace bulbs and fixtures. Do it right so i do not have to mess with it Again.

Curious if others have changed fluorescents to LEDs as part of improving command signal quality in the train room.  The hypothesis is stray radio frequencies put out by the fluorescent tubes.  I have more than 20 4-foot 2-tube fixtures in the space including lounge and storage room spaces.  Did that for myself several years back, both to end the slow loss of light intensity, regular replacement cycle problem with fluorescent tubes, and as part of problem-solving trains that lost their communication with the command base, mostly MTH as I recall but may have included some TMCC as well.  I think it helped with some of the mysterious communication dropouts.  Other simultaneous efforts make it hard to be sure of the cause-effect relationship.  Have others had similar experience?

Yours is not the first  time I've heard about the fluorescent lights causing RFI, so it's not surprising.

Replacement 2 X 4 fixture is an LED flat panel.  Note: 2 x 2 fixture pictured.    Down side, to LED fixtures, there is little service,  only replacement. 

@Lehigh74 posted:

I recently tried to give some brand new, unused tubes to the local hardware store.  They wouldn't take them, but the guy told me a trick to make disposal safer.  There is a soft spot on the ends between the prongs.  Stick an Ice pick / scratch awl on the soft spot and tap it with a hammer.  That breaks the vacuum so the gas won't fly around so much when the tube is broken.

Yes but the coating on the inside of the tube is still hazardous and should be disposed of properly. Even the green-capped lamps still contain mercury as well.  Fluorescent tubes are managed under EPA and DEC guidelines as universal waste and must be disposed of by a certified recycling facility. Same for the old magnetic ballasts. The really old ones contain PCB's too!

check with your local municipality for proper disposal rules.

Here in NJ they schedule several household hazardous waste drop off days in each county. When I converted all the 4 ft tubes in my basement took them and a lot of solvent based liquids to drop off. Very convenient, you don't even have to get out of the car. Also take propane tanks and old car batteries.

I replaced all my fluorescent tubes in the attic & in my basement where my layout is with led's i just cut the wires from the ballasts & left them in the fixture ,no need to worry about how to get rid of them ,my bulbs are powered from just one end ,very easy to do .

After looking at the big box store for LED lights, I find I know very little about the new LED lighting. I was looking at the T8 hybrid lights. What are they? I have hanging fixtures (chains) that I want to replace.

Is there a standard 4 foot LED bulb? More than 1 type?

Is there a good source for information on 4 foot led lamps for a newbie?

I replaced the hanging fluorescent in my garage with the LEDs below, bought from the big online retailer.  Search for;

5000K LED Shop Light Linkable, 4FT Daylight 42W LED Ceiling Lights for Garages,...

I like the plug in the end, I attach a fan to it.

UPDATE:  The ones that @SIRT pointed out are a LOT cheaper!

Sam's Club is blowing them out at 18 bucks ea. Just bought 4 more Honeywell's the other day.

Only about 40 left at my store.

5 YEAR WARR. Save the receipt & 1 box. just in case. Due to China, buy some extras. I bet once they are gone, they are gone forever like our train stuff.

Amazon has a selection of T8 -4' led bulbs ,both single ended power & double ended power ,as i have stated above i use the single ended bulbs ,if you are comfortable working with electricity it is very easy to do .

@gftiv,

Did you come up with a solution?

No solution yet. Going to Menards today to look.

Regarding RFI of fluorescent vs. LED shop lights, some time ago I replaced my door opener controlled shop light fixture in the garage with an LED light. I purchased the LED light on the large online retailer, and they were NOT the cheapest lights available.   Suddenly I started to have garage door opener problems - I could open the garage door as usual but could not close it unless I was very, very near the door.  I finally tracked it down to the LED light interfering with the door opener signal. I could open the door as usual because the light was off, but once the door was opened the light was on and the signal was degraded. I have Homelink in our cars, which is probably pretty common.   Converting back to the old fluorescent fixture cured the problem.  Obviously not all LED lights are created equal when it comes to RFI.

Regards, Dale

@Pennsylover posted:

Regarding RFI of fluorescent vs. LED shop lights, some time ago I replaced my door opener controlled shop light fixture in the garage with an LED light. I purchased the LED light on the large online retailer, and they were NOT the cheapest lights available.   Suddenly I started to have garage door opener problems - I could open the garage door as usual but could not close it unless I was very, very near the door.  I finally tracked it down to the LED light interfering with the door opener signal. I could open the door as usual because the light was off, but once the door was opened the light was on and the signal was degraded. I have Homelink in our cars, which is probably pretty common.   Converting back to the old fluorescent fixture cured the problem.  Obviously not all LED lights are created equal when it comes to RFI.

Regards, Dale

Was this a typical 4-foot 2-tube shop light LED fixture, or a different kind of LED light fixture?  Hoping it wasn’t a 4-foot shop light, that would throw a wild card into this topic for sure.

It was a 4 foot shoplight. I had it hanging on the ceiling and plugged into the door opener motor so it would throw more light in the garage than the usual two screw in bulbs.

Regards, Dale

I have replaced two Double tube fixtures over the train table. Menards had 36 inch single tube type LED lights at $16. Probably the same type as Costco. 5000 lumens, 4500K color. They are throw away when they die.

Light is a little harsher than the flourescents and a bit brighter. More directional the the flourescent, Should last for ten years with my usage.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

I recommend against the ones that attempt to leave the ballast in place.  Many times, the thing that is going bad is the ballast!  I had a ton of 4' florescent lights in my previous house, and the ballasts were dropping left and right after about 25 years in place.  I ended up replacing them with the LED's that require rewiring, they were great and way brighter than the old florescent bulbs were.  As a bonus, the LED tubes I bought were dimmable, so I could control the light intensity.  The rewiring is pretty simple, and I was lucky that I already had the non-shunted tombstones so I didn't have to replace those.

Agreed if you are going to replace the bulbs, it’s time for a full upgrade. Because if the ballast is not failing now, the electric gods will make sure they do soon after.

do it once do it right.

Sometimes we have to leave that old, inefficient junk behind and step into the 21^st Century.

@SIRT posted:

Sometimes we have to leave that old, inefficient junk behind and step into the 21^st Century.

How is the light diffusion compared to the fluorescent tubes? Are the LED's more directional?

I've seen some that are just flat panels (like the 2' x 4' ceiling tiles) and seem to spread the light well. They replace the entire fixture so may be a lot of work to install in a grid ceiling.

                                    Best lighting I ever seen. You be the judge...

                                                              BEDROOM

                                                                GARAGE

Light color is a part of lighting.  Most common florescent tubes are Cool White (CW). A variant of Cool White is Daylight, a close to natural sunlight.  For those, who wish to avoid the harsh, work day, office florescent look, there is Warm White, a more pleasant, (red glow) lighting. IMO.  Tube color usually dictates higher price.  The colors follow the LED, revolution. LED can also be purchased, different colors.   

I'm with @Mike CT- color temperature is very subjective and does have a major effect on what our brains interpret as color.

I run the facilities department at a University, all of the lay-in fixtures we buy now come with a set of dip switches to set color temp. One fixture can go from 3000K up to 5600K. We have found that most people prefer 3500K in today's office environment.

The bad part of LED fixtures is there's no re-lamping anymore. If the fixture dies, then the whole thing needs to be replaced. I've probably changed more fluorescent lamps and ballasts over my career than I could count, which I always found frustrating. I'm still on the fence if swapping a whole fixture is better than re-lamping.

Here's a good comparison. When I was putting a building together a while back I shot some pictures on my bench. I have 3500K overhead lights and a task lamp that's 5600K (all fluorescent). The wall on the left is under the 5600K light., right under 3500K.

Both under the same light

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yours is not the first  time I've heard about the fluorescent lights causing RFI, so it's not surprising.

All LED's create RF and as the bulb/LED warms to operating temp the interference goes down. We had this with a remote control (RF) turn on the overheads lights and the transmitter could not overcome the interferences. 5 min latter all was ok, depends also on the manufacture.

@BobbyD posted:

How is the light diffusion compared to the fluorescent tubes? Are the LED's more directional?

I've seen some that are just flat panels (like the 2' x 4' ceiling tiles) and seem to spread the light well. They replace the entire fixture so may be a lot of work to install in a grid ceiling.

Some are pretty directional and problematic without a diffuser.  In a finished fixture, either surface mounted on ceiling or in a drop ceiling recessed fixture, when there is a diffuser panel, they provide a good spread of light in my case.  With surface mounted fixtures spaced 6 feet apart or so, light looks pretty uniform. There is more directly under a fixture when you need it, but the general light level is very good.

Surface mounted with side diffusion has an advantage.

Over the past year we have changed over to LED in several of our buildings.  The buildings that have suspended ceilings with drop in fixtures we simply cut the ballasts loose.  You can then connect all the wires on one end coming from the tombstones to the hot and all the wires coming from the other end to the common.  This requires LED bulbs that are duel ended.  A lot of bulbs today come combined duel and single ended.  With these fixtures that have a diffuser, you can use bulbs that are clear (you can see the LEDs).  Our tenants seem to prefer 4000K bulbs.

In the buildings with 8' strip fixtures, cut the ballast and wire hot to one end and common to the other.  We generally use 4000K bulbs where you cannot see the LEDs.  If we are doing a warehouse we use 6000K clear bulbs.  The light is great.  You should also install the little clips in the center of the 8' bulb so it does not sag.

I get all my bulbs on Amazon where the price is far lower than going to a regular store.  I personally do not think much of the 4' all in one fixtures the big boxes sell.  They are cheaply made and non repairable it seems.

I have yet to purchase tombstones.  Personally don't see the point.  Using 3500K bulbs largely gives you the same lousy light you get from the old style bulbs but if you are into really soft lighting I suppose it works.

The big difference is in the electricity usage.  While LEDs do draw power, as opposed to running the old style fixture, they draw nothing.  Take out the heat the old bulbs and ballasts generate as reduced load on your A/C and the savings really grows.

I purchased my lights on econolight.com.  They may be a bit more expensive, but they are higher quality lights than you will find at the home improvement stores.

Replaced the lights 8 years ago.  2x4 drop in lights and it is light night and day in the room.

Here is a picture with the old fluorescent lights

Another shot with the fluorescent lights

Here is a picture with the new LED lights

Here is a shot that captures some of the LED lights in the ceiling

I have to say that the conversion to LED lights is the best money I have spent.  The room was much darker with the fluorescent lights and looks better with the LED lighting.

As above, I replaced 2 four foot Florescent bulbs with one 3 foot LED fixture. More light, Almost too much.

Any comments about paint color fade with LEDS?