4' LED Shop Lights In Costco?

Hmm..

Light socket like this?



GU24 twist lock base..

Ran into that junker on a fixture I bought for a closet light.. Hated the bulb that came with it for yrs, couldn't find many bulbs that would work with it other than low wattage CFL spirals..

Found this item which allows me to install any Edison based bulb, life is much better now :B



Camera and TV? Yes, it is possible to do that.. I had considered trying that setup for my Dad, he had advanced Macular degeneration and was nearly blind in both eyes..

Ultimately and unfortunately, because he also had advanced Dementia I came to realize that he was not going to be able to mentally process how to use it :( before I committed to putting the idea together.

Several ways to go about this. You can buy a HD webcam, connect that to your PC and then connect PC to the HDMI input of the newer TVs..

You could possibly skip the webcam and PC part and dig up a early version HD camcorder. On HD camcorders they often had a micro HDMI output connector so with proper cable you could hook up directly to a TV with HDMI connection..

You could try any of the newer digital cameras, some had HDMI output connections. Just be aware that most digital cameras have a power save feature which turns the camera off after a few minutes of non use, haven't found any way to disable that on the cameras we have..

The are also commercial made camera/monitor devices with high magnifications already on the market for this purpose to assist folks with limited eye sight but they are costly.. I have seen a few on Craigslist used and they were asking $700-$1000..

I first need to get my hands on electrical bulb socket adapters that change a socket into a receptacle. Keyed 2 slots. It's nuts. They just don't have them down here. Over the years I must have looked in 50 hardware stores and high-end electrical supply houses.

I want a fixture across a pair of cabinets bracketing the stove and sink. Then in the to-be workshop, I am ready to actually build from my stockpile. But the big chips will take a Meanwell 36 volt power supply and another hideously expensive order of Arctic Silver. I am an OEM for the product. I'll bet two strategically placed 50-watt chips would light up that 15x15 room. I don't use a driver because they horribly underdrive the chips. I set the ma across the junction to summertime ceiling ambient heat minus .3 volt then monitor ma usage on a meter. Shooting the P/N temp directly while adjusting the voltage lets me know where the critical threshold is. 109 watts actual AC draw will be tolerable energy wise. The Pentium 5 spiral heatsinks with fan are difficult with these big chips. Their edges lay out onto the fins. Hence, the silver epoxy rather than tapped screws.

The kitchen fixture may be used an hour a day total but the workshop lights may stay on for 5-6 hours a day so maybe Costco is the best choice. I can always return them and claim I don't like the way they part their hair, and get a refund when they die.

My next project was inspired by gawking at the interior of a hospital surgery room at the giant screen the heart surgeon uses. I would need a 42" screen connected to an overhead focusable camera. Might even be enough to compensate for clumsy fingers. I have no idea what monitor to use. TV or computer. The camera would be mounted on gimbals, pull. Twist, shove, then focus. Do I really NEED to waste money on a contraption like this? Hell no. But being wheelchair bound, I get tired of reading. I hate television. I want to remain creative and continue to help people with remote off grid ranchos. Instant light via battery, solar panels and LED lighting is a life-changing improvement.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
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.

Mex, pretty much any of the 4ft "shoplights" will be much brighter than a "100W equiv" light.

As you can see from my Lux readings two 18W 4ft LED replacement bulbs are more than twice the brightness of two 4ft 40W T12 fluorescent bulbs. I would highly recommend never looking directly at the LED fixtures, they are like having the "sun" directly in your eyes.

If you compared T8 fluorescents it wouldn't be as much of a difference since T8s are more energy efficient and brighter than T12 bulbs but still the LED replacements would still be brighter than T8s.

Comes down to how you feel about buying non relampable fixtures that WHEN the LEDs in them start dying you WILL have to replace the entire fixture instead of a single "tube"..

If you don't have fixtures then buying non relampable would be cheaper now at $20 per fixture, but down the road, you will have to spend another $20 for a complete new fixture.

Where in my case, I will spend $10 for one "tube" although I spent $15 for each fluorescent fixture and $10 per tube so I have $45 in each fixture. But down the road, I will not have to remove and replace the entire fixture and repairing will cost $10 for the tube that quit.

I don't really trust those highly discounted cheap non relampable shop lights to have a long life after dealing with bunches of inferior LED lights that flooded the market. Which is why I settled on reusing existing fixtures by retrofitting.. And where I wanted more light, I bought T8 fluorescent fixtures and retrofitted those to LED. Not to mention relamping existing fixtures makes my future relamping fast and cost effective.

But, hey, not everyone is willing to step up to the plate with better color selection and lower future replacements but they are willing to sacrifice quality and life for the cheap price upfront, I get it..

Mex, I know you are a perfectionist and a tinkerer so I am not sure you will be satisfied with a non relampable fixture but that is your call.. You might be able to tear them apart and relamp with your own choices down the road but seems like it would make life easier down the road to have a "plug and play" easily replaceable lamp..

I have 12 of them in my shop for lighting. work awsome, more light than the 9 150 watt incadecent bulbs I have in there at a fraction of the power. they are "white" and colors are repersented pretty good. I have had them in there for about 3 or 4 years now when they first brought them in.

Steve

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.

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.

Gdetrailer


Now that's a good looking garage !

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..

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..

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