ot shop lights

Nick167

Member
Does anyone else have trouble with shop lights taking forever to turn on we have some in the back of my gma's garage I am going to use this winter you turn the switch on and nothing happens any way to remedy this?
 
You must be talking of fluorescent lighting. If it is the ballast could be going bad or you may have bulbs that need replacing if bulbs are black on ends. If you go to replace them with new fluorescent light fixtures get the ones with cold weather ballast if you live in an area that has cold weather.
 
Gave all my fluorescent tubes to the Goodwill, gutted the fixtures, drilled holes and installed plastic screw-in bulb sockets, and now I just screw in LED bulbs, or old incandescent bulbs, occassionally I buy some fancier ones, are they called CFC"s?? Some bluelight, some natural light, mixed up, instant on, no more delays or flickers.
 
Florescent lights don't like cold. The high out put bulbs will start quick at cold temperatures. Then you also need High Output ballasts.
 
I was trying them and it was 80+ outside in the winter it gets cold down around 0 at time this in in north central ohio
 
I took down my tube lights and put up porcelain fixtures and daylight twisty flourescents. Love it. Below zero they come on, a bit dimmer at first but on and get to full brightness pretty quickly.
 
I needed more light over work bench and I am trying the new fluorescet bars with the -20 degree cold start ballast. My building (40x60) is lit with quartz halogen and they are getting to be old fixture and are 30 years old and bulbs are not holding up and had one blow all the glass out of it. I just replaced it with a new LED light fixture( not cheap) but if works out I will replace the old fixtures with LED.
 
I use metal halides in the barns. They take some time to come on in hot summery nights even like like tonight and longer in winter, but when they come on, they certainly do. I used to use Mercury Vapors, but ran out of bulbs because they were outlawed and replaced with metal hallide fixtures, and I've got a lifetime supply of 150 watt metal hallide bulbs. They work pretty well too, spaced evenly about every 20' span, separate switches per fixture. I don't know what works best for anyone else, but sure know what works best for me.

Good luck.

Mark
 
As I said below I have lit a 40x60 building with 6 -500 watt quarts halogen fixtures for almost 30 years. But the last few years the bulbs are not holding up and when they burn out they also screw up the fixtures. The last one that went bad( 2 weeks ago) blew the bulb and shattered the glass lens. After talking to owener of our local ACE Hardware store I decided on a LED fixture. The store owener told me he was going to replace the old failing fluorescent fixturers in his store and it was going to cost him $22,000.00 for the whole store but he would recover his money in 5 years with LED lighting. My outdoor securty light is mecury vapor and my local electrical shop got me a bulb not to long ago but said it be the last ones he would be getting. I have tried high pressure and low pressure soium yard lights and both failed one month out of warranty.
 
Convert them to T-8. T-8 ballasts are good down to zero Fahrenheit. They won't be bright instantly when it's cold, but they'll warm up in a minute or two.
 
Nick,
I'm in N central Ohio too. I use T-5 lights. They pop right on no matter what the temp is. In the coldest part of winter they pop right on, but take a few minutes to get their brightest. That being said they are bright when turned on, but get their brightest within a couple minutes. When buddies come over they say they need sunglasses it's so bright. When I built my barn I wanted it to be bright, and talked to a friend who sells lights. He suggested the T-5's. He did a light calculation and said the brightness in the barn is equal to a classroom in a school.
 
You can get LED conversion kits for most fixtures, just do them one at a time.

Good down to any temperature.
 
I think you will find it prohibitively expensive to convert to LED.

There are conversion kits to change T12 fluorescent fixtures to use T8 or T5 bulbs. However, the cost of the kit approaches the cost of a new fixture, so it makes sense just to replace the entire fixture.
 
Could someone try and explain the difference between the T12, 8, 5? I must be brain dead because other than bulb diameter or wattage I don't get the difference
 

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