Layout room lighting w/ LEDs


MikeOwnby

MikeOwnby

Active Member
I just though I'd share something in case it comes in handy for anyone. I've been using fluorescent lighting in my layout room, mainly because that's just what was there. I had someone give me a bunch of second-hand fixtures at no cost some years back when I was building it as a general workshop, but I've always been concerned about possible UV damage and whatnot to my pretty custom-painted locomotives if nothing else. On a whim, I decided to see if anyone had come up with a LED bulb that would fit the fluorescent fixtures, and yes such a thing does exist. Besides the lowered risk of UV damage (or at least that's what I've been told), the life on the bulbs is in the 50,000 hour range, so while the bulbs are slightly more pricey, that should help even out the cost over their life. I think I'll just start buying them as replacement as my existing fluorescent bulbs bite the dust.

If anyone's interested, Amazon does have them, and while they're not the cheapest they do have the advantage of a solid and know business if you have any issues. If you're willing to take a chance on an unknown, I did find a company that seems to have the best prices and manufactures nothing but these T8 replacement bulbs. Their address is www.t8tubes.com .

Sorry if this is redundant information that's already been put out there. I haven't been extremely active on the forum lately, so if this has already been discussed and whatnot, my apologies for wasting your time.
 
Thanks Mike, if it has been out there I did not know about it and I had never heard about the UV damage, thanks again!
 
I've converted about 50 lamps so far to the T8 type LED tubes (four footers). My conversions were simply to save electricity. I favor the 4200K light type. I've found the 3500K look dim and the 5000K are too blue and hurt my eyes.

I've got bulbs from two different companies:
https://www.1000bulbs.com/
http://www.earthled.com/

Be aware there are two major types of LED T8s depending if they get power from opposite ends of the tube or just from the two pins on one end. They require different types of lamp holders (shunted or non-shunted), and obviously different re-wiring of the fixture. I've used both types. Most shunted lamp holders can easily be modified into a non-shunted type.

There is actually another LED T8 type that does not require one to rewire the fixture and remove the ballast. In my opinion using this type of bulb is just wasting electricity. There is no reason to continue to power a ballast when converting to LEDs.

As I understand it, the UV leakage from standard fluorescent light is 1/480th of the sun. That is the UV output that leaks out of the bulbs is as much radiation in 8 hours as one gets standing out in the sun for 1 minute. What I don't know if this number applies only at the same luminosity or if it is at standard inside office levels of light.
 
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Thank you, Iron Horseman. I keep hearing two different things about UV, but I honestly think you have the right of it. Simply because I've heard from everyone concerned that modern flourescents are made specifically to shield UV and are nothing like the ooooold fluorescent lights that would fade the heck out of photos and such. The only thing people seem to disagree on is how much they do actually put out now, or how damaging that may be. I honestly don't know, but when you combine the hassle of replacing ballast with the short life of fluorescent compared to LED (and then there's the electricity savings too), it just seems to make sense to me to start changing to the new bulbs. Another note on LED fixture life: Unless something actually breaks inside the "bulb", an LED fixture AFAIK doesn't just "go out". LEDs will begin to fail one at a time and of course the bulb will slowly get dimmer as they do, but it's not like other bulbs where it's all or nothing.

I didn't even think to mention the thing about removing the ballast and re-wiring, because I figured if a person can change a ballast to begin with, they can re-wire the fixture easily enough. Mine are big four-bulb commercial fixtures, so that's just part of having them there. I mean, to me that's so simple I could do it in my sleep, but I forget that not everyone has a basic knowledge of wiring and electricity. Not to mention that if it were up to a friend of mine (or several relatives too), they would simply throw out an entire fluorescent fixture (the smaller one and two bulb type) and buy a new one rather than replace a defective ballast. Sorry I didn't include that little caveat to the whole thing.
 
for the room, LED floor lamp is the great lighting fixture for you. At here, I must share the experience that I had.
Last weak, My boyfriend buy a decor floor lamp for me from chiphy: https://chiphylighting.com/shop
The lighting effect really amazing, you guys can see the picture as below.
lamp.jpg
 
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