High Bay Shop Lighting Upgrade Recommendations

[Corey_lax]

We need to replace the furnace at our shop so I’ll have a scissor lift here for a bit. I figured we would replace the fluorescent lighting fixtures at the same time. I’m looking for recommendations on some LED high bay lights that would fit the bill. 22’ ceilings.

There’s lots on Amazon but I’m not sure if we should stay away from them or if they are actually fine.

I’m hoping for something that we don’t have to re run any wiring. Just put new fixtures in where the wiring currently is. The old fluorescents are probably 8’ long and new high bay lights are only like 2’ long

 

[Alex_c]

Cheap LED lights have crappy power supplies that fail well before the diodes themselves. I’d buy something reputable like Philips. There are other brands but I’m not that familiar with all of them. I’m sure there are people here who have more experience who can suggest something more specific. Just stay away from Amazon slop lol.

 

[kaelc]

Interesting, I was thinking of swapping out my bulbs, but Philips looks to have worse reviews than some of the Amazon crap https://amzn.to/485WwUK. Here are reviews for some of the 8-foot ones. https://amzn.to/4odBI3N. #ad Anything under 4.5 star rating I'm pretty suspect of.

My garage fluorescents are from 2006 or 2007, and none of the bulbs have gone out yes, so I'm hesitant to switch out what works, but I'm only running them an hour or two a week. As much as my wife complains about me "working" in the garage, those lights and bulbs will outlive me, unless my hearing goes, and then I can tune my hearing aids into islander mode only and maybe outlive her.

 

[CIVANO]

hubbell, Sylvania, acquity, phillips all good. Home Depot will carry some of them.

 

[Alex_c]

Interesting, I was thinking of swapping out my bulbs, but Philips looks to have worse reviews than some of the Amazon crap https://amzn.to/485WwUK. Here are reviews for some of the 8-foot ones. https://amzn.to/4odBI3N. #ad Anything under 4.5 star rating I'm pretty suspect of.

My garage fluorescents are from 2006 or 2007, and none of the bulbs have gone out yes, so I'm hesitant to switch out what works, but I'm only running them an hour or two a week. As much as my wife complains about me "working" in the garage, those lights and bulbs will outlive me, unless my hearing goes, and then I can tune my hearing aids into islander mode only and maybe outlive her.

Tons of fake stuff on Amazon, and all those bad reviews seem to be related to shipping damage

 

[ship happens]

I've delt with alot of LED lighting products in a large scope, from handheld stuff to industrial lighting. @Alex is right about the cheap stuff. Price really does reflect what you end up with in the LED world. It cost alot more money to make a nice warm temperature with the same output. The LED chips are worth more money, harder to produce, and the electronics behind them have to be just as solid. It's fine if your just lighting up a small space or need a cheap light for somthing, but if you need to install somthing that requires little to zero maintenence then make sure you buy quality lights with a good light temp. Otherwise you'll be kicking yourself later.

@Corey_lax if you know someone in the electrical world I would ask them to talk to the electrical wholesale suppliers and see what they recommend.

 

[kaelc]

Tons of fake stuff on Amazon, and all those bad reviews seem to be related to shipping damage

thanks, I just discount any reviews in the low 4’s where digging deeper is worth it even on the ones over 4.5 stars

 

[ship happens]

If you cheap out you will end up like this guy.

 

[Corey_lax]

I've delt with alot of LED lighting products in a large scope, from handheld stuff to industrial lighting. @Alex is right about the cheap stuff. Price really does reflect what you end up with in the LED world. It cost alot more money also to make a nice warm temperature with the same output. The LED chips are worth more money, harder to produce, and the electronics behind them have to be just as solid. It's fine if your just lighting up a small space or need a cheap light for somthing, but if you need to install somthing that requires little to zero maintenence then make sure you buy quality lights with a good light temp. Otherwise you'll be kicking yourself later.

@Corey_lax if you know someone in the electrical world I would ask them to talk to the electrical wholesale suppliers and see what they

I’m gonna go to gescan tomorrow and see what they got. Looks like they have stock of a few different options. Im gonna pass on Amazon now.

I guess I was just expecting a 8’ long option to replace the fixtures that we currently have. But if the smaller LED high bays put out more light and better light, then I guess it’s all good. Maybe I’ll buy a couple for now and see how they look before I redo the whole shop.

 

[chinnok]

Bright-lite Lighting on Annassis Island as lots of options. You can buy new fixtures complete or just LED lamps to fit in the existing fixtures, just have to do a quick rewire to eliminate the ballast. We use them in the sign business when retrofitting existing signs to LED lighting.

 

[Capt_Ed]

If you cheap out you will end up like this guy.


View attachment 122682

I Don't remember you being at my house

 

[baddogg]

I did exactly the same thing. I had an electrician install them. I picked my lights up at Home Depot. Can’t recall price or brand but they were relatively inexpensive.

 

[Max123]

I have a fair amount of experience with this. On my last warehouse project (about 7 years ago) we did a ton of high bay fixtures (traditional CFL style fixtures, but with LED retrofit tubes). The retrofit LED tubes we used were by Sylvania - called 'SubstiTUBE Value LED T8' and come in 48" lengths. At the time, using these LED tubes in a CFL high bay fixture was cheaper than a dedicated LED. Be careful of no-name LED tubes - I've heard these can be a fire hazard.

Now, the cost of LED strip lighting has come down so for the last few projects we just install LED strip lights. Lithonia CSS fixture (either 48" or 96") 4000K is a good baseline spec to compare (Home Depot usually sells these). Lithonia has good shop drawings and good line voltage lighting control packages (don't use low voltage - requires way too much commissioning).

If you are buying through Gescan, you will likely get a better price specifying Stanpro fixtures. An equivalent 4' and 8' is their L2STR fixture. I believe these have a built in switch that allows you to select colour temperature between 3500-5000K as well as light output/watts (25-40W).

Both Lithonia and Stanpro 4-8' strip lights are great, and I think they can be connected in series (end to end), so that only one actually needs to be connected at the junction box. One note - if you are suspending them, I think its a good idea to install a 1x4 backing. The housing on an 8' strip light is really flexy and I see our electrician losing a few every job just getting kinked while handling.

One note - if I was re-doing a garage I would specify a few strip lights running along the floor at knee height. Makes it way better for working under vehicles What's the point of buying all those fixtures and then stuck using a flashlight for any work under a vehicle.