Fluorescents vs LED Tube Lights right now

[JohnW2]

I wouldn't.

In that case I agree that you would not need 'long and narrow' light sources.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Indeed - so remove the ballast or get a fitting designed for LED tubes.

Why do that in preference to buying a purpose-designed LED light which properly exploits the characteristics of LED emitters over something compromised in order to mimic a different type of light?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

In that case I agree that you would not need 'long and narrow' light sources.

Hmm.

1. Ask yourself this - if you were designing a light from scratch, why would you make the emitters narrow tubes?

2. If I wanted to illuminate a long/narrow work surface and wanted to reduce shadows?

3. I wouldn't.

What I meant was that even if I had to illuminate such a work surface I would not make the emitters narrow tubes.

 

[ericmark]

Indeed - so remove the ballast or get a fitting designed for LED tubes.
Indeed, and the same over my desks and work surfaces. However, it's not necessarily that there was previously 'more light than required' falling on the desk/work surface - it could be at least partially because, previously, some of the light output of the tube was being 'wasted' (turned to heat, which one might not want) by going sideways and being absorbed by dark walls.

Kind Regards, John

You can get fluorescent tubes also with built in reflectors. Although the modern LED is better than the old fluorescent, if you compare with modern fluorescent then the gain is rather small, if any, I only have one HF fluorescent at home, I fitted it when working on the building of Sizewell B and it was second hand, I renewed the tube about two years ago, so lasted around 25 years, (top of stairs so used a lot) what we tend to do is compare the new LED with old fluorescent and the old wire wound ballast fitting needed a tube change at around 4 years used in a kitchen.

The maintenance cost of fluorescent once using HF ballast is in general lower than LED however we tend to forget fluorescent lamps have improved and compare LED's to the old ones.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Surely the ideal is for the entire cieling to have a uniform glow which lights the space as evenly as if it were open to the skies at noon on an equinox at the Equator, and that therefore one should strive to install light sources which approach that ideal as closely as possible?

 

[JohnW2]

What I meant was that even if I had to illuminate such a work surface I would not make the emitters narrow tubes.

Fair enough, but I imagine you can understand that it was not clear (at least not to me) from the words that you actually wrote that such was what you meant.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Surely the ideal is for the entire cieling to have a uniform glow which lights the space as evenly as if it were open to the skies at noon on an equinox at the Equator, and that therefore one should strive to install light sources which approach that ideal as closely as possible?

That might be "ideal" in some senses, but it could also be argued that it was unnecessary, and possibly 'wasteful', if all one really needed to be decently illuminated were a desk or surface along one wall of the room.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Yes, if that was what one wanted.

I thought the OP wanted to light up a garage.

 

[ericmark]

My hobby is photography "at noon on an equinox at the Equator" is not best lighting, some clouds do help. I want shadows, but not harsh shadows and we do all sorts to get light where we want it when in a studio. And since we want it to look reasonable natural often that means one single light source with reflectors to illuminate selected areas.

So to light a room making it look as natural as you can, single bulb on the ceiling white of course and some white translucence diffusers below the bulb to emulate the clouds.

In real terms we want to spread the light and so we use 2 foot squares with 4 fluorescent tubes, or long strips, the standard method is to install lighting track in a factory or warehouse even large office so even if the lights are not long strips, the effect is the same.

In the home we often have white ceilings, so wall lights can work well they light the ceiling which in turn lights the room, I by chance selected a 5 bulb fitting with bulb base at the bottom, my son selected one very similar with bulb base at top, so with LED bulbs his are directed into to room, mine reflect off the ceiling, mine give less shadows the light is much better defused, and also the bulb base is cooler so likely the bulbs will last longer, it was not my cleaver design it was chance, but reflecting light of the ceiling clearly works.

As to fluorescent lights although you can get them with built in reflector it is likely better if light is reflected by the fitting giving a softer light and the Cat 2 fitting not only helps with cathode ray monitors but also to reduce the sharp harsh light.

But using the CD and angle it to the light source you can see the colours, and do this with a fluorescent and then with LED the colour spectrum from the LED is far better than that from the fluorescent, of course some times we want the colours to be changed like above meat counters where spun copper reflectors are used to get the red glow required. I think they are no longer allowed to use red bulbs so reflect light off copper instead.

So a clothing shop clearly wants LED lights not fluorescent so people can judge the colour better, only room in the house with fluorescent is the kitchen, bedroom and living room where my wife does her crafts is LED lighting, not for light output but for colour. Even as an electrician I used a table lamp to read resistor colour codes.

The folded tube fluorescent "bulb" was really a failure, the life was a lot shorter than advertised, the colour was really bad, the lumen output did not seem to be the equivalent to old tungsten so the charts.

• 40w incandescent = 380 – 460 Lumens.
• 60w incandescent = 750 – 850 Lumens.
• 75w incandescent = 1100 – 1300 Lumens.
• 100w incandescent = 1700 – 1800 Lumens.

Seemed wrong my living room had two lights 100W so 3500 lumen so 10 x 8W at 450 lumen should have been brighter, it was not, advert said 10 years life it was wrong, 5W LED at 400 lumen are far brighter, however this is not really as BAN keeps pointing out the way we should change lighting, had I swapped the tungsten lights for 4 x 2D lights even spread fluorescent would have worked fine.

The problem with LED lights is although they can give 100 lumen per watt, some are down to 25 lumen per watt because of the resistors used as drivers, it's not the LED at fault, it's the package, so you look at what seems to be the ideal way to light a room with strips of LED lights no shadows every corner has some light, but the product only gives out 40 lumen per watt so really expensive to run compared with fluorescent straight tubes.

But in the main when moving from tungsten to fluorescent or fluorescent to LED the fitting stays the same, when I renewed my 65W fluorescent tube for a LED tube is was because they no longer make 65W tubes and to use a 58W tube needs the ballast changing, the room is a lot dimmer with a 28W LED tube, and if my wife complains and wants under cupboard lights to supplement the main lights then best is to swap for a HF fluorescent, if however I have no complaints then great it can stay as it is.

When the living room went to folded fluorescent we got standard lamps and table lamps to supplement problem is now we have LED lights, the standard and table lamps still remain.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

My hobby is photography "at noon on an equinox at the Equator" is not best lighting, some clouds do help.

Do you know I thought about adding "on an overcast day" to "at noon on an equinox at the Equator"

I want shadows, but not harsh shadows and we do all sorts to get light where we want it when in a studio. And since we want it to look reasonable natural often that means one single light source with reflectors to illuminate selected areas.

So to light a room making it look as natural as you can, single bulb on the ceiling white of course and some white translucence diffusers below the bulb to emulate the clouds.

But that's not the sort of lighting I was talking about - as you go on to say, in reality we want an even spread. In nature we very often don't - imagine no more glorious sunsets.

Leaving aside the fetishisation of lights as decorative objects, the reason for having lighting is very often entirely functional. Take the kitchen - we may need lights under wall cabinets because of the shadows they cast on work surfaces, but surely the function of the lighting is to evenly light the space? Ditto bathrooms, WCs, hallways, stairways. In bedrooms, what is more likely to disturb another person if someone wakes and needs to see their way out of the room? A bedside light, which even if it has a low output does have a bright point source, a ditto cieling light even if dimmed, or a faint even glow from the entire cieling?

Consider the number of people who use a desire for minimalism to justify arrays of small downlighters. What could be more minimalist than an entire cieling which glows evenly at the intensity required?

I remember in the past musing over the complaints of slow-starting CFLs, and wondering how things would be were the situation reversed. If we had always had lights which intrinsically ramped up to full brightness over a short but noticeable period, and then someone invented a light source which instantly sprang into 100% output, I can't help thinking that there would be just as many complaints about the unpleasant shock of that, particularly when getting up in the night.

Similarly with an evenly glowing cieling - if that was what we had "always" had, and then someone said "let's abandon that idea, and instead hang things like this from the cielings"

or this

I wonder how well the idea would be received?

I wonder if what we should do is always think why do we want the lighting, what do we need it to do, how do we need it to perform, what is the best way to get it, and to go for the best way without compromises based on the way we have done it before.

There is, of course, a need for LED bulbs/tubes to go into existing fittings designed to use other light sources, but in the absence of any of those why even think about replicating it?

 

[John D v2.0]

If we had always had lights which intrinsically ramped up to full brightness over a short but noticeable period, and then someone invented a light source which instantly sprang into 100% output,

Traffic lights used to be like that, which was useful if you weren't quite looking because as you caught the start of the change you could look directly and see it finishing to change.
Then they installed a set of led ones that changed immediately, and I wasn't the only one to get beeped by not noticing!
It's a principle of UI design that if something happens too quickly people don't notice, hence the need for transitions on menus etc.

 

[coursemyhorse]

Good discussion, but back to the OP, if you were to kit out a garage right now, from scratch, what would you go with?

1: Fluorescent High Frequency with High Output tubes T5 @ TLC

5ft 58w Twin HF Fluorescent Fitting - Less Tubes = £25.26 ea. x 4 = £101.04
5ft 54w Cool White Deluxe Triphosphur Fluorescent tube T5 - 840 = £2.88 ea. x 8 = £23.04
Total = £124.04
(Total lumens per fitting = estimated 1000)


2: LED integrated batten fitting @ TLC

5ft 50w Twin LED Battern Fitting - 4000k = £49.80 ea. x 4 = £199.20
Total = £199.20
(Total lumens per fitting = claimed 5250)


I estimate the Lumen output of the Fluorescents as the tubes on TLC don't list an output, but I'm guessing each tube will be approx 5000 lumens based on my ancient T8 in the loft stating 4600 lumens.
The LEDs are 4000k. The Fluorescents I would select the same "cool white" 4000k colour temperature.
The tubes for fluorescent I'm not sure are right. The only HF fittings TLC do state 58W tubes. I assume you can run the 54w HO ones in there. If you can't and have to use 58w ones then the below calculations would be a tiny bit out. The tube cost would be pretty much the same.

Assuming I start using the garage a lot more and the lights are all on in there for a total of 6 hours per week on average. Let's make it easy and say an average of 1 hour per day.

Fluorescent cost to run per month at 14 pence per KW/h =
(54w x 2) x 4 = 432w total
200 / 1000 = 0.432 kw/h
0.432 x 14 = 6.048 pence per day
6.048 x 30 = 181.44 pence per month
181.44 x 12 = £21.77 per year

LED cost to run per month at 14 pence per KW/h =
50w x 4 = 200w total
200 / 1000 = 0.2 kw/h
0.2 x 14 = 2.8 pence per day
2.8 x 30 = 84 pence per month
84 x 12 = £10.08 per year


Extra initial purchase cost of LED lights over fluorescent is £75.16 so it would take about 7 years to pay for themselves. That is assuming there are no failures of either option.

 

[flameport]

The only HF fittings TLC do state 58W tubes. I assume you can run the 54w HO ones in there.

You cannot, the end caps are different and so is the length of the tubes.
The fittings require T8 tubes, https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LAFLT58CW.html

If you really want T5 tubes, you must get fittings designed for them, usually this type of thing: https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/TLLB454T5.html
as often used in warehouses/large retail type situations.

 

[flameport]

if you were to kit out a garage right now, from scratch, what would you go with?

HF 58W fluorescent fittings, with Activa 172 tubes in them - which are as close to daylight as you can get, 6500K and CRI of 98.
Lumen output is 3700, which is less than standard tubes but still better than the alleged LED equivalents.
Saving £10 a year on electricity costs is inconsequential.

 

[coursemyhorse]

OK I think I have in error been looking at fittings that are only T8. I assume unless stated, they are all T8. Where as T5 ones state they are T5. That changes everything as the T5 ones I am finding are more than LED!
I clearly need to research this a bit better...