LED "Fluorescent" tubes...

Search for "LED tape" and you will find flexible, self-adhesive LED strips available in various shades of white and multi coloured, with remote controls, tee-connectors etc etc. They are available in IP66 (or was that IP68?) ie waterproof and being 12V, they are pretty safe if from a reputable supplier. Available on ebay, Amazon, Aliexpress, at Maplins etc etc. Lots of examples out there where people have stuck them inside cabinets, on machine tools etc etc.

I have found those LED striplight worklamps very useful for working on cars and in dark workshop corners

Just stick it on and rotate as required

Led tubes , 5 foot Flourescent 48 watts , LED 18 watts , saving 30watts per hour for just one tube !!! for better light & service ,available on line with replacement "starter" for around £13.00 or latest Phillips ''plug & play'' about £22 or slight rewire if electronic .Have not found 6 foot ,yet. If all tubes were replaced with LED (shops offices etc) we probably would not need Chinese Atomic Power stations . Try TLC Electrical Factors which is where I bought mine. Screw Fix have a special on 5x 60watt = LED bulbs only 9 watts power per bulb for the same light (806 Lumens) BC or ES for £7.99 per pack of 5.

Just found this post, 10 mins ago finished wiring up a 2 tube high freq. 4 foot fluorescent fitting from screwfix, £ 38.00 works fab. for my work bench, the led version was about £ 10.00 more and had 1/3 less output. so why go for led in some areas. leds are fine if you want to run it from a battery but when its mains powered high freq. fluorescent's are great, you can dim some of them down to 5% and keep the same colour, the daylight tubes are more efficient than leds, not a lot of heat. I used to make fluorescent fittings for broadcast TV industry until a few years ago when leds sort of took over, they are the latest thing but not always the best. Getting the right colour is the hard part, you can buy 10,000 leds, test each one for output and colour, throw 9,000 in the bin, hard to make money from that industry now.

Ady1, Can you provide more info on that light? Where did you get it from and how long does the battery last?

Baldric

They seem to be of a generic type from the far east, my own one was a Hilka from TKmax but a bunch of different names supply them in different guises

I haven't tested one to destruction on battery life because I have loads of AAA rechargeables (it takes 3) purchased at a quid a pop from places like Lidl. I have dropped it a few times though and it's been fine so far

If you search for "LED COB inspection" on a well known site you'll find them, I opted for the centreline hinge model because it's more balanced, with the batteries on one side and the light on the other side

Edited By Ady1 on 14/11/2016 15:25:14

I have just replaced my 11 off 8ft fluorescent lights with LED lighting. The lights were anything from 5 to 20 years old. Trouble is you cannot get 8ft LED tubes so went the whole hog and fitted full blown LED lamps. Went for daylight versions and it is fantastic. I'll never ever get a payback, but now silent, bright, ip rated and instant. They are 1500mm (3ft shorter than the old lights).

Whereas they used to be in banks of 2 or 3 per light switch, they are now in four separate banks with individual switches on some of them to cut down how many on at once. I can now work over bench with one single LED light.

Colin

Aldi had some similar hand lamps in last week, for about £5. We have had one for about 3 years its in frequent use, it has been dropped in the cold water storage tank, dropped off the top of the steps when working on a failed light and it keeps going, and on its original batteries. Can't be bad, oh and its got a magnet on the back which is handy. I think it was about £4. John

It's actually an interesting question, can you get a days graft out of one of those things?

They give off a very good light.

I've shoved some standard "tronic" Lidl rechargeables into it tonight and left it on for the night so we'll see how it goes

Hi All

I have fitted one of the LED batten lamps from Screwfix over my lathe and the result has been a revelation. One can see every particle of swarf, every drop of coolant, any scratches and marks on the work and every graduation on the dials. It's like what I imagine it is like to work under an operating theatre lamp, is "forensic" the right word? My particular lamp is 4 foot long and consumes 41 watts, the light is a bright cold, shadowless white, the lamp starts instantly, and is fully bright immediately. I used to have a 500 watt "security" floodlamp over the lathe but this LED lamp is much better, though not as warm in the winter!

It was about £50.00 but it was money well spent. It's supposed to last a long time, so I am hoping it's a fit and forget.

Rod

That's the Tronic batteries almost drained, so 3-4 hours of good light from each charge.

There's still enough light to see by, but not work with. I put the batteries into the charger and they only have 10% left, I've never seen a rechargeable so low and yet these torches still produce light, it looks like an 18 LED strip array. They really suck batteries dry.

I put the Vartas in next, we'll see how they do. It's a pity they don't do AA instead of AAA, would make a big difference IMO

Edit: They do do AA versions, a brand called lighthouse does them, search for "lighthouse COB" and they have an estimated run time of 6-8 hours so good enough for a days work in a dark place

Edited By Ady1 on 15/11/2016 01:17:21

I'm not so sure now, some claim AA batteries and others claim AAAs. tsk tsk tsk

Indeed they are good value for money, you might not get as much life or light out of a fluorescent, as opposed to an LED arrangement but then you don't need to buy the transformer with the baton to get it to work like you have to with some LED installations.

Fluorescents still represent a 2 fold increase over the life time of an average filament bulb, 30,000 hrs vs. 10,000 hrs , L.E.Ds are alleged to average over 50,000 hrs at the highest estimates but these do not take into account the efficiency droop that apparently can occur in some very long lived LED lamps at higher voltages, nor has anyone corroborated the definitive life time for them as of yet. Of course, these are only averages; so there are some light bulbs that haven't been switched off since the 20's and 30's still in existence. 

And thank you to Michael G for the suggestion and Geoff T. for the article, I got the inspiration from Mike Cox's "angel eyes" conversion on his mill, my lamp always casts great big stark shadows on my mill, making it harder to distinguish the work piece when doing edge finding, so why not have a light exactly over where you need it? 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 15/11/2016 07:31:35

The Vartas lasted 3-4 hours as well, so that's your basic baseline with those battery powered worklight LED COB AAA units

While in gainful employment we changed out all our standard fittings with LED tubes. The fittings were four tube standard suspended ceiling grid matrix. This involved rewiring the fittings of some 450 tubes. Resulting light difference was stunning to the point of retina damage. Given this was some 5 years ago in the early days of LED tubes we did get financial support and the supplier got a major order and a good publicity story. Now retired I have replaced my lamps both in the UK and French properties with LED equivalents, mostly from CPC or from LED Hut. France has been a bit slower to catch up on offerings but is now pretty much cost equivalent for the same Lumen output.

In the workshop I now use standard gooseneck lamps modified for LED lamps, have Angel Eyes on both the mill and the drill press and have LED strip lights overhead and undershelving down lighters. Indoor 'management' used to complain about the heat from the GU10 overheads in the kitchen but now enjoys equally bright LED equivalents and seems less flustered.

I have been caught out on one issue. I bought some LED 'drop in replacement' tubes and given my previous experience I dived straight in and modified the fittings for direct feed of the AC by removing the ballast and starter. I blew the tubes as a result. It seems that the drop in replacement types depend on the ballast to load the inverters in the tubes. Beware of the difference. The DIR ones are also less efficient because of the ballast losses.

One other issue that needs to be watched is RFI. Some lower cost lamps while showing a CE mark do radiate significant RFI. If being a radio amateur is one of your other pastimes, you might find the noise floor on the HF bands is no longer conducive to hearing weak DX.

.

Thanks, Ady ... useful to know.

MichaelG.

Alan, I installed a 10W mains LED flood light in my workshop, and I got major RFI, tryed a few things, ended up I put it through a small isolating transformer, end of noise.

Ian S C

Final say on these portable units, mainly because they are so different and advertised the same

First one, my Hilka.

Full power runtime 2-3 hours, reducing on 3-4 hours

A fabulous bright light, good enough for stuff like welding jobs, quite heavy and awkward to carry, tough and practical

I also got a "lighthouse"

Much lighter and thinner (but still tough). The light is less harsh. Full power runtime 3-4 hours, the array is shorter but the light is fine to work by, there is also a red car flashy thing on the back if you're stranded, just clip it onto your bodywork.

The Hilka is staying at home for home stuff and the lighthouse is going into the car bag for under the bonnet stuff.

Both units use 3x AAA batteries

Edited By Ady1 on 17/11/2016 01:30:52

Thanks for the information, in this case it has helped me decide I won't get them for this particular job as separate batteries with different people using them means that it is very likely the batteries will be borrowed for something else,

Baldric