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Shop Lighting

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billd View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote billd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Oct/13/2015 at 4:20pm
R those the same? Might be - it's been a while, and I checked into so many lights and sources it was hard to keep track after a while. If so it just means how right you were!

All that time checking around I also got prices that were - get this - several hundred dollars more for less output. Some wanted to sell lights that were, well, not really intended for this sort of use. some were crazy complex, heavy, etc - with special cooling arrays. They don't really run that hot.
You want them at least 12" or more from the ceiling or any other barrier, but hey, what light doesn't need a little space?

I finally tried 3E - assuming that because they were who they were their pricing would be, well, more industrial than I could swing.
Instead they saved me about $400 on these. And, I drove away with them the same day, no shipping.
They are LIGHT in weight, you can carry them up a ladder with one hand and not even strain. I had them on my shoulder while using my hands to hook the chains up to the ceiling hooks. And that was with the pigtails I made and installed, the hooks and chains, etc. - not just the bare lights. The wonders of modern technology.
 
But the best part - the light!

I did have to hang the 2 north lights higher due to the overhead doors - bummer that having the doors open fully blocks the 2 north lights, but the doors did that with the other lights, leaving only the south lights in that case-  and when those 2 south MH lights stopped working, you didn't leave the doors open as you had no light in there then. At least I'd still have the 4 other lights with the doors open. But as buggy as Iowa is in good weather, the doors aren't open high that often or for that long or I get wasps and other critters in there looking for room and board.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Wrambler Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Oct/14/2015 at 11:35am
We have a bunch here at the University and from speaking to the electricians the thing to try for is having the control boards away from that actual leds. The cooler you keep the boards the longer they last and generally it is the circuitry that goes first.

Hanging the lights free like that lets the airflow and that is a very good thing.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote billd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Oct/21/2015 at 8:28am
Originally posted by Wrambler Wrambler wrote:

We have a bunch here at the University and from speaking to the electricians the thing to try for is having the control boards away from that actual leds. The cooler you keep the boards the longer they last and generally it is the circuitry that goes first.

Hanging the lights free like that lets the airflow and that is a very good thing.


I would agree with them for many reasons. You note the LEDs themselves are nearer the outer edges or sides, the control circuitry runs down the middle with leads from those boards out to the LED arrays themselves. They aren't in direct contact or even right next to each other.  And the top-side or frame is extruded aluminum (I'd have rather said BILLET to impress the car folks, but it's not, I'm sure) so it's strong, light, and it is formed to function as a heat sink for cooling.

I used to work in an electronic engineering company (I designed the computers that functioned as the interface for the Series IV turbo-compressor control systems) and while there learned quite a few things from the experts.
And then there is personal experience-  for example, before my wife decided her other sewing machine was not able to keep up with her needs she had talked about the lack of lighting- it was still lit the old-fashioned way with a standard sewing machine light bulb above the work area. So I bought a 12vdc LED array that was intended for automotive dome light use. I rigged a controlled 12v supply and cable and attached the LED array to the bottom side of the "arm" of the sewing machine. WOW, nice clean white light that showed the true colors far better and you could easily see the thread in the fabric, stitch quality and so on.
Well that lasted a few days then after an afternoon of sewing she called me down "WILLIAM, come here please!". I went down to her sewing room to find the light had fallen down.
It ran so HOT that it melted the adhesive it was mounted with. I picked it up and got burned. (dummy me, duh!)
That's when I started looking into LED - oh, the LED component itself isn't too terribly bad, they do run hot, and it's true that "LEDs run cooler than incandescent" but that's misleading as heck - the whole LED light as a unit or assembly runs hotter than Hades. (OK, I hear it's hot there, I don't yet know personally)
I started checking other LED - and found yeah, the individual LED, or DIODE itself may run cooler but as a whole, with the supporting circuitry, they run plenty hot so don't be fooled. It's a concentrated heat in a smaller area, and because they consume many many times FEWER watts than comparable light sources, incandescent for example, they would naturally put out less heat or total BTUs, so would tax cooling systems/HVAC less. That I did notice when I replaced 60% of our kitchen recessed can light bulbs with LED. More light like you'd not believe (or maybe you would) but you can tell a lot less heat radiated into the room just be standing under them, then move over 2 feet to the still incandescent bulbs. There's a marked difference.

Heating and cooling cycles help to kill electronics. Maybe you can't change the number of times they get turned on or off by a great number, but you might have some control over the temperature swings or extremes. That's why I opted for free-hanging from chains, and lower from the ceiling than the specs call for, and away from the infrared heat tube.
The specs say minimum of 12" from top of array to whatever. I made the chains about 23" long. Add the eyes screwed into the ceiling, and the clips that connect the chains to the lights and I have a good 25", then take some of that length away because of the angles some of the chains run at and I'm still a good 20" down from the ceiling.
I had to hang the 2 north lights a bit higher because of the overhead doors - but they are still about 17-18" down from the ceiling and even with the doors open get great air circulation. Turn the fans on and they get moving air for cooling.

Heat kills electronics, and heating/cooling cycles kills them more. Narrowing the differences between hot and cold helps. 

I love 'em. And last night was a great example of the advantage of LED over MH lights just from a practical "small home shop" standpoint - I went in for supper about 7 and was in for an hour. With the MH you leave those on. With the LED, if I leave the building for more than 5 minutes, I turn them off. If it's dark and I want a "safety factor" I can leave the 2 center lights on and kill the 4 corner lights, but generally I just turn them off.
Now it's true that electronics typically fail at "power up" so you don't want to be off/on/off/on/off/on to the extreme, you will shorten their life, but you can turn them off if you are going to be gone a while, and it's a lot better than having to leave them on because of the warm-up time of other lighting types.
In fact the instructions that came with my original MH lights state that if you turn them on, then off after only an hour you shorten their lifespan considerably - they the same as said don't turn them on if you weren't going to leave them on over an hour. They are intended to be on for hours at a time, not minutes.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote amcglass Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: Feb/27/2016 at 9:57am
nice shop
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