Just had an Unusual Garage Accident

[Setec Astronomy]

You can get a T5 HO 8' fixture at Home Depot that takes 4 4' bulbs--those bulbs are really bright, but they are only 5 or 6 bucks each, last 30,000 hours I think, plus easier to handle and use way less power than an old mag ballast T12 VHO. Not sure how applicable all that is to your garage, though, especially since you were running regular output daylight bulbs. The T8's are more of an incremental change, really.

Lithonia Lighting 4-Light High Output White Fluorescent Strip Light Fixture-TZR 2 54T5HO MVOLT 1/4 GEB10PS - The Home Depot

 

[swanicyouth]

Something similar happened to me a while ago.

Luckily it only fell on my head.

 

[MIsnowman]

Luckily it only fell on my head.

Haha, can't hurt anything up there right.

 

[custmsprty]

^^ lol ^^

Hey yeah thanks guys I got lucky this time. Pulled the truck outside to see better and no damage




Bob I didn't understand your post until I saw a pic of the lamp holders. They do look exactly like "tombstones" lol

I had another matching fixture in the storage room with a bad ballast. Robbed the tombstone assembly and popped it right in place of the burnt one. Now I can see again

I've been checking out new t5, t8 and led fixtures online. I've moved changing these out high up on my priority list!

I just got back from my companies vendor conference, Sylvania and GE are big suppliers to us. I went through some lighting classes and LED conversion cost justifications. It's defintely the way to go. They will last for years, like 10-15 years easily in your case. I did one calculation and if running 24/7 led's lasted approx. 3.5 years so in a 8 hour 7 day scenario that's more like ten.

 

[RedXray]

I just got back from my companies vendor conference, Sylvania and GE are big suppliers to us. I went through some lighting classes and LED conversion cost justifications. It's defintely the way to go. They will last for years, like 10-15 years easily in your case. I did one calculation and if running 24/7 led's lasted approx. 3.5 years so in a 8 hour 7 day scenario that's more like ten.

I know nothing about lighting at all. Watched some youtube led conversion videos. Looked pretty straightforward... remove the ballast, wire one side of the fixture to the power source.

Those 8' tubes are pretty expensive... right?

Thanks,
yeah I do need help

 

[BillE]

...I would say it was probably just high resistance in the contact--it's in a garage where the environment is suitable for some dampness/corrosion--plus those contacts aren't exactly the highest quality to begin with--either in the fixture or on the bulb.

Sounds good to me. A little Ohm's law and Maxwell's Laws teaming up.

Bill

 

[Setec Astronomy]

I just got back from my companies vendor conference, Sylvania and GE are big suppliers to us. I went through some lighting classes and LED conversion cost justifications. It's defintely the way to go. They will last for years, like 10-15 years easily in your case. I did one calculation and if running 24/7 led's lasted approx. 3.5 years so in a 8 hour 7 day scenario that's more like ten.

I know nothing about lighting at all. Watched some youtube led conversion videos. Looked pretty straightforward... remove the ballast, wire one side of the fixture to the power source.

Those 8' tubes are pretty expensive... right?

I was going to mention the LED tubes, but I don't know how the light output/color compares right now to fluorescent, and as RedXray says, they sure are expensive. As an aside, I saw some LED garage/workshop fixtures at Home Depot the other day that were pretty cheap, 50,000 hour life then I guess you toss the whole fixture.

I'm just not sure the maturity is there right now with the LED's, especially for a home garage where you may not have the lights on enough for the payback (although 50,000 hours of use at home may be forever, where in an industrial setting, it isn't).