View Single Post
  #2   Report Post  
Posted to rec.woodworking
DerbyDad03[_6_] DerbyDad03[_6_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default 4 foot LED "shop" lighting

On Wednesday, October 14, 2020 at 5:43:07 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Just a rant ... a long one - sorry folks
but wondering if anyone else has any bad or good
experience with this type of lighting ?
And - buyer beware if you're outfitting your whole shop !

Less than a year ago, I installed a 4 ft. LED
self-contained plug-in light fixture in my back-basement
storage room. It was a very very decent looking item from
Lee Valley made by Armacost and more than double-the-cost
of the common cheapo units.
It failed last weekend ... after ~ 5 hours of ON time ! if that.
... so much for the 10's-of-thousands-of-hours of LED bulb life !

I looked-it-over closely - checked the 120 volt cord & connectors -
everything was A-OK ; I pulled off the end-caps to check internal
wiring connectors A-OK ; pulled the ON-OFF switch ;
- everything was A-OK.

Guess what ? - Lee Valley doesn't carry them any more ;
Armacost says that it's discontinued and that it was probably
an internal power supply failure ... gee thanks !

The polite refund from Lee Valley meant that I was not out-of-pocket -
but it was little consolation - now I need to go shopping for
another fixture... again looking at the cheapo's that I avoided !

https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop...?item=99W7681W

Plus - I'm hoping that the replacement fixture can be matched to
the custom-made little 45 degree corner-mounting-blocks
that I made for the original fixtures ...

Geeeze ! thanks for listening :-)

John T.


"wondering if anyone else has any bad or good
experience with this type of lighting ?"

I understand your frustration, but I hope you aren't projecting this
failure across the entire universe of plug-in LED fixtures. The rare
faulty unit can show up in every product line from any manufacturer,
from lighting fixtures to appliances to cars.

I've got three cheapo 4' shop lights (3 different models, can't speak to
the internal workings, might just be different cases), three cheapo 3' foot
models, 6-ish of the cheapo screw-into-the-socket style shown below,
a bunch of cheapo under-cabinet-touchless LED strips, three recessed
can conversion units and four LED replacement T8 tubes that I put into a
couple of really old (30+ year) 4' shop light housings. One of the cheapo
shop lights is in my garage where temps range from below freezing to
over 90°F.

Hundreds of hours in total, not a single failure.

You got a bad unit. It happens.

These are great for those single bulb, screw in fixtures, like in many
older closets:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commerci...0111/300188965

These are great for older recessed can lights. They have 5 switchable color choices.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commerci...-259/303780877