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.

On Wed, 14 Oct 2020 17:39:18 -0400, 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.

I put 6 Barrina lights up in my basement and have 8 more I'll put in my garage soon.
They're cheapo, similar to the one in your link, except I paid 45 bucks for the 8-pack.
Amazon. Working fine.

On 10/14/2020 2:39 PM, 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 ...

I have half a dozen of the $20 on-sale Harbor Freight "Braun" units in
my shop (1 year), and another 4 I used this spring for plant starts for
15 hours a day for 3 months. I have not seen any failures yet.

https://www.harborfreight.com/5500-l...ght-56781.html

On 10/14/2020 4:26 PM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Wed, 14 Oct 2020 17:39:18 -0400, 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.

I put 6 Barrina lights up in my basement and have 8 more I'll put in my garage soon.
They're cheapo, similar to the one in your link, except I paid 45 bucks for the 8-pack.
Amazon. Working fine.


Nice find! Those are really cheap.

On Wed, 14 Oct 2020 17:39:18 -0400, 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.

I have been swapping out the old T12F40s for the direct wire LED lamps
(jumper out the ballast). So far so good and Amazon has a pretty good
color selection if "Berlin Wall" white is not your favorite.

I have 3 of the cheapy HF or Walmart 4 foot shop lights, coming up on two years with no issues.

I have a couple of the T12 replacement tubes, direct wired (threw the ballast away) and they've been running even longer with no problems. Eventually I'll probably convert all my T12s to LED as they age.

On 10/15/2020 7:20 AM, TimR wrote:
I have 3 of the cheapy HF or Walmart 4 foot shop lights, coming up on two years with no issues.

I have a couple of the T12 replacement tubes, direct wired (threw the ballast away) and they've been running even longer with no problems. Eventually I'll probably convert all my T12s to LED as they age.


After I had a power surge out in the shop that blew out all my 4 foot
fluorescents I bought a box of the direct wire LEDS online for pretty
cheap . I recommend the frosted tubes , the clear ones can be a bit much
sometimes .
--
Snag