I realized I am working on lighting more than I want to, chasing a rabbit down a hole. I put up T8s a while back, that did improve the light and tube life over the old lights .
As most know the color temp has a lot to do with the brightness of the light. T8 fixtures came with natural, did not like that replaced all tubes with cool white.
They have been up 5 years, about 3 years in, I start losing a ballast here and there, and tubes. No big deal nothing last forever, but this year spring, two ballast in a 6 tube fixture craped out, replaced same. Last week same fixture, I see a tube flickering and dieing. Then see another tube over the lathe on life support.
I've been reading about the LED tubes, and seeing pictures folks have posted. I really saw little difference in the out put if compared to the cool white standard T8 tubes.
Along the way I read they have the option to be direct wired....fancy name for no ballast needed. There's room for a pun here I resist, no ballast has my attention and eliminates a point of failure.... I'm in,
Ordered and received 30 tubes, up on the ladder, snipping wire and configuring the fixtures to bypass the ballast, left them in the fixer. And installed the LED tubes.
Here is what I think about the LEDs for work lights. I like them, the light is very even, the area they light appears to have a larger pattern. Compared to the standard tubes, tube = tube you can easily see the inconsistency of the florescent, the LED has a very consistent and unformed pattern.
There is a bit of HYPE regarding the LED, most noticeable and because I still have two florescent fitted fixtures up. They claim instant on, well the florescent come on a nanosecond before the LEDs.
If someone wants to split hairs
Greg