Compact Flouros

[Chris Parks]

I am thinking of junking all my flouros in the shed and fitting compact flouros in their place. The globes are stupidly cheap and I will buy some batten holders and instal a heap of them. Twin tube flouros are using 70 watts and I can run 4 compact flouros for that. The other advantage I can see is that they won't require the constant maintenance that conventional flouro fittings require. Has anyone used them on a large scale in a workshop?

[blackhole]

The compacts are great (especially the 23Watt cool daylight or cool white).

They still will give you shadows similar to an ordinary bulb.

I have a single compact fluro bulb above my bench and it is enough light for most of my daytime activities and when I am not doing any thing that I really need to see at night. If I am doing detail work or if it is an overcast day then I turn on the long fluros.

The tri-phosprous tubes ($7-$10 each) are fantastic and really worth the money if you are replacing a tube. The quad-phosprous are about $20 .... too much!

So keep your fluro tubes and add a few compacts. Bunnies might still have box of 10 18Watt cool white for $20, they are not as bright as the 23Watt($7-$8) cool daylight.

I did some number crunching a while back and worked out that by replacing the ordinary bulbs with compact fluros the pay for themselves with in the year if you use then for a couple of hours a day.

[Chris Parks]

I have replaced all the normal tubes with tri phosphors a couple of years ago. I look at how many I have and the power they chew compared to what compact flouros would cost to run. I am still tossing things around and hope others will contribute their experience.

[blackhole]

The springy arm lamps are useful, they go up, down and swing around.

Remove the shielding so all the light can get out as the compact fulros do not work well with the reflector shields since they are not a point source.

[Chris Parks]

I counted up the flouros in my shed today and in the main area alone there are 16 40watt tubes. There are at least another 10 that only get turned on for special purposes. So that means 660 watts of flouros are on while I am in the shed. I reckon I can get the same light for a lot less power with compact flouro globes sitting in batten holder light fittings.

[Ashwood]

Actually, 4 foot fluoros (T8s) are quite good for lighting, as are compact fluoros.
How long has it been since you replaced the tubes - fluoros (unlike incandescent/halogen bulbs) often don't blow out, but gradually get dimmer through time. So you may find that changing tubes would help a lot.

But besides that, to increase brightness, I'd just add more fluoros of whatever type you prefer - 4 foot double fluoros, compacts or newer technology T5 slim fluoros (more efficient, electronic ballast and no starters).

[Ashwood]

Perhaps to add, what colour is the ceiling / walls? If they are dark, then a lot of the light is absorbed. Makes a big difference if you are able to have white/light ceilings/walls.

BTW, you must have a HUUUUGGGE shed to have that many tubes.

[Chris Parks]

Lack of light is not the problem, the problem is going to be the electricity bill in years to come. I have convinced myself to do it now, I can get the batten holders for nought and the globes are very cheap. Anyone want to buy some 40 watt flouoros with tri phosphour tubes plus a box of spare tubes (not TP). Must be picked up.