Seeing the shop in a new light.

Here is the before. So the old fluorescent fixtures in the center of the shop were in need on help. Of the four, two were down to one of four bulbs functioning. The way they were wired I really wanted to retain the basic fixtures. Before I originally installed them I added plug in boxes to the top of each fixture. This allowed me to daisy chain other fixtures to each side. So I had been looking at led conversion, however the price had put me off. The other day I was in our local electrical/ plumbing supply store and rechecked pricing. Fortunately the tubes (4ft) had dropped to under $8 each with tax. I did have to direct wire them which eliminated the troublesome ballasts. 

And the after.

The LED bulbs I used.

I need to do this in my shop.  If anything, just to eliminate the time it takes the florescents to warm up. 

I just did this.  80 bulbs.  Went with sunco through Amazon.   Sunco is a real business in the USA with a phone number. 
 

my neighbor just put up a shop with 16 or so super nice (read: expensive) led fixtures that each has its own power supply and control panel and all of that takes up a lot of space and, I'd guess, more electrons than I'd prefer. 

 

I elected to rewire my existing fixtures to eliminate the ballast.  Maybe a little more work but one less thing to go bad. 
 

it wasn't bad and the light is now whiter and brighter.  Definitely worth the $300.   They ended up being about $4.25/tube and came fast. 
 

I made a similar conversion to my garage, just wiring out the ballasts, and it made an incredible difference to light.

I'm currently looking to illuminate my basement workshop with LEDs. Any recommendations for 4' LED strip light - 4000+ lumens?

In reply to jfryjfry :

That's a good price on the tubes! I agree that eliminating the ballasts is the way to go.

I bought 4ft LEDs from Harbor Freight for about $20 each - 5000-5500 lumens and they fire right up instead of having to warm up. I really like them and you can plug one in and daisy chain the rest.

I have little 3 ft LED lights in my garage. 

And they can get hot!

I just took there temperature tonight. In the summer they get up to 90°+  This s a whole new item. They raise the temp in my garage and you can feel the difference.  

30x40 garage here, i started with eight 2x4' LEDs. if you have ≥10' ceilings the high bay lights really do good.  i have two so far but budget didnt allow more, yet.

HAHAHA 85 degrees is nothing. If you want the same output with incandescent or halogen you'd be looking at 200-400 degrees. The LED lamps do put out a little bit more than the florescent but that's hardly more than a few degrees.