Converting Booth to LED

Bartman

Member
It's bulb time and paint booth re-fresh. Has anyone converted T8 to LED? I'm looking at a few sources on EBAY and considering it a lot. The T8's I installed last time were 6500k color and I like those pretty good. Might be just a tad blue in color match compared to "real sunlight" but I'm pickier than most of my customers.

Anyway, appears I need to bypass the ballast and power the LED T8 replacements with 110vac. I'm concerned about light output compared to florescent and should I go with clear lens (the ones you can see the LED) or with the frosted lens. Opinions?

Second, not in the title. Any options or opinions on painting or recoating my paint booth walls. They have been painted twice over the years with white single stage and looking kind of shaby again. I'm thinking about a good cleaning, duct cleaning (it's down draft), lighting upgrade, painting and replacing a couple of cracked glasses. Options or opinions?

Thanks
 
My 2 car garage had 2 dozen 4' T8's which i replaced with 2200 lumen leds. 4 footers i see ranging from 1700-2200 lumens.
I had 4000k T8's & went with 4000k leds. I like white, not blue but blue seems to show color match & swirls better maybe?
I got frosted not clear cause clear is blinding if u look at bulb & i have some mounted to wall.
Wall mount on the cheap- bought a dozen tombstone ends, scewed them to wall, no need to buy fixtues. No ballasts.
Leds are plastic cover with aluminum back frame. No worries if i bump them.
6 pack on Amaz-- is $50.
 
My 2 car garage had 2 dozen 4' T8's which i replaced with 2200 lumen leds. 4 footers i see ranging from 1700-2200 lumens.
I had 4000k T8's & went with 4000k leds. I like white, not blue but blue seems to show color match & swirls better maybe?
I got frosted not clear cause clear is blinding if u look at bulb & i have some mounted to wall.
Wall mount on the cheap- bought a dozen tombstone ends, scewed them to wall, no need to buy fixtues. No ballasts.
Leds are plastic cover with aluminum back frame. No worries if i bump them.
6 pack on Amaz-- is $50.
Do you have a link to the amazon page? Thanks!
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EMK80HI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I also have Hyperkon? brand which are less lumens. All have been working fine for 6 months so far.
And ad shows regular price much higher but thats bs. $10-12 is typical each.

I put them above kitchen cabinets too. The 4000k led & fluorescents are same nice white.
As others said, colder temp like 5000k & above seem to show paint imperfections better. Don't know why.

When i see supermarkets with rows of 100 fluorescents i see lots of wasted $$
 
I haven't put them in the booth yet but I've tried 6 or so different T8 led's in the shop. Anything in the 2200 lumens range are about worthless in my opinion. They would put out less light than your current 6500's would. Color has to be 6000k also. I was sent a 4000k bulb on accident and reminds me of an old t12 bulb. My shop would feel like a cave if it had a bunch of 4000K bulbs.

Eledlights.com has three options for lumen output. I just installed 30 3000 lumen 6000k frosted bulbs in the shop and those are good bulbs. Light is sharp/white/bright. Early last winter I installed 10 of the same bulbs to try them out.

I would like to convert my paintbooth now. Last year I did an overhaul on my booth and just bought hi output ballasts and my favorite 8000k octron bulbs. These new 3000 lumens bulbs put those to shame.

Downfall is price. The ones I like are a touch under 20 bucks a bulb. The other ones were all 10-14 bucks a bulb but they weren't any better than a good quality t8 bulb. One brand was pretty decent called Vari-bright and they had a 2200 lumen 6000k frosted bulb for 10bucks and that were decent. I bought 40 or so of them but couldn't get them anylonger when I tried to place a second order. A lot of these bulbs have 5 year warranty but I doubt the companies will be around in 5 year. I have a better feeling about Eledlights.com bulbs.
 
My father's church used 5000 or 6000k because they do appear brighter then the 4000k pure-ish white i like for home but it's not a eye friendly color for conversing or kitchen. Paint booth, sure the blue puts out & for some reason shows color mismatch & scratches better?
All supermarkets & offices look like 4000k to me.
I'll say what i used beats plain ol t8's a smidge for less electric & no ballasts.
 
i use daylight bulbs because they show true color better. the one above my bench had reg bulbs in it . didn't take long to get rid of them.
 

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i have vertical lights at the door end. it is the reflection of the light that makes the pattern visible. the white walls reflect plenty of light. never liked mid lights. they cast shadows .
 
Shine, I'm assuming you've shot in this booth for a looooong time , (don't bite my head off for asking :)) you don't have any worries about the lights being exposed? That setup is ok with your shop Insurance ?
 
Thanks to this thread, I purchased some low bay LED lights to try out in my shop. Crazy to think of 14 feet sidewalls as "low" but compared to the ceiling in a gym or Wal-Mart....

https://www.eledlights.com/led-lamp...esigner-led-low-bay-fixture.html#.WSy6bYjyvIU

2 of these ^^^ in a (roughly) 15x30 section of my shop, should be better than the 8 4' generic fluorescent bulbs that are there now. Can't believe someone worked in this shop for 30 years the way it was lit, I have more lights in my 12X24 garage!
 
my shop is on my farm . i am inspector-12 ;) in all my 40+ years i have never seen a booth fire . i've known painters who smoked while shooting lacquer .:eek:
my booth exhausts well enough there could never be enough fumes to ignite. my last big shop in town has explosion proof lights and all but the booth was around 1600 ft and had the exhaust from hell. 48 inch turbine fans .
.
 
Mitch, do you have those up yet?

I have a 12' ceiling where I'm converting storage to work space and tried a similar light like that and it sucked. Shadowed like crazy and was intense right under it. I thought I would be able to put a few lights instead of a bunch. I went with a bunch of 4' t8 fixtures converted to led bulbs to spread the light around.

Full runs of double 4' bulbs spaced 6-8' seem to give a good consistent light.
 
I checked out link posted for the 30w 4 footers. I see they use at least 50 more leds per tube then mine which is good, meaning they don't just overdrive a lesser led count to get the extra lumens.
And yes, 5000-6000 color temp is better for booth then 4000. I like 4000 cause its my garage & didnt care for blue tint.
Still, 2 of mine is 4600lumens (they're 2300 each not 2200) for 20$ vs 3000lumens for 20$.
I'll say for direct conversion without adding fixtures the ones Mitch linked to are great.

Shine- how does flat reflect better? Heck i figured dream scenereo would be aluminum or stainless sheet.
 
nope. flat white reflects more light. first thing i did with my mfg booth was paint the walls. ever been in a house with paneling walls ? paint them white and there is 3 times the light .
 
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