Thursday, June 26, 2025

Lighting

 I built my shop in 2017. It's a 40 X  50 with 10' eaves.  Full metal construction.  You've driven past a million of them. When designing the electrical wiring, my boys and I consulted and decided to mount  8, 110 volt outlets in the ceiling.  We felt that this would give me lots of options for lighting.



I went down to the Feed N Seed and got some brooder lights.  Low cost, low tech, and screwed some twisty fluorescent tubes into them. That worked great for a while, but after a time, they started to burn out, and while I was at the local electrical supply store, I asked them what was new.

UFO lights, they said. The latest and greatest.  High bay application, plug and play.  So, I bought one for $150.00.  Lots of light, lots of bright.  Warranted for five years.  Those florescent tubes continued to burn out, and I went to Amazon to see if I could do better than the $150 UFO lights.

Sure enough, I found these.  A two pack for ~$50.  So, I ordered two packs  Four lights in the door for about $100.  This morning, I got out the ladder and tempted fate, climbing up to the ceiling. Took down the old lights, bung up the new lights and plugged them in.

These things are made in China, and I'd rather buy American, but for ~$25 apiece, it's hard to justify going down to the electrical supply and paying $150.  If I need them, I still have the brooder lights.

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