• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Installing All New Light Fixtures In My Shop/studio, Any Advise?

J

Jumpshoutmedia

New Member
I'm going to be replacing the old fourecent coffer lights in my studio, and I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions of what the best type of replacement would be? I know they make led retrofit kits that would allow me to gut the original fixtures, and install new guts that can accept LED tubes, but I just want to find out if anyone has an recommendations as to which kind of lighting will perform the best for the type of work we do.

FYI: My shop is an open floorplan, with approx 10ft drop ceilings. I was going to keep the ceiling tiles, but i could get rid of them if I wanted to.

With the old tube fourecent type, I found the light output to be bright enough, but I would occasionally have to perch myself over the top of my work and scan my head around just to find a cutline on a sheet of vinyl to start weeding.. which seemed to get worse with high gloss vinyl.

What about color temperature, do you guys know if brighter white light is better or software etc for staring at glossy decal material etc..

How about ambient lighting vs task lighting? Do any of you guys hang brighter task lighting directly over your work tables? Or just rely on the global light source in the room?

Any suggestions on the matter would be appreciated, I'm about to spend a bunch of money replacing my fixtures, and I'd like to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Thanks!
 
C

Chris...

New Member
We always had D50 bulbs when I worked in color management. When I worked at a sign shop I talked them into D50 bulbs, they never regretted it.
 
SignosaurusRex

SignosaurusRex

Active Member
You don't need to gut the fluorescent fixtures. You can get LED tubes that are fluorescent fixture compatible at no more cost than the LED tubes that are not. More light and less energy, longer life. I just changed out all of mine a few months ago and like them.
 
G

GaSouthpaw

Profane and profane accessories.
I second swapping to LEDs that just install in your existing fixtures.
Also, I'd personally make damned sure they're the appropriate lights to mimic sunlight (can't remember exact specs, but I suspect they're something along the lines of what Chris is recommending above) so you can tell what something will actually look like outside.
 
300mphGraphics

300mphGraphics

New Member
I just switched my shop over to LED. Had an electrician come in who specialized in it. Basically left the old fixture in place, cut the fluorescent ballast out of the wiring loop, and wired the new bulbs direct.They offer the advantage of reduced maintenance costs associated with replacing ballasts since the ballast is no longer part of the lighting system. They also have an added advantage of being lower cost than ballast compatible LED fluorescent replacement tubes.
 
Pauly

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
D50 fluro tubes. Other than seeing all colours how they're suppose to be,
They're better for your eyes, they make you feel less tired.
 
S

shoresigns

New Member
As others have hinted at, definitely use D50 for everything if possible. Check your Pantone book for a D50 lighting indicator—it's a nifty little patch of colour that changes to show you whether the lighting you're under is D50 or not.
 
rjssigns

rjssigns

Active Member
If you're in a commercial setting call your local utility. Many will have incentives that can save you a ton of money when switching to LED.
 
S

shoresigns

New Member
shoresigns said:
As others have hinted at, definitely use D50 for everything if possible. Check your Pantone book for a D50 lighting indicator—it's a nifty little patch of colour that changes to show you whether the lighting you're under is D50 or not.
Click to expand...

Pardon my giving advice without following it myself, but...

Does anyone else have a Pantone book with the D50 lighting indicator at the back? We have it in our Coated Color Bridge. We haven't started switching to D50 (5000K) bulbs yet, but after reading this thread yesterday, we noticed our the D50 indicator in our Pantone book does not work.

The two patches of brown match under 6500K but not under 5000K. They're supposed to match when they're lit by 5000K, right? That's what the Pantone guide says.
 
printhog

printhog

New Member
use d50 (5000k) lighting, look for a color rendering index (CRI) of at least 95. Most florescent lamps at d50 will be around 85 CRI. But higher price lamps will get to 98.. The CRI is the percent of colors the illuminant will properly render. It's very nice to have this kind of lighting.

And if you want to go all in.. paint your walls munsel gray. It's the same gray as a photographers gray exposure target.

Painting studio walls the neutral gray will prevent color shifts from reflection off the walls. An offwhite wall can toss all your fancy bulb investment right out the door.


its only a freaking sign!
 
T

Tattoosleeve

New Member
Resurecring an old thread. Does anyone have any more recent experience with LED light fixtures with high CRI rating? Local electrical place found me some 90 CRI LED fixtures but only up to 5000K.the posts above have me worried they might not even be the right route but we would like to go LED for long term expense.

Did anyone find a fixture that works with the Pantone tester?
 
Pauly

Pauly

Printrade.com.au
Tattoosleeve said:
Resurecring an old thread. Does anyone have any more recent experience with LED light fixtures with high CRI rating? Local electrical place found me some 90 CRI LED fixtures but only up to 5000K.the posts above have me worried they might not even be the right route but we would like to go LED for long term expense.

Did anyone find a fixture that works with the Pantone tester?
Click to expand...

I dont know if there's any LED solutions with D50 illumination Fluro tubes is the best you'll get..
 
F

fresh

New Member
Heads up to anyone looking to do these improvements.. Check with your utilities to see if they have any subsidy programs. We need to upgrade all the lighting in our shop, and we got a quote for around $2K to replace everything. A few months later, I found out about the Direct Energy program in NJ, and with their subsidies, its going to be closer to $800 bucks. Your town / county / state might have a similar program.
 
C

ColorCrest

All around shop helper.
Tattoosleeve said:
Resurecring an old thread. Does anyone have any more recent experience with LED light fixtures with high CRI rating? Local electrical place found me some 90 CRI LED fixtures but only up to 5000K.the posts above have me worried they might not even be the right route but we would like to go LED for long term expense.

Did anyone find a fixture that works with the Pantone tester?
Click to expand...

1) Recent experience discovery of really poor product quality of build, output, and specification claims from multiple sources.

2) Are you looking for a much different spec other than 5000K?

3) You might save energy expense but you probably won't save lamp expense, even over the long term.

4) I personally haven't seen consistent results from using the tester.

Buyer beware.

Pauly said:
I dont know if there's any LED solutions with D50 illumination Fluro tubes is the best you'll get..
Click to expand...

I agree with Pauly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top