ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
A follow up to this earlier thread, where I was looking for LED tubes for Fluorescent Tube style fixture in something a bit nicer than a shop light.
https://www.early-retirement.org/fo...hout-ballast-or-tubes-109192.html#post2604010
So the solution in that thread has worked well in the Laundry room. A bit later, I was ready to tackle lighting for the unfinished part of the basement in our new-to-us home. Since the LED replacement tubes I bought came with their own "tombstone" connectors, I figured maybe I'd just attach the connectors to the bottom of the overhead shelf I made, and to the joist above. I thought I'd just use some aluminum flashing for the reflector, until someone on a DIY site pointed out that you don't need a reflector with these LED tubes - the old fluorescent radiated 360 degrees, the LEDs all point straight down. Even simpler/cheaper!
But I wasn't sure how to deal with the short length of bare wire from the tombstones. I want everything to meet code (and be safe of course!), and figured this would need to be covered in something. I suppose that could just be some 1x wood pieces to cover the wire until it got to a box that I'd put right next to it.
Then I found these mentioned on youtube:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PG3RLH7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I am really impressed. These aren't dim-able, but I won't need that in my workshop anyhow. The 5000K seems to be a good compromise between the 6000K clarity/sharpness, and natural lighting (4000K is probably better for that). But they are so light and completely (literally!) plug and play. I really like the flexibility. With recessed connectors on each end, you can 'hard-connect' lights - butting them together with a little solid jumper to form an 8' to 32' continuous string w/o any wires. Or use one of the jumper wires at any point to create a gap, or change direction of the 4' sections. Just start the string with either the cords/switch, or with the little hard-wire jumper they provide. And they come with little plugs to cover the contacts for the ends that don't get plugged into anything. Screw in the little clip, snap them on, and you're done (though with hard-connected strips, you need to be pretty careful to align the clips - no big deal).
This saved me worrying about any exposed wires. I did add an outlet box with 6' of armored cable, running from my switched overhead light for that room, so my LEDs all turn on/off with the existing wall switch. I just wanted to avoid the bulb extender thing with the plugs, plus I'd need an extension cord to reach that, and that just was getting a little tackier than I wanted.
Overall, very, very pleased with these. And less than $10 per 4' LED strip, with all these wire options. Nice.
I used 2 hard-connected under the overhead shelf I made ( like a single 8' light tube), and 4 total mounted to the joists overhead - 2 pairs of hard-connected 8' strips, arranged in a "U" with one of the 48" jumper cords to connect the two pairs (at the base of the "U").
-ERD50
https://www.early-retirement.org/fo...hout-ballast-or-tubes-109192.html#post2604010
So the solution in that thread has worked well in the Laundry room. A bit later, I was ready to tackle lighting for the unfinished part of the basement in our new-to-us home. Since the LED replacement tubes I bought came with their own "tombstone" connectors, I figured maybe I'd just attach the connectors to the bottom of the overhead shelf I made, and to the joist above. I thought I'd just use some aluminum flashing for the reflector, until someone on a DIY site pointed out that you don't need a reflector with these LED tubes - the old fluorescent radiated 360 degrees, the LEDs all point straight down. Even simpler/cheaper!
But I wasn't sure how to deal with the short length of bare wire from the tombstones. I want everything to meet code (and be safe of course!), and figured this would need to be covered in something. I suppose that could just be some 1x wood pieces to cover the wire until it got to a box that I'd put right next to it.
Then I found these mentioned on youtube:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PG3RLH7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I am really impressed. These aren't dim-able, but I won't need that in my workshop anyhow. The 5000K seems to be a good compromise between the 6000K clarity/sharpness, and natural lighting (4000K is probably better for that). But they are so light and completely (literally!) plug and play. I really like the flexibility. With recessed connectors on each end, you can 'hard-connect' lights - butting them together with a little solid jumper to form an 8' to 32' continuous string w/o any wires. Or use one of the jumper wires at any point to create a gap, or change direction of the 4' sections. Just start the string with either the cords/switch, or with the little hard-wire jumper they provide. And they come with little plugs to cover the contacts for the ends that don't get plugged into anything. Screw in the little clip, snap them on, and you're done (though with hard-connected strips, you need to be pretty careful to align the clips - no big deal).
This saved me worrying about any exposed wires. I did add an outlet box with 6' of armored cable, running from my switched overhead light for that room, so my LEDs all turn on/off with the existing wall switch. I just wanted to avoid the bulb extender thing with the plugs, plus I'd need an extension cord to reach that, and that just was getting a little tackier than I wanted.
Overall, very, very pleased with these. And less than $10 per 4' LED strip, with all these wire options. Nice.
I used 2 hard-connected under the overhead shelf I made ( like a single 8' light tube), and 4 total mounted to the joists overhead - 2 pairs of hard-connected 8' strips, arranged in a "U" with one of the 48" jumper cords to connect the two pairs (at the base of the "U").
-ERD50
