Workshop lighting
 

My ageing mom needed more light in her kitchen, so I visited CEF and perused their range of striplights. I settled on an xcite (by Tamlite) LED batten 1500mm (5ft) because of its spec in terms of brightness, low power consumption and shallow profile. On fitting it in mom's kitchen I was very impressed with the increase in brightness over the previous 100W bulb, not to mention the spread and natural 'daylight' hue (4000K). So impressed in fact that I fitted one in place of the double florescent above my workbench. Excuse the pun, but the difference is like night and day, so much better in the ways I describe above. In fairness the photo below doesn't really prove or illustrate much, you really need to 'experience' a light level to make a judgement. The xcite lamp costs £58, not cheap but well worth it if you are considering upgrading your workshop lamp, or frankly anywhere in your home where a striplight could be used. It puts out 6200 lumens at 56W power consumption.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

Looking at the CEF website I conclude they have a very old-fashioned policy of only dealing with 'trade' customers, prices aren't visible unless you have a 'trade account', applying for an online account requires company information etc.
Not the sort of outfit I want to spend money with.
Do you know who sells these lights online to mere mortals?

Andy

Re: Workshop lighting
 

I've just walked into one of the CEF branches and bought whatever I want. It's possible that online they won't show prices if they want to give discounts to 'trade' customers.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

Could you report on their RFI-generating abilities?

I'm thinking of geting some better lighting for my office/radio-room so feedback on whether they produce noticeable HF noise would be appreciated.

800-Lux-at-the-workplace is all very well, but not if it comes with accompanying S9+ noise from 1.8 to 50MHz!

Re: Workshop lighting
 

CEF do sell to the man in the street, the general public. Yes, their main business comes from trade customers with accounts, but they are absolutely open to the public. And no, this particular lamp is not available from elsewhere as xcite is a Tamlite product, and Tamlite is a CEF brand!

Regarding RFI, I have not consciously checked this out yet, it's something I'll get round to soon.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

Looks good, hopefully the heat sink/s are generous and there are no noticeable gaps in the CRI.? I remember seeing an interesting medical anglepoise type luminaire that had one orange (water clear) LED for every nine cool white ones.

If you ever want to seal the inside of the roof i can recommend Bostik/Cementone Alkali resistant primer sealer. Very good adhesion and no prep. needed.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

As posted elsewhere- I've got a six foot workbench made from an old wardrobe door, and my lighting is 3x 20 W small circular fittings mounted on a shelf a few feet above. ( Similar idea to what I fitted under cupboards in kitchen , which keeps OH happy when doing her culinary things). Massive amount of light for such small fittings ,and all at 12v

Re: Workshop lighting
 

I have just bought one of those led strips to stick up above my workbench in the loft which has a slanted roof over it. I'll see how that pans out but it should hopefully add a decent amount of extra light, it's quite bright already but I could do with that bit extra.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

I've got a lamp made by TaoTronics which has orange LEDs interlaced with the white ones. You can adjust the colour temperature on it. Really good feature to break up the harsh white of the normal LEDs. Literally the best thing I've bought for years for work illumination: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B01M7YLKQ3/

Re: Workshop lighting
 

I did our kitchen and started my workshop with 400mm units from Aldi.
I did a review a couple of years ago where I waved them about like light sabres star wars style around various AM radios with good visual effect and radio listening quality.
The electronics are mounted in a screened aluminum extrusion.
Light per length is at least as good as old tubes if not better and the cost per length is about the same as others we have seen in this thread.
Each section has a switch so dimming can be done in sharp steps and they can also be linked in chains for big arrays.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

I placed my Tecsun PL-606 portable radio (on AM) next to the middle of the lamp. Close up, there was some interference. At about 300mm (1ft) distance away from the lamp, the interference subsided. So at bench distance away from the lamp, I am getting no noticeable disturbance on that radio, on AM.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

City also do a retro fit LED lamp and shorting starter, so no need to change your batten fitting. I have ran 2 off 6' fittings in our kitchen for about a year, instant start and full light output. Not cheap about £30 each tube with a trade account.
Bob.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

I put up the led strip lighting today and it's much better than I expected, lights the whole workshop with a decent light! I will still need my Anglepoise but shouldn't need much more than that. I'm quite impressed! I don't have a picture of the shop but here is a picture of the stuff I mean.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

I picked light "pipe" from the residue left by a landlord who had evicted an alcoholic couple.
It is about 5W and the light mixes down well enough for a windowless corridor.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

I like the door- a new use for an existing technology!

The other good thing with a string or a light pipe is-- virtually no shadows.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

Many trade outlets have a "list price" which they charge members of the public without an account, and this is often freely publicised in literature and online etc. and tradesmen can show this to their customers. Naturally, VAT has to be added too.

What is not made obvious to the public is that account holders are generally given a discount, which is quite often huge (e.g. tens of percent).

As a non-account holder, it's always worth asking: "Is there any discount you can do me on that, please" or words to that effect. Sometimes, I've had prices almost halved like this.

Re: Workshop lighting
 

The only upgrade i have made to conventional battens thus far is solid state starters and occasional daylight sim tubes.

I have seen a significant early failure rate of these TS8 Tubesaver starters, (sold in Wickes packaging) and i do mean failure rather than temporary shut-down.

The only precaution i can think of is for the first couple of starts on a batten that hasn't been installed/used in a while is made with a glow starter- just in case a surge from charging the capacitor is affecting a component.

I came close to condemning a perfectly good well made Thorn batten before testing by starter substitution, and this i suppose is the moral of the story if there is one. (It has been running for 3hrs now and the ballast is barely at blood-heat.)

Re: Workshop lighting
 

Doors were FOC at the time from a skip. I used three to make a bench.