Improve your garage for £20

[moglite]

My Improve your MiG welding for £20 thread seemed to go down quite well 

So the next one in the series is Improve your garage for £20.

Visited my mate at the weekend, who has just moved. His sparky wired up his single garage with 3 x 5' 40W LED tubes.
They were bright.

In my double garage I keep adding 5' fluorescent tubes to get light in there, I'm up to 7 now !! It still wasn't a patch on my mates place.

But his light fittings were £70 each, which was going to get spendy.

So I had a look at eBay to see what the best bang for buck was with light fittings.

This was £17.50 earlier in the week 48W LED panel, and turned up yesterday, prices vary, just make sure you get one with a driver so you can run it from 240V

Claims to be 4200 lumens, which compares well with the 2300 lumens my 58W 5' fluorescent tubes are supposed to put out

So I set up my camera on manual mode, set the exposure to be correct when the original lights, as an attempt to show any improvement.

First piccie - lights off, but daylight coming through the blind on the door



Second piccie - all the other lights on but the tube above the workbench removed



Third piccie - this is with all the tubes on



Now with the tube over the workbench upgraded to the LED panel



Quite an improvement, I hope you'll agree.
The sun came out, so there is a little more light through the blind.
For the photographers out there, the final picture was 2 stops over exposed.

Caveats

• You might need to get an electrician to install lights - I'm happy doing it - but 240V can be v. dangerous.
• I've no idea how long they last, as it is only been up a few hours, but has a 3 year warranty
• I've no association with the eBay seller, but it turned up well packed and a day earlier than expected.
• There were no fixing supplied as they are designed to drop into suspended ceilings

When I get some more time/money I think I'll swap out some more tubes, definitely before I do any more spray work.

Hope it helps

[SmokeEm]

Nice tip - any photo's of the item and it's connections?

[ChrisT]

Would also recomend painting walls white, makes the most of what light is available.

[moglite]

Nov 17, 2017 15:41:38 GMT SmokeEm said:

Nice tip - any photo's of the item and it's connections?

Here is the driver, 



And here it is installed



Connector from the driver is This kind of thing

[fad]

You can improve your £20 for £20 by adding to it £20 which will make it £40.

You can have that advice for free.

(Nice thread!! I don't have a garage :-( )

[fordperv]

^do it to your garden shed if you have one

[60six]

Purchased - but they are even cheaper here (£17.58) www.ebay.co.uk/itm/48W-Suspended-Ceiling-Recessed-LED-Panel-White-Light-Office-Lighting-600-X-600/232285601361?var=531539636769&epid=711850403&hash=item36154cfe51:g:IbMAAOSwol5Yw~4T

Nice - never heard of them before. be a perfect second light for the garage. Thanks

[MkX]

Nov 17, 2017 15:52:51 GMT ChrisT said:

Would also recomend painting walls white, makes the most of what light is available.

Or if you want to go the whole hog, clad the walls in engine turned metal, (I know someone who's done that!)

[kikiichiban]

Just what I've been looking for. Thanks.

[fad]

Nov 17, 2017 18:13:24 GMT fordperv said:

^do it to your garden shed if you have one

I have a concrete yard.

And a gate.

And no friends.

:-(

LOL!!

[fad]

Aldi have 5 foot led tubes in for £9 (or £6 if the box is damaged...)

[60six]

And now a step closer to my childhood dream of making my garden path do this!

[austinpowers]

My stepdad has two of them LED panel lights fitted in his garage as his main light source. And they are bright and have a good distribution of light.

[steveo3002]

do you find that light casts hard shadows ? got a few led lights and while the light is great , say if your arm or something gets in the way it seems to cast a darker hard shadow vs other light sources seem to be softer

[nomad]

Good choice for a new thread topic, the LED light panels are a lot cheaper than the ones I looked at a few years ago 


+1 for white paint.


 Following the good advice above to double your £20 to £40 gets you some handy workshop tools. Sell the bits you don't want and get most of your ££ back www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/garage-workshop/trolley-jacks/halfords-5-piece-lifting-kit?cm_re=blackfridaypage-_-topdeals-_-bf5pclifting
ps. does anyone want to buy a brand new garage car creeper for £30 ? PM me   


Use offcuts of old carpet (especially where you stand at your workbench) to insulate you from the cold concrete, old sofa cushions also make warm comfortable kneeling pads when working on suspension etc.  Just skip the stuff when it gets dirty / oiled.

Have a look at your local salvage / reclamation yard for roof insulation boards, I got *lots* of 4x2 50mm Kingspan sheets for 50p each (they came out of a school that was being demolished), made the garage a much warmer place to be in cold winter months.


LED floodlights (I got a pack of 5 below for £20 a couple of years ago, great as stand-alone, over the workbench, or on an old camera tripod to make a portable worklight)
An electrician mate tells me LEDs last for many years but they fade over time so are not as bright when they get old.
10w size is handy, I also got a pair of 20w floodlights and they are V.bright !

[moglite]

Nov 19, 2017 9:08:37 GMT steveo3002 said:

do you find that light casts hard shadows ? got a few led lights and while the light is great , say if your arm or something gets in the way it seems to cast a darker hard shadow vs other light sources seem to be softer

I've spent half the weekend in the garage, and haven't noticed a problem with shadows, in fact I'd say there are good for lack of shadows.

In fact several times I thought I'd left the door open, but no - just loads of light 

I'm very impressed - in fact I've ordered another 5 to complete the replacement of the tubes.

[Dorset_Clive]

While it doesnt qualify for the <£20 price tag, beware of using these style of LED strips: www.ledkia.com/uk/buy-50m-220v-240v-ac-led-strips/3747-ac-220v-smd5050-led-strip-coil-in-warm-white-60-led-m-50-metres.html

They are very good, and bright and worked well attached to all the rafters in my workshop...so the problem? Give me a massive headache because as soon as you move your head, you get a massive strobe effect. Nightmare! I darent tell SWMBO as I paid over £150 for all the ones I used. Poo!!

[60six]

Nov 20, 2017 19:23:06 GMT Dorset_Clive said:

While it doesnt qualify for the <£20 price tag, beware of using these style of LED strips: www.ledkia.com/uk/buy-50m-220v-240v-ac-led-strips/3747-ac-220v-smd5050-led-strip-coil-in-warm-white-60-led-m-50-metres.html

They are very good, and bright and worked well attached to all the rafters in my workshop...so the problem? Give me a massive headache because as soon as you move your head, you get a massive strobe effect. Nightmare! I darent tell SWMBO as I paid over £150 for all the ones I used. Poo!!

strobe effect is caused by bad power supply - find the DC block and buy another the same voltage or +2-5v higher. No more strobe.