Inside The Secret Underground Laboratory

[Bruce Johnson]

Just wanna point out that I'm pretty excited about this and I've done a really good job of not being a PITA and asking about it every 10 min.
And due to my stellar behavior, I would imagine I'll see this by Xmas.

Yes, the Neck Shaping Router Machine is on my schedule for this fall. Which starts about now. I've got it all figured out in detail, and I have most of the materials gathered up. I think that machine will be a real breakthrough timesaver. I'm hoping it will save several hours on each Scroll Bass.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Trying to come up with a suggestion for a name but so far I only have
Victor Whooten
Pino Talontino
Owl Di Meola

I like Victor Whooten! Victor would be a good name for an owl. We haven't seen him for two days. Maybe he's moved on and found a quieter place to snooze.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Let there be light!

I'm in the process of re-doing all the lights in my shop. I'm replacing all the old T8 and T12 fluorescent fixtures with new LED strip lights. This week I got the LED lights installed in most of my main Unit 14 shop. In a few weeks, I'll be installing more in the machine shop, and my two warehouse bays.

Here's a look in the front gate of the main shop, all lit up at 5 am:

I did some research and sample testing before I bought these LED lamps. These are Barrina brand, 4 foot, 5000K color temp, with diffusers. I particularly liked these because of the diffusers. Some LED lamps are so glaringly bright that they hurt your eyes to look at. These are not, you can look right at them. Also, the 5000K color is a nice compromise. Not as bright white as 6000K, not as yellow as 4000K. And, these LED lamps are cheap; $64 for a box of 8 of them. They draw 20W each (as compared to 64W per fluorescent fixture), and they run cool. Very low risk of sparks or fire. Light weight, no real danger if I hit one with a board. They are supposed to last for 5 years of continuous running. At my duty cycle, they should be good for at least 10 years. Really, there's no good reason to use fluorescents any more.

I bought them through Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Barrina-Inte...pd_rd_i=B07PG3RLH7&psc=1&ref_=pd_bap_d_rp_1_t

Here's how I mounted most of them. I had some 10' lengths of 1" PVC pipe left over from an abandoned plumbing project. I attached two of the lamps to each pipe, with a 2' gap between them. Each 10' long pipe is hanging on two 24" long lengths of light chain. So, the lamps all end up at 8' off the floor. That seems right for the spread of the light. I made up and mounted 7 of those 10' long assemblies so far. I think this is enough to cover the main shop.

I attached the lamps to the PVC pipe with......two wraps of clear packing tape at each end! These things are so light weight that this is all they need.

Over the main woodworking bench, I mounted four of them on wood brackets. I'll be doing a similar setup over the machine shop bench and in the spray booth. I may mount twin lamps over the lathes.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

In case you are wondering, the owl hung around for about a week and then took off. We haven't seen him since. I guess it was too noisy here. Or the crows moved on.

 

[Bobo]

Let there be light!

I'm in the process of re-doing all the lights in my shop. I'm replacing all the old T8 and T12 fluorescent fixtures with new LED strip lights. This week I got the LED lights installed in most of my main Unit 14 shop. In a few weeks, I'll be installing more in the machine shop, and my two warehouse bays.

Here's a look in the front gate of the main shop, all lit up at 5 am:

View attachment 4425378

I did some research and sample testing before I bought these LED lamps. These are Barrina brand, 4 foot, 5000K color temp, with diffusers. I particularly liked these because of the diffusers. Some LED lamps are so glaringly bright that they hurt your eyes to look at. These are not, you can look right at them. Also, the 5000K color is a nice compromise. Not as bright white as 6000K, not as yellow as 4000K. And, these LED lamps are cheap; $64 for a box of 8 of them. They draw 20W each (as compared to 64W per fluorescent fixture), and they run cool. Very low risk of sparks or fire. Light weight, no real danger if I hit one with a board. They are supposed to last for 5 years of continuous running. At my duty cycle, they should be good for at least 10 years. Really, there's no good reason to use fluorescents any more.

I bought them through Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Barrina-Inte...pd_rd_i=B07PG3RLH7&psc=1&ref_=pd_bap_d_rp_1_t

View attachment 4425400

Here's how I mounted most of them. I had some 10' lengths of 1" PVC pipe left over from an abandoned plumbing project. I attached two of the lamps to each pipe, with a 2' gap between them. Each 10' long pipe is hanging on two 24" long lengths of light chain. So, the lamps all end up at 8' off the floor. That seems right for the spread of the light. I made up and mounted 7 of those 10' long assemblies so far. I think this is enough to cover the main shop.

View attachment 4425399

I attached the lamps to the PVC pipe with......two wraps of clear packing tape at each end! These things are so light weight that this is all they need.

View attachment 4425402

Over the main woodworking bench, I mounted four of them on wood brackets. I'll be doing a similar setup over the machine shop bench and in the spray booth. I may mount twin lamps over the lathes.

View attachment 4425403

i just replaced an ancient T8 fixture with a 4’ led also. amazing the difference! i’m going to replace the one over my computer so i don’t have to turn it off when i record…no more ‘HUMMMMMM’!

 

[Bobo]

Let there be light!

I'm in the process of re-doing all the lights in my shop. I'm replacing all the old T8 and T12 fluorescent fixtures with new LED strip lights. This week I got the LED lights installed in most of my main Unit 14 shop. In a few weeks, I'll be installing more in the machine shop, and my two warehouse bays.

Here's a look in the front gate of the main shop, all lit up at 5 am:

View attachment 4425378

I did some research and sample testing before I bought these LED lamps. These are Barrina brand, 4 foot, 5000K color temp, with diffusers. I particularly liked these because of the diffusers. Some LED lamps are so glaringly bright that they hurt your eyes to look at. These are not, you can look right at them. Also, the 5000K color is a nice compromise. Not as bright white as 6000K, not as yellow as 4000K. And, these LED lamps are cheap; $64 for a box of 8 of them. They draw 20W each (as compared to 64W per fluorescent fixture), and they run cool. Very low risk of sparks or fire. Light weight, no real danger if I hit one with a board. They are supposed to last for 5 years of continuous running. At my duty cycle, they should be good for at least 10 years. Really, there's no good reason to use fluorescents any more.

I bought them through Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Barrina-Inte...pd_rd_i=B07PG3RLH7&psc=1&ref_=pd_bap_d_rp_1_t

View attachment 4425400

Here's how I mounted most of them. I had some 10' lengths of 1" PVC pipe left over from an abandoned plumbing project. I attached two of the lamps to each pipe, with a 2' gap between them. Each 10' long pipe is hanging on two 24" long lengths of light chain. So, the lamps all end up at 8' off the floor. That seems right for the spread of the light. I made up and mounted 7 of those 10' long assemblies so far. I think this is enough to cover the main shop.

View attachment 4425399

I attached the lamps to the PVC pipe with......two wraps of clear packing tape at each end! These things are so light weight that this is all they need.

View attachment 4425402

Over the main woodworking bench, I mounted four of them on wood brackets. I'll be doing a similar setup over the machine shop bench and in the spray booth. I may mount twin lamps over the lathes.

View attachment 4425403

i like the pvc pipe idea, a lot!

 

[Bruce Johnson]

i just replaced an ancient T8 fixture with a 4’ led also. amazing the difference! i’m going to replace the one over my computer so i don’t have to turn it off when i record…no more ‘HUMMMMMM’!

I'm leaving the fluorescent lamp over my assembly/testing bench for just that reason. I actually hold every instrument up near it to test the shielding.

 

[RichterScale]

I guess it was too noisy here

Hopefully he doesn't write a bad review on owl homes dot com.

 

[Bobo]

I'm leaving the fluorescent lamp over my assembly/testing bench for just that reason. I actually hold every instrument up near it to test the shielding.

cool! (or hot!) you, you’re good you!

 

[farace]

I got some LED bulbs from Costco that just mount into the old fluorescent fixtures I already had on the ceiling. They got shockingly hot! I guess I need to do some reading before I try that again.

 

[Beej]

I converted my last workshop to LEDs last year and instantly loved it. I'll be putting them in the new workshop here shortly too.

 

[CryingBass]

Old LCD lighting might still be around on shelves ( including in my house! ), but I find the latest stuff to be a LOT cooler, longer-lasting, most work with dimmers, etc. Good lighting is a luthier's or mechanics best friend.

Check out Big Ass Fans. They make some monster garage/shop lights that I use that turn night into day.
Might be too bright for a low-ceiling shop light, for sure. But man, they are the cat's meow ( and not cheap ).

Crap! Looks like they don't sell them anymore. I snagged some hand held cordless units just a year ago and those are also kick-butt. I hope I'm wrong. And made in the USA!

 

[Bobo]

the new ones are much better!

 

[dwizum]

Bruce thanks for sharing the specific link. I've gone through a couple different brands of cheap LED striplights and none of them have been super satisfactory (weird color, didn't last long, etc.). I hope those ones work well for you long term and if so I'll buy some!

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Bruce thanks for sharing the specific link. I've gone through a couple different brands of cheap LED striplights and none of them have been super satisfactory (weird color, didn't last long, etc.). I hope those ones work well for you long term and if so I'll buy some!

I got my first box of the Barrinas in early 2020, and three of those lights are in constant-on duty out in the hall. They've got a year and a half on them so far, no problems.

I have three older LED shop lamp fixtures that I bought at Home Depot for $25 each, about 5 years ago. One of them was on constant duty and it finally failed this year. The other two are still going at partial duty.

I notice that the Barrinas stay nice and cool, barely warm to the touch. That's a good sign.

The LED lamps that are made to pop into fluorescent fixtures with no modification are troublesome. Fluorescent fixtures have ballasts (transformers) to boost the voltage up higher to make the bulbs light. The LED conversion lamps have to have an internal transformer and resistors to step the voltage back down. That's wasted electricity and it builds heat. And heat is trouble in electronic devices.

There are also LED lamps available which physically fit into fluorescent fixtures, but you must rewire the fixture, taking out the ballast. So the LED lamp just gets straight 110VAC. Those are much better.

I'll be satisfied if these Barrinas last 5 years. They are only $8 each. Way less expensive than T8 bulbs.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

cool! (or hot!) you, you’re good you!

Now that you mention it, I think I'm going to put several LED lamps up over the assembly/test bench, along side the old fluorescent fixture. And wire them on separate switches. So I can turn the Test Buzz on and off. That would be useful for testing shielding.

I also have an old 1950's era variable power supply for electroplating. A bench-top size version of an arc welder. I'm thinking about wiring that up on the test bench too, to generate some serious Test Buzz.

 

[dwizum]

Funny, I left a single normal T8 in my shop for the same purpose.

The fixtures I'm on now are from an Amazon vendor Hykolity, 4 ft "T5" 22w 6500k. I'm about 2 years in on them. Color temp is OK, better than others but it still tends to wash out photos. They're all still technically working, but sometimes not reliably, in that once in a while a part of a strip will flicker for a couple hours and then return to working perfectly. I was hoping for 5 years out of them but I probably break even on cost at 3 years so I might just replace them next year since the occasional flickering is super annoying.

 

[rudy4444]

I've mostly replaced my older 48" fixtures with 5K LED fixtures and it's shocking what the improvement has been. Plus they are bright even at low temperatures and totally quiet. I've been using the cheap ones from my big box store and they seem to work well, although they are extremely light weight and don't exude any confidence in their construction quality. The first ones I added a couple of years ago are still working fine.

I did try some of the LED bulbs that fit in a standard T12 equipped fixture, but they did not work and I immediately returned them and bought more fixtures instead.

I wonder about the type that require the re-wiring of the fixture to supply full 110vac to the sockets. Any time a fixture is modified in that manner the U.L. or other approval is no longer valid, and if there was ever a fire problem it might might result in a claim denial. Maybe I'm being overly concerned, but I know how these types of issues can crop up.

 

[TerribleTim68]

Thanks for the link Bruce! I'm looking at replacing the (3) 6-foot fluorescent twin-tube fixtures in my "shop" garage. I have one that keeps randomly shutting off and then coming back on at unknown intervals, super frustrating when you are filming and it suddenly gets dimmer in there.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I wonder about the type that require the re-wiring of the fixture to supply full 110vac to the sockets. Any time a fixture is modified in that manner the U.L. or other approval is no longer valid, and if there was ever a fire problem it might might result in a claim denial. Maybe I'm being overly concerned, but I know how these types of issues can crop up.

I don't think that's a problem, because a fluorescent fixture normally sees 110VAC (or 277VAC) at the sockets. The ballast is a one-coil choke, not a transformer. Its purpose is to provide enough voltage to start the lamp, and then limit the current once it's going. The LED conversion bulb has an internal transformer that steps the voltage down very low (under 12V?) and there's very low current surge to start the LED's. The voltage at the socket is the same, and the current is much less, than the UL rating of the sockets.