40 watt led overhead lighting fixture.

[samari46]

Decided to take the plunge and re do the lighting in my garage. At present I have 5 4' flourescent 4 lamp fixtures in my garage. Which was a two car garage. Have my lathe, drill press, grinder and one converted craft center on wheels that now had a double plywood laminated 2 layers for the top. Another steel workbench again with a double layered glued and screwed plywood top with a vise at one end. I plan on replacing fixtures flourescent for led so 5 led 4' fixtures. What has me stumped is what size wire to use. At present all the fixtures are screwed to the ceiling and power cords run to a power strip except for one. Since the manufacturer says to leave space all around for air flow as the led fixtures generate more heat than the old ones and they provide chains to suspend them from the ceiling. I bought one fixture to replace the one over the workbench and the difference in brightness and color of the light was astounding. One 4' led fixture has 2 rows of leds. I'll take the back off one fixture to see how it's wired with a pull cord switch. There is an outlet on one end that you can run a wire with standard 3 prong cord for power. I have a manually operated garage door so all light have to be on the outside of the garage door rail system. figure 3 wire cord hot,neutral and ground. All the outlets in the garage are 20 amp. The one by the workbench has it's own circuit breaker. The defunct garage door opener will be the power source for the 4 remaining 4' led fixtures. I don't reload in the garage as I have a man cave for that. I'm thinking about the same cord like they use for power tools like saws, drills, sanders but cannot remember what size AWG wire I should I use. Probably about #12 or slightly smaller. Thanks for your help. Frank

[lefty o]

if your going to make dedicated runs for the led lights, 14ga is even overkill. you could run a pile of those lights on a 15a ckt with 14ga wiring. 12ga 20A even more so.

[smoked turkey]

At electrical supply houses you can purchase short seconds of wire with a three prong plug attached to one end. These are commonly called "whips". A good way is to hard wire a receptacle in the ceiling so that it is located between fixture ends. Simply wire the whips out the end of the fixtures and plug them into the new receptacles which are switched. I put my whole shop on one switch so that all the lights come on with the flip of a switch. I would suspend the fixtures on short pieces of chain so as to keep them off the ceiling and heat won't be a problem.

[earlmck]

I've replaced all my 4' fluorescent lights with leds -- mixture of dedicated led, the bulbs you have to rewire the fixture for, and the bulbs you just make the straight replacement. So far (couple of years) everything is going strong except for one of the dedicated led fixtures which has failed. I'm now wishing I had used just the straight replacement bulbs and not ended up with the mix. But in any event it sure is brighter around here! And a single 18 watt led is brighter than two of the old 40 watters so you can easily get away with half as many bulbs and still be significantly brighter.

[rking22]

There should be a data sheet with the new fixture that gives total amperage draw. Use that to select wire gage. I suspect 18 is plenty and then some! I used old computer cords as whips for mine and the centrally located ,switched, duplex outlet. If you use the same number and wattage LED fixtures as you have florescent, you will need sunglasses in the shop. My wife did that, put 2 in her sewing room replacing 2 florescent, blinding bright!
I used 14AWG for the outlets, 18 for the whips. Might want to plug a tool in an outlet sometime, and had the 14 handy.

[bosterr]

My garage has 20 of the 4' T8 florescent tubes and I've been eyeing replacement LED tubes at Wally World. About every other month I need to buy a few new ones. Are the replacement LED tubes a viable replacement rather than the entire LED fixture? There would be no such thing as too bright in my garage.

[Conditor22]

I also have switched to LED's --- BIG DIFFERENCE !!!! I even got self-adhesive LED strip lights to light up "hard to reach places" like under shelves.

A little off topic - I bought a 4 ft LED fixture which has a thermal sensor with 4 different settings, 4 different brightness settings and several timmer/shutoff settings for the laundry area (corner of garage). Never have to turn a light on doing laundry , getting something from the garage and I have instant extra light when the garage door opens


** Costco frequently has sales on LED fixtures **

[MT Gianni]

I run LED's [2 4'ers] in my 3 car garage. I would dispute that they put out more heat. 40 Watts is 40 watts. I would use the existing wire, but in MT code is 12 gauge minimum.

[lefty o]

LED's dont put out more heat, but they are mounted directly to the fixture, therefore you need some space between the fixture and ceiling for them to dissipate the heat they do emit.

[firefly1957]

I recently installed 3 of the Harbor freight 4 foot L.E.D. shop lights even sub zero we had Monday they worked well they use 60 watts to produce 5000 lumens . I really like them i tested one over the kitchen sink it was to bright in daylight for the small area .

[Mal Paso]

The Feit brand 42 watt I bought have an 18 gauge 5' corded plug on one end and a receptacle on the other. You can daisy chain 7 lights one after the other. The limit is the 300 Watt rating of the 18 gauge cord.

LEDs produce 50% of their power rating as heat, less than fluorescents but they are more heat sensitive.

Costco has the Feits for $30 but they go down to $20 every so often.

[samari46]

Many thanks for all your replies. Was in Lowes today and looks like the 14 guage 2 wire with ground may be what I'm looking for. Been saving old power cords from computers and old non working power tools. Looks like some of them are going to get repurposed. I have two 4' 4 lamp flourescent fixtures above my lathe and find myself taking off my glasses to read the dials. So in that case extra light will be appreciated. Again many thanks. Frank

[MrWolf]

The Feit brand 42 watt I bought have an 18 gauge 5' corded plug on one end and a receptacle on the other. You can daisy chain 7 lights one after the other. The limit is the 300 Watt rating of the 18 gauge cord.

LEDs produce 50% of their power rating as heat, less than fluorescents but they are more heat sensitive.

Costco has the Feits for $30 but they go down to $20 every so often.

Yup. I picked up 20 of them for my garage at $20. Had to go twice as there was a limit of 10. Did a fast install to see about coverage. They work really well. I have to see if I can run them all off one switch but don't see why it would be an issue.

[jonp]

14g = 15 amp
12g = 20 amp
add what amperage you expect to run on that circuit and size the wire with the breaker matching the line size.
I just rewired my upstairs and porch. Upstairs I replaced all lights with led and low wattage wall mount electric heaters. I added up the amps as if all were on at the same time (worst case) then ran 20 amp. Porch is 2 small freezers, 3 led lights and 1.5 amp heated rug. I ran 15 amp there

[rking22]

"1.5 amp heated rug" Say What, sounds like something I need!!!
Could you post a bit more info, sorry for the detour....ooppppp, there goez a squirrel

[samari46]

All the outlets in the house are rated for 20 amps. My circular saw and the table saw pull 15 when starting and no popped breakers. Did pull one breaker and checked the amp rating just to be sure. I currently have the one led fixture and it has a 3 prong outlet on one end that can be used to power it. As with this brand the chain loops into a cutout with a tab to hold the fixture in place. Too darn cold in the garage to mess with it right now. And this is in Louisiana. Have had wild temp swings, cold at night and 50-60's during the day. I call it pneumonia weather. Got up in the 70's one day and actually had to put the a/c on. Frank

[jonp]

"1.5 amp heated rug" Say What, sounds like something I need!!!
Could you post a bit more info, sorry for the detour....ooppppp, there goez a squirrel

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018W94T0M..._t3_B018XYEM26 These come in many sizes and plug into a wall

All the outlets in the house are rated for 20 amps.

Nothing wrong with that as long as the wire is 12g.

[ChuckO]

I bought replacement LED bulbs for the 48" t12 fluorescent fixtures in my garage, the kind that require removal of the ballast and direct wiring of 120v to the bulb. At about $7.00 each it was well worth the effort to rewire the fixtures. Now I get more light from lower amperage and have full brightness when it's below freezing. Sixteen bulbs in the main part of the garage and 8 bulbs in my reloading area. Well worth the afternoon spent installing them.

[mold maker]

I've had terrible luck with the (WalMart Chinese) screw in LEDs. Mainly the lifespan which lasted from a week to 30 days. Is there a brand recommended for the 4' direct wired bulbs, also complete fixtures.

[JoeG52]

I have 4 of these running for the last year and they work great.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1