25 replies to this topic

[LXCHEV]

Would love some advice....

 

Current garage has an assortment of old fashioned fluro tubes, in no proper layout - all just leftovers from different renovations over the years. Some singles, some twins. Only one section of the garage is well-lit, with the rest full of dark spots. Some are hard-wired, some are on powerpoints. It's a dog's breakfast - so I'm removing absolutely everything and starting from scratch. Keen to go for all modern LEDs, but still thinking that 1200mm long battens is probably the best bet. Had considered 1200mm panel lights, but might make it look too much like an office? I will eventually clad the roof down the track with some kind of timber paneling. So slimline stuff is preferred I guess.

 

As far as power supply goes - I can have everything hard-wired, or setup on individual plug bases/sockets (a sparky mate gave me around 20 of these, so could be a nice option with more flexibility)?

 

My garage has a low internal roof height. 2.4m walls, with a 2.7m absolute peak at the centre. All timber, so I can either mount them underneath the main roof rafters, or up slightly higher in between the rafters, and underneath the roof sheet battens. Garage is 8m wide x 10m long. What's the ideal spacing? I'm thinking of buying a higher quantity of single battens, and spacing them closer together?

 

Here's what I'm dealing with:

 

 Shed Lighting 01.JPG   676.65K   2 downloads

 

 Shed Lighting 02.JPG   695.94K   1 downloads

Edited by LXCHEV, 24 February 2026 - 09:58 PM.

[LXCHEV]

Overwhelming choices out there...

 

As a rough example - would something like the following be a good choice?

 

 Shed Lighting 03.JPG   37.23K   1 downloads

 

Most seem to come with the 3k / 4k / 6k switch option - but others such as this one also have an option for controlling the wattage too (i.e. 20W / 30W / 40W);

 

 Shed Lighting 04.JPG   10.26K   0 downloads

 

 Shed Lighting 05.JPG   10.25K   0 downloads

 

Just starting with Bunnings - prices vary from $50 a batten to $120 a batten.

 

There's also some super slimline versions which look pretty neat:

 

 Shed Lighting 06.JPG   16.76K   0 downloads

 

Thoughts? Brands? What have you done with your garage to give good consistent, uniform light. Any photos to share?

Edited by LXCHEV, 24 February 2026 - 10:09 PM.

[LXCHEV]

Option 2 - panel style:

 

 Shed Lighting 07.JPG   44.07K   1 downloads

[Bruiser]

I put loads of those led fluoro shaped lights in sheds
They piss all over the old tubes for brightness, more light than an old double tube fitting
Plus they don’t go dim over the years.
I reckon you’d get away with 3 I down each side of shed,
probably better with 4 if you want it really well lit up and have the dosh

[S pack]

I have these LED tubes under my house to replace the flouro lights. I like the ability to replace a single tube than having to replace the whole light assy if the LEDs fail.

 DETA 36W caged dble LED Batten.jpg   90.3K   1 downloads

[yel327]

Get a sparky mate to get you these and put them in for you. Cheap and easy to install. And use suicide leads on the fittings. Use LED battens as Rob says. Buy it all from a wholesaler, forget Bunnings.
Make sure the sparky fits a high capacity switch, normal ones are no good on LEDs. Clipsal 56 series 20A or bigger is a good idea, rotary switch. Or a 32A switch mech.

https://www.sparkydi...UcxU0ovhszkhXTg

[LJ RB30]

Had my shed for 22 years. Lived on 1 twin 2ft fluro over the bench & floodlights on stands for too many years.

Brought new 15 twin 3ft fluro’s through elec wholesaler that sat under the bench for more years🤦

Started looking at led replacement tubes & went down that path as I already had all these new lights to use.

Lol ripped out all the brand new ballasts & starters & finally mounted these up in the shed!
OMG what an amazing transformation 😁
Wired outlets from Bunnings.

That was probably 9years ago.
Sadly the tombstone’s have gone brittle & broken on a couple. Must do something about them.

My take on these now is I would not go the tube replacement route, would not buy Bunnings outlets.
They just don’t last but the price is hard to beat.

Get your sparky mate to see what’s on special & grab them when they come up.

[LXCHEV]

Awesome feedback, thanks all. Duly noted. I'll see what the sparky can source! Stay tuned.

[Hatchback13]

I have a 9x7.5 shed and have 9 double 1200 fluoro’s, had a few go out years ago and finally did something about it recently, got all new tubes and starters, and it’s like a stadium in there now. My main advice would be choose daylight as the type of light, I work in a crash shop where booth lights are important and wouldn’t use anything but daylight. Everything through the house is too, love it. Only my opinion though, it will make a massive difference what ever you do. Good luck, Cheers

ps I went to rexel to get all mine, good help and good advice 

Edited by Hatchback13, 26 February 2026 - 08:31 PM.

[Rockoz]

I have a 9x7.5 shed and have 9 double 1200 fluoro’s, had a few go out years ago and finally did something about it recently, got all new tubes and starters, and it’s like a stadium in there now. My main advice would be choose daylight as the type of light, I work in a crash shop where booth lights are important and wouldn’t use anything but daylight. Everything through the house is too, love it. Only my opinion though, it will make a massive difference what ever you do. Good luck, Cheers

ps I went to rexel to get all mine, good help and good advice 

The problem with fluoros is they lose a heap of light after a relatively short time.

Forget the exact losses. but somewhere near 50% loss after about 3 months, depending on usage.

Bloke I knew used to do tube replacements in retail shops like Woolworths and KMart and the like.

Pretty sure they went in every 3 months and replaced every tube.

LEDs keep the light output for multiple times longer.

Ive done hundreds of conversions to LED tubes, but only where changing fittings would be an issue.

There were supposed heritage implications in some of the places.

But replacing the fittings completely is best.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[Rockoz]

Get a sparky mate to get you these and put them in for you. Cheap and easy to install. And use suicide leads on the fittings. Use LED battens as Rob says. Buy it all from a wholesaler, forget Bunnings.
Make sure the sparky fits a high capacity switch, normal ones are no good on LEDs. Clipsal 56 series 20A or bigger is a good idea, rotary switch. Or a 32A switch mech.

https://www.sparkydi...UcxU0ovhszkhXTg

What issues did you find with the standard mechs?

We replaced thousands of fittings with either retro fitted tubes or new fittings and didnt have any issues.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[Bruiser]

Nor me
Went off googling
Haneco brand led 0.7 amp
Electronic ballast old tubes 0.5 amp
Early iron ballast old tubes 0.7 amp
Would have thought led’s to be the least power hungry

The old tubes don’t compare though, for light output
I’ve never needed to change a switch mech when
putting an led in place of an old fluoro either

[yel327]

What issues did you find with the standard mechs?
We replaced thousands of fittings with either retro fitted tubes or new fittings and didnt have any issues.

Cheers

Rob

Inrush on LED fittings is huge, standard mechs can’t handle large fluoro loads without arcing and mechs being destroyed, LED’s are far worse due to their capacitance. A typical LED driver that pulls mA on load can have 25A inrush or more.
Over the last 25 or more years I have seen lots of reported electric shocks especially from cleaners from standard switch mechs, turning on or off, involving fluoro and lately LED fittings. Many more reports over and above that for spitting and cracking switch mechs. When you upgrade to LED fittings often the existing 10A C curve breaker will trip on magnetic due to LED inrush, they need to be upgraded to D curve or 16A breakers, sometimes even that is not enough. Switch mechs are not rated for AC23 or M rated, let alone good for capacitive inrush. I’ve seen extreme cases where Sodium or metal arc floods replaced by LED have seen the lighting contactors fail as they are only motor rated, had to swap them out for capacitor contactors.

[Rockoz]

Inrush on LED fittings is huge, standard mechs can’t handle large fluoro loads without arcing and mechs being destroyed, LED’s are far worse due to their capacitance. A typical LED driver that pulls mA on load can have 25A inrush or more.
Over the last 25 or more years I have seen lots of reported electric shocks especially from cleaners from standard switch mechs, turning on or off, involving fluoro and lately LED fittings. Many more reports over and above that for spitting and cracking switch mechs. When you upgrade to LED fittings often the existing 10A C curve breaker will trip on magnetic due to LED inrush, they need to be upgraded to D curve or 16A breakers, sometimes even that is not enough. Switch mechs are not rated for AC23 or M rated, let alone good for capacitive inrush. I’ve seen extreme cases where Sodium or metal arc floods replaced by LED have seen the lighting contactors fail as they are only motor rated, had to swap them out for capacitor contactors.

 

We did the replacement program over a number of years on a defence installation.

Some of the people working there whinged at the slightest thing, but we never had a complaint about arcing mechs.

Something like an arcing switch would have also triggered an after hours call out if it happened.

Might do a follow up with a friend still working there.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[yel327]

They may already have had Clipsal fluoro rated switch mechs, they were made because if fluoro inrush. May not have been as noticeable. Its a real thing though, was a common report at monthly industry electrical safety meetings and a often cleaners with wet floors in bathrooms. The mechs aren’t sealed and the arc would come out. In insulated boots on dry floors you’d just get a scare from the crack of the arc inside. With wet floors etc you’d get a shock.

[Rockoz]

They may already have had Clipsal fluoro rated switch mechs, they were made because if fluoro inrush. May not have been as noticeable. Its a real thing though, was a common report at monthly industry electrical safety meetings and a often cleaners with wet floors in bathrooms. The mechs aren’t sealed and the arc would come out. In insulated boots on dry floors you’d just get a scare from the crack of the arc inside. With wet floors etc you’d get a shock.

No. Standard mechs in every switch I checked out.

Many switches of very old vintage too. Some going back to the old style round types.

Because of heritage reasons we also had to try to find the right style as replacements, but some were impossible.

Generally replaced with standard Clipsal. Mainly due to plate failures rather than mech failures.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[yel327]

Very surprised you never came up against this. Clipsal released the 30FLM15 mech specifically due to failures in the standard mechs with fluoros. LED’s are worse, Google LED inrush, especially cheap ones, example

https://adlt.com.au/...nrush-currents/

There are even specific inrush current limiters now to counteract the problem.

[Rockoz]

Never came across it in decades of work.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[yel327]

Never came across it in decades of work.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

 

Believe me its a real thing.

[Rockoz]

Believe me its a real thing.

 

Not doubting you.

Just never came across it myself.

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[yel327]

Nor me
Went off googling
Haneco brand led 0.7 amp
Electronic ballast old tubes 0.5 amp
Early iron ballast old tubes 0.7 amp
Would have thought led’s to be the least power hungry

The old tubes don’t compare though, for light output
I’ve never needed to change a switch mech when
putting an led in place of an old fluoro either

 

That is running current. A 0.7A LED will pull 50A on startup. An LED doesn't use much less power, it just uses less kW, but their power factor is awful - like 0.2. So their actual kVA is not far different to a purely resistive lamp. A 15W CFL or LED for example will pull similar kVA to a 60W old light bulb.

[hanra]

I’ve got 14 of these around the place.

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[greenhj]

Had heaps of call outs over the years for "light switch gave me a shock" and it was almost always the first person to turn on the office lights in the morning, bonus points in winter when it was still dark.

 

No one actually got shocked, unless brown pants first thing in the morning counts, mostly it was the floors self appointed OHS person who moaned hard about it.

 

Can get a decent arc from a whole floor of fluorescent fittings, carried boxes full of fluoro rated mechs back in the day and just changed them out when it was reported because "We need to close off the incident report" and "you didn't get shocked" wasn't an appropriate response.

[yel327]

Had heaps of call outs over the years for "light switch gave me a shock" and it was almost always the first person to turn on the office lights in the morning, bonus points in winter when it was still dark.

 

No one actually got shocked, unless brown pants first thing in the morning counts, mostly it was the floors self appointed OHS person who moaned hard about it.

 

Can get a decent arc from a whole floor of fluorescent fittings, carried boxes full of fluoro rated mechs back in the day and just changed them out when it was reported because "We need to close off the incident report" and "you didn't get shocked" wasn't an appropriate response.

 

 

This is exacty what I was talking about. If cleaners had wet hands or gloves on the arc would reach their hands and they'd get a boot. LED's are three times as bad as fluoros, they'll trip the breaker the inrush current is so bad.

[RallyRed]

Built our  9 x 8m shed about 12 years ago.

Just put 6 x double fluros  in at the time as I had them and they seemed to do the job.

As they yellow off fail, I have  just been replacing them with UFO style LED  high bay circular style

Unreal lighting output...but as noted the wall switches do get a  bit noisey.

Maybe time for a mech changeout day.