[Shop-talk] Lighting

[Doug Braun]

It's probably hard to find new electronic ballasts for less than the price of new fixtures.

A while back I was wondering if I could upgrade my 96" T12 HO fixtures to use electronic ballasts, because the stock ones get awfully warm. But electronic ballasts of the required size were more expensive than the original fixtures.

I have a 48" 2-bulb T8 fixture in my basement, and it works great.  I never realized why until I read all these posts in the last couple of days.  If I were installing new lighting in my garage today, I would have bought several of those.

BTW, the original garage lighting was two 100-watt bare incandescent bulbs.  I was amazed that the previous owners put up with that for 30+ years...

Doug