LED "Betz Lights"

[basementcalling]

It's a fixture and bulb in one.

Suriously? Wow. I think. Maybe. I dunno. My workshop/laundry room needs new fixtures after 24 years.

[Angus Shops]

I’m using something very similar, but branded “Liteline”. I have them hard wired in and they are dimmable. I use the as general room lighting. My layout is ‘around the room’ and I’ve placed the lights more or less over the head of someone standing next to the layout. I used them partly because headroom is less than normal in the room and I didn’t want to loose the 3 or 4 inches required for typical fluorescents. I highly recommend them.

[davefoxx]

What I like about these Barrina LED lights is that they are cake to install and can be hard wired or set up with plugs.  I inherited a hodge podge of wiring and old fluorescent fixtures in what became my layout room when we bought the house.  I tore out several light fixtures, which were horribly providing light to the layout, and a rat's nest of wiring.  If anything, I decreased the chance of a house fire.  In that mess' place, I installed junction boxes with electrical outlets in the ceiling joists and set up my LED lights to be plugged in.  The difference in light was shocking.  I'm pretty sure that I have the 6500K lights, but I do not feel that it is too blue, which I have experienced with fluorescent tubes.

DFF

[Pomperaugrr]

I have had the Barrina LED lights in place for about two months.  I am very happy with the lighting level and color so far.  Easy to install and I do not miss the hanging shop lights with sickly fluorescent tubes.




Eric

[Cajonpassfan]

Interesting. Clean and inexpensive.
Two questions please: what is the vertical dimension of the fixture, and is there any data available related to wattage and lumens per fixture? I’m thinking of replacing the string LEDs on a portion of my lower deck...
Thanks, Otto

[Ed Kapuscinski]

They're short. Maybe 1.5-2".

I don't have any of the other data though.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Just confirmed. They're about 1 1/2"x 7/8".

[Cajonpassfan]

Thank you, that’s pretty slick...
Otto

[Mark5]

Thanks for sharing - will probably use something like this at the new house.

For the actual layout I will be looking for something that gives more of a "sunlight" feel.

[Maletrain]

Dave, you can buy direct-fit fluorescent bulb replacement LED lamps, but if cost is a factor, those will be more expensive than those Betz Ligths.  The 6500K color temperature seems a bit stark to me, but I think some modelers love the "natural sunny day" light.

My train(/sewing) room had a 4 tube fluorescent fixture that I converted to LED "tubes" by removing the ballasts and wiring the 120 VAC directly to the "tombstone" contacts on one end for each LED tube.  Those particular LEDs come in 4 "color temperatures": 2900 K, 4500 K, 5500 K and 6500 K.  We tired one bulb at a time to see which color we liked best (for seeing how different fabrics looked as well as the train stuff).  The result was that we liked the combination of all 4 colors.  The combination seems the most similar to "natural" light outside on a sunny day.  And, it minimizes those sometimes weird effects that a single "temperature" LED can produce in the perceived colors of skin and other complexly colored object when one of the spectrum lines of an LED light source happens to hit on a reflectivity or transmissivity peak of some part of a particular object.

It really is not hard to do those conversions.  But simply plugging in a power supply and daisy-chaining LEDs is definitely easier.  And, then there is the issue of placement of the lights, which might not be right with existing fixtures. 

My take-away is that I would like to see these single LED "bulbs" that are easy to install come in 4 different "color temperatures" so that I could run 4 strings of them and more easily (but not cheaply) get close to full spectrum natural light wherever I want it.