The issue I've been annoyed with is the garage door opener light bulbs. A while back, I tried swapping to LED bulbs, so that I wouldn't have to replace them so often. Unfortunately the electronics in the LED bulbs caused radio interference - When the bulbs were lit, the door would not open using the remote. This is mostly just a problem in the winter when you use the car to get to the mailbox and need back in while the lights are still on. Still, you want to be able to get back in!
After the issue with radio interference, I swapped back to incandescent bulbs. I hate them - they burn out pretty often. I suppose the vibration of the door opener doesn't do a white-hot tungsten filament any good. Also, they are dim, dim, dim bulbs. The warning label on the socket says 60 watts maximum. That's not very much light for a high bay shop or a large garage.
It's a nuisance to replace the bulbs, because you have to move the car, then set up a ladder, then hope you still have some 60 watt incandescent bulbs on hand somewhere. After replacing the bulb, you have to reverse the process. So yeah - a lot of nuisance to replace a bulb that is quite dim, and won't last for long after you replace it.
Genie makes a special LED bulb specifically for garage door openers. I considered installing these, but that wouldn't correct the issue of poor light output.
I pondered this annoyance for several months - the dim light and the radio interference. I considered installing a relay to operate a remote light, or turn on the ceiling lights. Too much trouble and too much complexity. I figured something would go wrong at some point and I'd be working on that instead of changing bulbs. I finally came up with a fix.
I bought three light bulb socket - AC plug adapters (two for the garage, and one for the shop door opener).
I purchased three chicken brooder reflector lamp fixtures. I chose these because the base of the LED - where the radio noisy electronics packages are located - will be up inside the aluminum reflector housing. The power cord on these fixtures is long enough that I was able to mount the bulbs well away from the opener. Between the shielding provided by the reflector and the added distance, hopefully this will allow the garage door remotes to work.
Next I bought some seriously bright 300 Watt equivalent LED bulbs.
Below, one fixture installed. You can't see what they look like when they are lit up :)
Below: "Before" picture with both garage door opener lights on. The near one (as usual) has one bulb not working.
Below, the first LED fixture is installed and energized. Compare the bright new LED light to the garage door opener that still has a 60 watt incandescent bulb in it.
Both fixtures installed. Incandescent bulbs removed from the openers. I also did this in the shop.
This arrangement works - the lights do not interfere with the remote control. They turn on when the door opens, and the timer in the garage door opener shuts them off after a while. Also, the issue with the brightness is gone.
I have 10 gallons of white paint that I bought specifically to help brighten the garage, just need some free time to roll it on. That will help immensely.
In the shop, I'm going to make a minor change. The opener on that door allows a maximum 75 watt bulb installation. I currently have a 300 watt-equivalent LED that actually draws 45 watts, and while it's an improvement, I'd like to use the entire 75 watt capacity. So I've ordered a couple of 250 watt-equivalent bulbs, and will install a splitter so that I can supply power to two fixtures.
UPDATE:
Amazon delivered the goods I need to improve the situation in the shop.
Pretty bad-ass looking bulbs, if you ask me. Crawling with LEDs.
Yep I think a pair of these either side of the shop roll up door opener will do the trick! Just need a little time to bust out the ladder and put them up.
UPDATE 2:
Yesterday I added a "Y" splitter in the shop, removed the remote-control LED, and put up the second reflector housing. It's as much light as I could ask for when I roll up the shop door in the wee hours.
If you want some serious light, convert the fluorescent ballasts to take LED bulbs. We did that in our kitchen and are using half the number of LED bulbs than the fluorescent bulbs. Using the same number of LED bulbs would provide a ton of light. There are youtube video's on how it's done, with the existing ballasts.
ReplyDeleteYeah I really want to swap out the 8ft fluorescent tubes for LED bulbs! The fluorescents are so freaking dim when you go out to the shop in the winter! The 8 ft tubes aren't cheap though, so it's still down a ways on the to-do list.
ReplyDeleteOnce the fluorescent tubes finally start burning out, I'll grit my teeth and replace them with the ballast delete LED bulbs. Sadly, the 8ft tube lights in the shop aren't the more common button type base. Instead the fixtures use the R17D base, which are a bit more expensive. It will cost around $300 to re-lamp the shop, plus a lot of time on the ladder removing ballasts.