Posted by David Sherman on Sunday, September 03, 2006 at 11:37PM :
In Reply to: PW Shop Lighting Question posted by Will (in MI) on Sunday, September 03, 2006 at 8:42PM :
Fluorescents just can't be beat for cost, both of bulbs over the long haul and electricity. Any kind of incandescant, even fancy halide ones, is going at bulbs and electricity at an expensive rate. As others have suggested, the good-quality electronic ballasts eliminate flicker and cold-start problems. They contain a fairly complex electronic switching power supply that runs at 20,000 hz or so, much faster then the 60 hz of the power line, thus the flicker is invisible. Some ultra-cheap "shop" fixtures claim to have an "electronic" ballast but it's just some kind of gizmo inside a tiny plastic housing about an inch square clipped onto the wires inside the fixture. Those are terrible and should always be avoided. The real electronic ballasts are roughly the size of an old-fashioned 60 hz magnetic ballast.