4' LED Shop Light, 3700 Lumens at Costco. NOW $20 in Massachusetts Dec 8, 2015

I had to create an account. Bought 4 of these yesterday. The first thing I did was take one apart. They’re basically a led light strip in each acrylic tube with the electronics for each at the beginning and end. So you can separate them if you want. Forget “tubes” and “ballast”, the tube is only there to diffuse the light, it’s plastic, and when you unclip the electronics the led strip slides right out. They’re on sale for $32 right now. Seemed a good price for what you get. Thinking about making valance style lighting in the kitchen with a few, using an old vacuum cleaner cord instead of the 6’ one supplied.

Welcome to BLF! :wink:

Would it be possible for you to upload a few pictures?

FYI: JohnnyMac - HowTo: Adding pictures to posts

Whird is right, these shop lights at Costco have been reduced to $32.

I finally picked one up yesterday. I brought it home, plugged it in and it ran for about 5 seconds and ……………………

……………… then I unplugged it and decided to take it apart. :slight_smile:
The deflector simply clamps onto the 2 tubes, but those tubes are not replaceable bulbs. This light is simply 2 sets of strip lights configured to look like a florescent light fixture.

That’s OK for me as I don’t expect to ever have to replace anything. It is supposed to last 45 years, LOL, and even so it is a “throw away”
In the fixture there are 2 sets of driver circuits driving the 2 LED strips. Whird mentioned this, and I confirmed it. The LED strips seem to be driven on BOTH ends, ala our conversations over at this post by texaspyro

Here is a pic of the power supply board at the plug end of the light.
Bottom of the board, looks like a full wave bridge? and some current limiting resistors?

Top of the power supply board, plug end of the light.

There are 60 LEDs in each of the 2 Aluminum strips and they simply slide into a track in the tube which is clear on the side facing downwards and white on the other.


I didn’t check each LED, but they all seem to be wired in series, all 60 of them.

This is the driver board at the OPPOSITE end of the strip, top and bottom of the board.


There are 2 sets of these power supply and driver boards, 1 for each strip.
This fixture is rated at 3700 lumen and without being able to confirm it, I am ready to believe it. It puts out a lot of light and I am satisfied with it.
BTW, I didn’t have time to take any voltage readings as I was in a hurry to watch the Super Bowl.
I hope that is excuse enough for not being as thorough as I should have been. :wink:

I hope I can get them to honor the price reduction…

This is a manufacturers instant rebate, not a Costco price reduction so I would expect it to be reduced at all Costcos that have them.

EDIT: Now I wish I spent more time while I had the light apart. IF all 60 LEDs in each strip ARE in series, then I don’t see an advantage in driving the strip at both ends. I am thinking the driver was split from the power supply and placed at the opposite ends for space and perhaps heat considerations.

Since it looks like at least one of you have taken one apart, think it would be easy to disconnect the power cable and wire it in where my current fluorescent fixture is?

Welcome to the forum brumkin

It would be rather easy, BUT, we are talking high voltages here and it is dangerous. Is your original fixture wired in place? Unless you really know what you are doing and are qualified, I don’t think you should attempt that.

There’s a discussion on that question around here somewhere from a few months ago, and it gets seriously mathematical fairly fast.
I think the short answer is, it works better.

That’s right, it does work better in that instance. That was a case were every 3 LEDs were in series, then each set of 3 were in parallel with other sets of 3S. In that case it was better. If however, and I now wish I spent more time in the tear down, all LEDs are wired in series, there is only the 1 option of driving them at both ends.
I probably should take this light apart again and go over it more carefully.

I haven’t seen the other discussion, but one advantage I can guess would be that the traces can be thinner/smaller, because they don’t have to carry all the current for the 60 LED’s from one end of the strip to the other. Also, the drivers themselves can be smaller and/or lower rated since they are splitting the load.

That may be, but those T8HO bulbs you speak of go for about $20 each and can not be retrofitted into ordinary T8 fixtures. They need special HO fixtures and ballasts, I have some of those HO fixtures in a commercial building and they are bright, but they do not last.

This light certainly may not be able to replace them, but they may be able to replace ordinary T8 fixtures where a twin bulb fixture typically puts out around 5600 lumens - when new and everything is working correctly. And a cold start fixture costs way more than these. I truly see a huge advantage in the future for LED shop fixtures.

We shall see………….

Caution is always a good thing. Hope I’m not stating the obvious too much, but your old fluorescent has a ballast that you’d want to bypass.

Thanks guys, I just took out the old fluorescent fixture and installed an outlet that I could plug these new fixtures into.

Brumpkin, good for you.
Installing a flush surface mount outlet box on the ceiling and plugging the fixture into that has always been my favorite way to install consumer grade florescents. I suppose because they just don’t last that long. It sure makes it easy when it is time to hang a new fixture. Hopefully this one will last for years and years.

Feit Model 74093 (Costco item #917972) $35.99 new model.

I opened the Feit 4 foot shop light purchased a Costco Sept2015. This newer model has a pull chain on/off and much simplified design. The power supplies for each tubes are on a one pc board in the cord end plastic box. The box on the other end is empty. The power supply has only a red and a black lead to each LED strip. Each tube has a 60 LED’s arranged as 4 parallel banks of 15 LEDs wire in series. If you look carefully at the circuit board strip, you’ll see the center, series, trace is broken every 15 LEDs. A positive and negative trace runs on either side of the LEDs and is connected as necessary to give a 4P 15S configuration.

So, you can just cut off 15 or 30 or 45 LEDs and the remainder will work fine. Wife sewing bench needed a 3 foot light. I couldn’t find a 3 foot model and 2 foot models cost more than Costco’s 4 foot.
I cut off 15 LEDs and cut the tube with a drimmel. Of course, the remanding 15 LED’s could be placed somewhere else with just 2 wires.

Since it would be easy to configure various lengths and shapes, the Model 74093 would be a good cheap parts source for LED lighting projects.

I have seen this same fixture, first at $40 then $32.
Now in Connecticut without a subsidy it is $29.99

But yesterday, just 10 miles away in a Massachusetts store they are only $19.99, with a Massachusetts subsidy

Even though the current model is 4000K and the older model was 4100K, the difference seems a lot bigger. They also increased the length of the side skirts, which may be to increase lux directly beneath the light, but offers less spill. Also the current model can be daisy chained.

It just so happened that yesterday when leaftye posted his update on this LED shop light, I had used that last one I had for a crawl space in our home. Need to go out and get more. :slight_smile:
Today I went to a Costco and they are $10 cheaper UNTIL 12/24/1016.
I am assuming this is a reduction available at all stores. It comes from the manufacturer. Now is the time

You’re certainly right about that, the new light is a lot warmer than the previous version, but my older version says it is also 4000K
I noticed that the new light uses 42W to produce the rated 3700 Lumens whereas the older light uses only 38W for 3700 Lumen
Or so they say :smiley:


Also the lighted tubes are a bit longer on the new version. Overall length of the fixtures are about the same.

Yes, this comparison shot shows the difference. I don’t know if that is good or bad………….

The previous picture also shows the included AC socket so that they can plug into each other, NICE!

They’ve made changes along the way. My older boxes also say it uses 38 watts, but they don’t daisy chain and it says it’s 4100k. It doesn’t have the chain either. I’ll try testing the lux later.

Better and cheaper, that’s how it’s been going. :slight_smile: