Was dead wrong about the LED replacement bulbs for machine room lighting

I fought swapping out the old fluorescent tubes in our machine rooms for years. Kept saying LEDs were too finicky and didn't handle the vibration from the motors well. Then we had a call in a 1970s Otis bank where the ballast blew and took half the lights with it. The building manager was on my back so I threw in some Philips LED tubes just to get them running again. That was 14 months ago and I haven't touched those lights once. Meanwhile I'm still swapping fluorescents every 6 weeks in another building down on Johnson Street. The color temp is a little cold for my taste but they take the constant starting and stopping without any flicker. Has anyone else had them hold up in a high-vibration machine room or did I just get lucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

eva_lewis29d ago

Idk if you just got lucky but maybe check the spec on those Philips tubes. The ones that say "high vibration" or "industrial grade" are actually rated for that stuff. I swapped a few in a parking garage near me where the lights buzz from the exhaust fans and they held up too. The color temp thing is real though, the cold white can be rough on the eyes after a few hours. Some of the newer ones have a warmer option around 3500K that's a little easier on the eyes without looking yellow.

wesley_hart29d ago

That point about the color temp being rough on the eyes really hits home. I think there's a bigger pattern here where we're so focused on the functional specs of things like vibration ratings that we totally overlook how the light actually feels to be under. It reminds me of how everyone went crazy with bright white LED headlights on cars, sure they're way more efficient than halogens but now half the people on the road are getting blinded. Same thing happened at my buddy's office where they swapped all the old warm bulbs for these crisp LEDs and now everyone complains about headaches by 2pm. Seems like we keep trading one problem for another in the name of progress, and nobody stops to ask if the new thing is actually pleasant to live with. What's your take on finding a good balance with the color temp in a work space?