LED M59 Replacement Worthwhile?

[TipsyMcStagger]

I rent space in a 4800 sq ft shop that has 12 old, large, metal halide overhead fixtures which use 400W M59 style bulbs with an E39 base. Looking at some bulb specs, is seems 400W metal halide bulbs of this type claim to be 35K+ lumens.

I realize the ballasts would have to be bypassed but is it worthwhile to replace the metal halide bulbs with corn cob style LED replacements? I haven't seen too many in the 30K+ lumen range. We definitely don't want to end up with less illumination.

I'm sure replacing with UFO type LED fixtures would make more sense but the landlord doesn't seem interested in doing that.

 

[walta]

How many hours a year do you power the lamps?
How many years do you think you will rent this space?
How much do you pay per kWh for electricity?

Now do the math and decide if a Lighting upgrade would pay for itself before you are likely to move.

 

[cybrdyke]

Ballasts are getting hard to find since they haven't made them in years. Your fixtures use 458 watts each. They only allowed about 60% of the total lumens to come out of the fixture. Your M59 put out 30,000-ish lumens on the day it was installed. Every day after that, it put out a little less. After about 20,000 hours it was only half as bright as it was when it was new. An LED equivalent will use about 150 watts. Comparing lumens isn't the way to go about this.
You only need around 15,000-ish lumens from the LED to be equivalent.
CD

 

[Norcal]

When the local Costco replaced their Holophane MH fixtures that had LED replacements that were direct replacement for 175-400W, pulse or probe start lamps, I do not know how much they cost but I love them. they are not corn cob style, more of a resemblance to the shape of a reflector lamp.

 

[BillK]

t,
You might want to check with your electricity supplier ? Around here they all had some incentive programs going on about a year ago and would basically come in and change everything over to led at no or very little cost. I had already done mine but I know of 2 guys who had their entire shops done for nothing.