New lighting in garage, advice needed

[Lord Polymath]

I'm tired of the poor lighting in my garage and fell down a rabbit hole today. I've gone from easy LED strip lights to wrap around fixtures and bulbs, and now back to LED strips, but I just don't know.
Ceiling is 8 ft so there is very little clearance above the garage door, about 4 inches. I'm going to replace the two current fixtures, and I like the ease of LED strips that come with linking cables. However, I like the idea of being able to replace a bulb rather than a fixture when it goes out.

Maxlite LSS2XT8USE4803 - $20
Two T8 4ft LED tubes - $14
+ Romex, wire covers, wire nuts = $45 or so per light, and a considerable amount of labor.

Or I could use something like these [was going to insert link here but can't]

Thoughts, comments, suggestions welcome!

I'll insert a pic after I'm 5 posts.

 

[Lord Polymath]

The strips I was looking at on Amazon are AntLux 4FT LED Wraparound Light Fixture 50W Ultra Slim LED Shop Lights for Garage, No Glare, 5500 Lumens, 4000K

Or possibly the TCP 4ft strip fixture on 1000bulbs

 

[Lord Polymath]

Putting lights above where the garage door is close to the ceiling would be nice, but I might have to skip that area due to the low clearance.

 

[Lord Polymath]

I'd like to keep costs down but at the same time I don't want lights that flicker or buzz.

 

[Lord Polymath]

And this is magical post number 5 so I'll post a pic in the next one.

 

[Lord Polymath]

Here is the garage. Those two fixtures with 2 bulbs each are all the lighting in the garage. Well, the garage door opener too but it doesn't light up much.

 

[Lord Polymath]

Well I tried posting an image, and it didn't work. I uploaded my pic to Imgur and then used the "Insert Image" button and pasted in the link. Nada.

 

[Lord Polymath]

https://imgur.com/a/DyHMZTd

 

[mike93lx]

A benefit to the maxlite setup is that you can replace a bumb if needed. Anything with integrated LED's would be tossed and replaced.

If you go that route, skip the wire nuts and use push in lever nuts. Much faster

 

[pbon]

Anything would be an improvement. For the low ceiling, I would lean towards a low profile diffuser light than open tube strips. Much of the amazon stuff is not commercial grade and puts you at risk of buying twice. Even if the company offers a lifetime guarantee it may not be there in a year or two to honor it. I have 10 cheap linkable amazon 4’ LED that I bought fir $15-20 each and 30 higher quality metal frame 4’ LED wrap lights that I bought from LED Lighting for about $40 each and the quality difference is obvious. Platonic Solid regularly provides links to quality LED that really aren’t very expensive.

 

[AntonLargiader]

What's the actual lighting effect that you want? General illumination? Any task lighting? Do you need it to be bright, or just even? How much do you care if it shines in your eyes when you drive in at night?

There are many ways to light a space. For instance my garage is just for parking a car and acessing some stored stuff, but I can't stand lights shining directly in my eyes. So it's all indirect light.

 

[Lord Polymath]

I decided to go with some cheap strip lights. If they don't work as expected and for some reason I couldn't return them to Amazon, I'm only out the price of one maxlite setup light. These are 6 for $46
https://amzn.to/2xupCzJ

@olouttt I'll check out Obsessed Garage, thanks!

 

[BD1]

I bought the 4' shop lights from Costco on sale for $20.00.
These two bulb are brighter than my old 4 bulb flouresent.


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