Florescent Shop Lights

The lighting in my garage has never been great, and I have been doing more stuff in there.

YEARS ago I collected some florescent lights and light fixtures. They really never worked out as far as putting them up in my garage like I thought they would. Most of them are the 4 bulb recessed lighting fixtures you see in a false ceiling.

We have one small hanging fixture that I decieded to hang under the newly made train track rack. If you want to read about the train track rack click here.

The outside width of the bracket is 35", but the hooks on the florescent lights are 37 or 38" apart. Found some hooks, that I was able to bend out to make up the extra length. So I predrilled and screwed them into the side of the brackets.

Hung the light.

This light actually has a 110v plug on the end of it. I figured I will put an outlet by the light and run it to a light switch in the near future. For now I can just plug it into an extension cord when I want to use it.

Well it doesn't work. I tried a few bulbs I had to see if it was the bulbs. None of the bulbs I had worked. Im thinking it is the ballast, but not sure.

I wired in one of the big 4 bulb florescent fixtures I have and tested the bulbs. The bulbs work. So this told me the ballast gave up the ghost.

I went ahead and removed one of the ballasts from the bigger fixture that worked and replaced the bad ballast in the small light fixture.

Works like a champ!

Did I mention I like to recycle? Those light fixtures were on the way to a dumpster.

I didn't think to take pictures of replacing the ballast when I did it. Once apon a time I was a maintenance man; I have replaced hundreds of florescent bulbs and ballasts.

It's very simple to replace the ballast. Most of them are accessed by opening a panel in the center of the fixture. Most Ballasts these days have the same wire colors. The Black wire is power, the white wire is the neutral wire. There are also 2 yellow, 2 blue, and 2 red wires which goes to the lights.

If the ballast has been changed before most likely there are wire nuts connecting the ballast to the corresponding wires. If the ballast has never been replaced than you will need to cut the wires, and match the color wires. Just use wire nuts to connect them.

I put all the fixtures back up, meaning they are back in a corner behind a 4 bolt main 350 chevy engine, a canoe, and a bunch of other stuff.
I will drag them back out in a few days and take some pictures so you can see what I'm talking about.

Leave a note about what your working on. I would like o read about it.