LED lights

[arml]

I just changed all my lights in the garage to LED, now it seems I have a very hard time seeing the puddle trying to weld. Anyone else have this problem?

[CAVEMANN]

I changed to LED's over a year ago and haven't noticed anything except they seem brighter, I have 4 foot double tube fixtures and replaced them electronic ballast units to use the T-8 bulbs, I have one florescent light left & have a fixture ready, just haven't done it yet. My shop seems much brighter now.

[mla2ofus]

Considering how bright the arc is I just can't see shop lighting affecting seeing the puddle. Maybe seeing where you're going with the puddle. Do you have a passive or AD hood?
Mike

[djd775]

Is there too much light getting in the back of your hood now? The high-bay LEDs in my new shop can cause a little glare for me if I’m in the wrong place.


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[Kelvin]

I sometimes use one of those clamp-on incandescent lights to give a little more light on the workpiece.

Some guys also glue or rivet some fabric to the back of the hood to block any glare from overhead lights reflecting on the lens inside the shield...

Never noticed LED lights being worse for seeing the puddle, but I don't see so great anymore either!

[ronsii]

LED lighting can be harder on you eyes being they have a narrow spectrum(compared to incandescent) which overloads( for lack of a better term) retinal rods which is why the led lights appear brighter with less actual lumens.

[farmersammm]

LED lighting can be harder on you eyes being they have a narrow spectrum(compared to incandescent) which overloads( for lack of a better term) retinal rods which is why the led lights appear brighter with less actual lumens.

Right on!!!!!!!!!!!! They simply don't throw the useable light that a conventional bulb/tube does. Take headlights for example...…….LED's will blind ya when you're looking at an oncoming car, but the actual highway illumination on those things is LESS than conventional halogen bulbs.

[fps]

I just changed all my lights in the garage to LED, now it seems I have a very hard time seeing the puddle trying to weld. Anyone else have this problem?

My lights are 3200k, which to me is the same as incandescent and I love them. Maybe if you bought the 5000k lights, which are white light, they are causing the problem.

[fps]

Some guys also glue or rivet some fabric to the back of the hood to block any glare from overhead lights reflecting on the lens inside the shield...

!

I thought it was just me that did that. I use an old cut down cotton T shirt.................duck tape works fine to hold it.

[mla2ofus]

Sometimes I believe some are too easily distracted by backlight and reflections and they're probably the same ones who complain they can't see the puddle because they're looking at the arc instead of the puddle.
Mike

[monsoon-mech]

Right on!!!!!!!!!!!! They simply don't throw the useable light that a conventional bulb/tube does. Take headlights for example...…….LED's will blind ya when you're looking at an oncoming car, but the actual highway illumination on those things is LESS than conventional halogen bulbs.

I don't know bout less highway illumination the LED light I put on my Harley illuminates our county backroads AND the side of the road about 2.5 times better than the factory hallogen ever did... 2 weeks ago I had a rock take out my passenger side LED on my Peterbilt (Arizona no longer requires mud flaps.. its a boon to the windshield industry in this state) and as I was 300 miles from home still I just swapped in a spare halogen that was under the bunk in the sleeper from before we replaced em all with LED... it drove me nuts all the way back into Tucson cause my drivers side light was so much brighter than the other I kept thinking I was seeing stuff comming out into the road from the passenger side... now I did notice a huge difference between cheap Amazon LED headlights and the high end ones we finally settled on for the trucks (which ran $380 ea) the made in china garbage was deffinetly not up to even sealed beam road illumination levels how they are aimed plays a huge role as well..

as for the OP, I use 5000 lumen lights in the truck shop and haven't noticed any issues while stick or MIG welding but with TIG the refection off the inside of the hood is a distraction, I'm a competitive shooter (USPSA, IDPA and 3 gun) so I've trained my peripheral vision to be very alert which I think is why the brighter lights reflecting distracts me while TIG welding... but hey I'm gonna start blamin it on the lights instead when my bead heads off the line from now on

[Leogl]

If your shop is really lit up might wanna try a lighter lens 9 maybe like welding outside some guys use a 8

[txrpls]

I don't know bout less highway illumination the LED light I put on my Harley illuminates our county backroads AND the side of the road about 2.5 times better than the factory hallogen ever did... 2 weeks ago I had a rock take out my passenger side LED on my Peterbilt (Arizona no longer requires mud flaps.. its a boon to the windshield industry in this state) and as I was 300 miles from home still I just swapped in a spare halogen that was under the bunk in the sleeper from before we replaced em all with LED... it drove me nuts all the way back into Tucson cause my drivers side light was so much brighter than the other I kept thinking I was seeing stuff comming out into the road from the passenger side... now I did notice a huge difference between cheap Amazon LED headlights and the high end ones we finally settled on for the trucks (which ran $380 ea) the made in china garbage was deffinetly not up to even sealed beam road illumination levels how they are aimed plays a huge role as well..

I'm not going back to halogen. As I am now on the downside of 60 my night vision has deteriorated. I am now comfortable driving at night with the new LED bulbs.

[G-ManBart]

I don't know how your shop is set up, but in some cases people have far less fixtures after swapping to LEDs and get the same total light (or more) but it makes it easier to wind up in a shadow since the lights are spread farther apart.

I also found adding more LEDs in my barn caused me to get light coming in through the top of my hood regularly and I often have to cover it with an old tee shirt to stop the glare. Sometimes I can just slightly switch positions to avoid the backlight glare if I'm not going to be welding for more than a few minutes, but that won't work for a lengthy project.

[Oscar]

All this means is that welding helmet manufacturers need to produce a helmet that has an integral back-cover to shield the outside light. I wonder if we will ever see one.

[monsoon-mech]

All this means is that welding helmet manufacturers need to produce a helmet that has an integral back-cover to shield the outside light. I wonder if we will ever see one.

I added snaps to the back top (3) and sides (one each side)of my old Miller hood and cut a piece of old leather welding jacket added the female half of the snaps to it... out here in AZ we have some pretty mean sun glare if welding outside ... I also made a second curtain out of black shade cloth but ya really only wanna use it when not welding overhead etc.. its less hot than the leather one... originally tried using velcro but the glue on the strips kept releasing when it got hot which is always in Tucson other than the 5 minutes of winter we have every year

edit; BTW if I did it again I think I'd put the "female" half of the snapss on the INSIDE of the hood and put the male half on the curtain as occasionally I do get a hot ember comming in under the leather if welding overhead, if curtain were attached from the underside of the hood they'd just roll over it, ya want to have the two side snaps a lil high up on the hood don't put em low or the leather will bunch up when ya tip hood up... figured that one out while I was playin with the velcro strips to fasten so kept moving the side strips till found where it didn't interfer with hood being up I also keep planning to put a slit up the center of the curtain about halfway up as it would still block light but be easier on/off however I keep forgetting until I'm welding then afterwards forget again...

[SlowBlues]

I use heavier weight canvas to block out ambient light in the same manner as monsoon mech these days. It gets too hot here in southern cali for leather as well, which I also tried.

I buy cheap cotton canvas drop cloths (harbor freight) and use the fabric for various things. Hit it with lots of starch and it will hold up well to a metal work enviroment. Toss it in the washer with bleach to keep it smelling good - I pre shrink mine before attaching velcro but I'm not sure if it makes a difference.

definitely place the fabric/leather under/inside the hood (like roof shingles). I like it removable and i've found Snaps leave gaps where the material droops, and glued velcro tends to not stick in extreme heat, a good compromise I found Is many small rivets holding the velcro strip on (might need to use rivet washers). You can also use the rivets directly on the fabric but then it's permanent.

[CAVEMANN]

You would think someone would make rear "curtains" for the hoods.

[ronsii]

Or at least a no-glare inside lens....

[MetalMasher]

My 2018 Silverado came with factory LED lights and I like them well enough, definitely better than any halogen lights I've ever had, but I don't like the stark cutoff at distance on low beam (no gradual lessening of brightness, they just reach a certain distance and the light cuts off) , unfortunately that's just a byproduct of how they work with the little flipper gate.

We had a 2014 Grand Cherokee Limited with halogens, and OMG, those things were horrible. The wife's 2012 Outlander Sport has HID lights (low beam HID with halogen high beams). The thing I like about the set up on her car is the HID low beams stay on when the halogen high beams are on (HID takes a few seconds to to turn on and come up to brightness, so they made the set up this way on purpose). The low beams are also adjustable via a switch in the car for vertical height. Set them high on the back roads makes a huge difference. I love the lights on her car.

I've changed all of my lighting in the barn, shop areas and garage to LED. I had fluorescents prior and they suck in cold weather. If I could pick specific color temps for those lights, I would prefer a lower temp, like 4000-4500 vs the pretty standard 5000-6000 they typically come in, but it's not that big of a deal.

I recently put some in the garage, bought them from wally world for $19.99 each (4ft 5000K 5200 lumens dual shop fixtures). Unfortunately, they don't have a convenient method for stringing them together in longer runs like some of the pricier fixtures, so you have to have plenty of outlets if you need to put up a lot of them...or do some mods on them.

I haven't noticed any effect with welding, mainly because I generally can't see diddly when welding anyway...and that's a whole other problem I probably need to work on.

[welding1]

Sometimes I use a small LED for up close TIG work with an auto dark hood set at #9 and I swear the LED flash's at a high rate like a strobe.