Hey, all. As you know, I jump all over the place on this site. Science fiction, my writing and interests, book launches, and product reviews.

Today I’m going to talk lights. Specifically, lights I found on Amazon that do everything- replace burned up units, save electricity, are easy to install, and work really flippin’ well.

While often overlooked, lights are a really big deal. Until you upgrade, a lot of times you don’t even notice how inadequate your old ones were. This was certainly the case with me a few days ago when I had enough of the dim lighting in my dingy basement.

I’ve put off the chore of replacing a few burned-up fluorescents for quite a while. They are expensive to replace, and a big pain in the butt to install. Finally, the loudly buzzing unit over my workbench died, and the situation became intolerable. Enter Amazon, where it seems you can find almost anything.

I knew that a single fluorescent shop light at my local DIY costs about forty USD, and that’s before you buy the delicate and failure-prone bulbs. You can get LED replacement bulbs, but the unit is problematic. Once, I had a ballast resistor catch on fire for no apparent reason. It was good that I was close by and had time to turn off the switch, or it could have been a major disaster.

I’m not a fan of old fluorescent fixtures. They had their use in the past, but they are now obsolete. Here’s why.

I found an amazing deal on Amazon, a 12-pack of fluorescent-style lights for just 96 dollars. The price increased slightly to 104, but it’s still a great deal. Also, the price fluctuates, so keep an eye out; the price may go down again, especially around Prime Day.

How much savings are these lights compared to traditional fluorescents? If you do the math, you get 12 lighting fixtures for 2 1/2 old-style lights. This alone represents massive savings, not to mention that the energy use is about half the old light’s power requirement.

Is it an apples to apples comparison, though?

Yes. Both fixtures, the traditional vs. the LED, are two-bulb units. Also, both are the standard four feet, and both have the same lighting intensity. Actually, I think the LEDs are brighter than the fluorescents.

And the installation of the new LEDs, as opposed to the old-style lights? Totally easy. After I did the first one, it took about three minutes per fixture. Each light comes complete with screws, anchors, and leveling chains. I didn’t need the anchors for my application, a dark, dungeon-like 110-year-old basement.

And in some cases, I didn’t need the chains or screws, either. I’ll explain that in a bit. First, I’ll talk about the easiest installs, the chains screwed directly to the floor joists, with the power supplied by old incandescent keyless fixtures. See the illustration below.

This type of installation was very simple. I unscrewed the old bulb and screwed in a readily available adaptor with female plugs to the keyless fixture. Then, I fastened the chains to the closest available floor joist and hung up the new light. I plugged the new fixture into the keyless adaptor, and it worked. Much better, I might add, than the old bulb alone, and at half the power usage of a traditional incandescent. Success!

The other type of installation I did occurred to me as I contemplated removing the old, burned-out fluorescent fixtures. Guys, those old fixtures are a real pain to remove. As I looked at those ancient steel beasts, I had an idea. First, I removed the old fluorescent bulbs. Then, I grabbed one of the replacement fixtures, and held it up to the old steel housing. As I suspected, the new fixture fit neatly inside the old housing. I had an idea.

Why not jam the replacement inside the old housing? I had planned on wiring the replacement to the existing circuit already via cutting the existing romex wire and wiring a female plus to the end anyhow; the existing fixture would be dead as a stone as soon as I cut the wires. Why not reuse it?

Note: If you don’t know what you’re doing, hire someone who does to cut live wires and install plugs! In my case, I was confident that the existing circuit was properly wired and that if the switch was turned off, there would be no residual voltage in the wire. This might not always be the case, so proceed with extreme caution when dealing with electricity! At a bare minimum, ensure the circuit is switched off and the appropriate breaker is pulled. Once again, hire an electrician if you are not 100% confident in the job. It’s too late if you take a pair of cutters to a wire and get a nasty shock!

Alright, now that that’s been said, I did exactly as stated above. I de-energized the circuit and cut the wires. Then, I installed a female plug for the light. You could get fancy here and install a work box and hardwire the light’s cord, but for me, this was unnecessary. I jammed the replacement inside the now-dead old steel fixture and zip-tied it into place. I plugged it in, and it looked as if it had been made that way. Behold.

I was particularly pleased by this- it looked factory, and I didn’t have to pull the heavy old steel fixture from the ceiling.

Within an hour, maybe an hour and a half, I installed eight fixtures in my poorly lit basement.

With all of the lights installed, it made a major difference! When my wife came to look, she squinted. This, for me, was real success. Also, it was pretty painless and I still have four lights left over. I plan to use them in the garage (to replace a failed unit), and in the barn.

Pretty awesome. Highly recommend, five flippin’ stars!

The only drawback is that now I can really see how badly I need to clean down there. So, if you plan to do this to your basement, you might want to do like me and buy a shop-vac, as well.

Later in the month a full review about the Mahindra Roxor, one of which I just purchased.

Also heavily involved with writing.

So. After a busy last month, I’ll be spending some more time here.

Stay tuned!