DIY LED lights over table. Any experience to share?

[RunningSide]

Good Evening!

I've made my present table light unit myself years ago and it has served me alright. There is 12 T8 fluorescent tubes (36W each) and one can switch it on partially two ways and - of course - all lights on too. The body of this light box is about 270cm x 95 cm. It gives pretty even and nice illumination through the softer material (made out of white foam which is used under laminated floor panels).

But, there is always a tube or two flickering or dead, and inexpensive daylight T8 tubes are not that easy to find anymore - AND I HATE TO CLIMB ON THE TABLE EVERYTIME TO CHANGE A NEW ONE!! So, I'm about to move on and update the table light to be using LEDs. I'm intending to use rigid led strips: 50 cm / 36 pcs 5630 LEDs in one strip. Like these ones:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-5M10X0...item339145e75c

Has anyone here had similar project? How many leds or 50cm strips will probably give sufficient illumination? (I do understand that sufficient is a subjective experission, but what is your experience based opinion?) I will get electrical consultation here from one of my family member (as I'm very limited in electrics), but still I'm very interested in hearing first hand experiences of amount of leds, and naturally experiences of electrical arrangements and issues too.

[svendh]

I thought about replacing my t8 tubes with the new led tubes but I think they are too dim as I have only 4 tubes

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[justf]

Before you get them try find somewhere that has them and play under them a while. When club near me had these put in i found it hard to focus, thought my eyes playing up. Went to optician and he said that some peoples eyes can have problems with led lighting. I could manage about 20min then had to let eyes recover. I do wear glasses or can do contacts but it was only with led lighting i had this problem.

[svendh]

Just had a look and the led has only 1500 lumen, the normal t8 58w have over 5000 lumen per tube.

[RunningSide]

Svendh: Those led tubes would be nice and easy way to go. I found that there is 5ft tubes up to 2500 lumens.

http://www.leds-lights.co.uk/led-tub...l#.U9YKyfl_u9U

Those could be bright enough? However, I find these led tubes a bit too expensive for me at this moment. I'm fighting against temptations here...


justf: You had very interesting experience, I need to study that more. Your suggestion to test led illumination somehow beforehand is a good idea. Your experience can be a bit similar issue I have with welding. I do weld a lot occasionally and many times after welding sessions I get heavy headache (migraine) because of fast flickering. I do have a proper mask with air feeding, but still there is flickering. Also, in my past I worked almost daily in darkroom and those continuous repeating changes in illumination (making prints in dark and then evaluating colors/tones in daylight illumination, over and over again, hour to hour) made me have quite hard headaches way too often. So, I believe that in my case I'm a bit too sensitive to fast changing illumination.

[svendh]

I don't think 2500 lumen would be enough as this would be only 50% power of the classic tubes. I use 4 5000 lumen tubes for my tables so 8 led tubes would be bright enough, but that would be expensive.