led equipped logo

How to Find the Brightest LED Work Lights

LED work lights are all the craze these days, and for good reason. There are many benefits of using LED lighting in place of incandescent or halogen bulbs. Undoubtedly, LEDs are the future when it comes to work lights, and they are quickly replacing all other types of lighting as the leading option available on the market today. In this comprehensive guide, we will outline the many advantages of using LED work lights rather than halogen or incandescent. We will also give you important information on how to select LED work lights for your specific needs. And of course, we will explain in detail how to find the brightest LED work lights for your application. Read on for more!

What Does LED Mean?

LED stands for “light emitting diode”. Light emitting diodes are a semiconductor that are capable of producing light when electricity is added to the circuit. LED lights were initially introduced to the market as indicator lights, such as those you might find on electronic devices to indicate on/off or standby modes. Today, LED’s are used for everything from chandeliers, to vehicle headlights, to work lights. They offer many benefits over other types of lighting, which we will discuss next.

Are LED Lights Efficient?

LED lights are extremely efficient. When shopping for work lights, you are looking for the brightest possible light to illuminate your workspace. But in many applications, you may not be able to afford to use five times the electricity in exchange for five times the light. This is where LEDs really shine (no pun intended!). Light emitting diode lights use approximately 20 percent of the electricity of their incandescent counterparts to produce the same amount of light. So, let’s say you buy two work lights with the same 60W wattage rating, one incandescent, and one LED. The incandescent bulb is capable of producing around 800 lumens (Lumens are a unit used for measuring how much light is being emitted). On the contrary, a 60W LED work light could produce up to 6,000 lumens of brightness! This incredible discrepancy in the efficiency of LED lights vs. previous lighting technologies clearly sheds light (again, no pun intended) on the fact that LEDs are the way of the future when it comes to all lighting applications, including work lights.

Do LED Lights Have a Long Lifespan?

So, at this point, you are probably wondering what the catch is with LED lights. Please, tell us when you find out! As if the incredible gains in efficiency that LED lighting configurations provide were not enough, they are also much longer-lasting than halogen or incandescent bulbs. High quality LED lamps are routinely good for over 50,000 hours of use. Consider this: If you run your new LED work light for 6 hours every single day, it could still be producing light twenty years from now! Sure, as a newer technology, high quality LED work lights may have a slightly higher price tag than less advanced counterparts – but with massively improved efficiency and durability, these lights will pay for themselves many times over in saved energy costs and replacement equipment costs.

Do LED Work Lights Have any Competition?

After reading the previous sections of this article, you may be completely sold on LED work lights and ready to skip down to the bottom and learn all about how to find the brightest LED work lights. But before you do, you may also be wondering: ‘Are there any other types of lighting that can keep up to LEDs in durability, brightness, and efficiency’?

LED lighting’s main competitors are fluorescent lights. While LED work lights may consume up to 90 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs, fluorescent bulbs are capable of consuming up to 75 percent less electricity. But while fluorescents are nearly as energy efficient as LEDs, they are lacking in many other areas.

First off, fluorescent lights are made of glass tubes which are prone to shattering if dropped. In applications such as household lighting, this may not be such a big deal; but when we are talking about work lights, one of the first attributes we will be looking for is ruggedness and durability. You never know the situations you and your work light might find yourselves in, and having to be extra careful about dropping or hitting the light is simply unacceptable in some applications. This is one of the reasons why despite being capable of similar energy efficiency, fluorescent lights are simply no match for LED work lights.

Another downfall of fluorescents is that due to their design, they contain trace amounts of mercury. While these amounts will usually be too small to harm a human, most states still enforce strict recycling laws on fluorescent bulbs. This can be a hassle and you might as well save your time and go with LED work lights.

Types of LED Work Lights

You should now have a solid understanding of what makes LED lighting the best available technology when it comes to work lights. Before giving you the tips you need to find the brightest LED work lights, we will go over some of the types of LED work lights that are available and why LED is the best technology for these applications.

LED Work Lights for Trucks and Vehicles

LED work lights for trucks and other work vehicles such as tractors and heavy machinery are a great way to maximize the benefits of LED lighting. These versatile lights can be mounted on a vehicle’s exterior and connected to the same power source that supplies electricity to the other lights and components on board. Most LED work lights mounted on vehicles and machinery are mounted on some type of swivel apparatus which allows the light to illuminate areas away from the vehicle or, in some applications, on board. For example, swivel-mounted lights mounted on a rack above a truck bed can be pointed outwards to light up a work area, or swiveled downwards at the bed itself, where tools and other items will conveniently become easier to locate.

A considerable benefit of LED lights in vehicle-mounted applications is their incredible efficiency. Power is often limited when sourced from a generator or 12v battery, so having a light source that is both extremely bright and highly energy efficient is of utmost importance.

Portable LED Work Lights

In many rugged work applications, a steady power source may not be readily available. For these scenarios, you need a bright light that brings its own power source with it. Enter: portable, battery-powered LED work lights. These rugged battery-powered work lights can range from a headlamp to a flashlight, to a floor floodlight capable of lighting an entire room. While LED lighting technology allows for bright, quality lights with insane energy efficiency, new rechargeable battery technology is taking these lights to the next level. Another excellent application for battery-powered LED lights are emergency work lights which stay plugged into the main AC power source, charging the battery, and then switch to battery power if the power goes off.

How to Find the Brightest LED Work Lights

By now, you understand that LED lighting provides greater brightness while using less energy. You also know that LED work lights offer users benefits such as long lifespan, durability, and ruggedness. So, how does one go about finding the brightest LED work lights? In order to be successful in your search for bright lights, you will need to understand some key terms and how they are used in relation to LED brightness.

Lumens

Lumens are a universal measurement used to measure how much light is being emitted by a light source. The word ‘universal’ is used because lumens can be used to measure light output for fluorescent, halogen, incandescent, or LED lighting. As outlined in the efficiency section, LED lights produce much more brightness than standard incandescent bulbs, while using the same amount of energy. A 100-watt incandescent light bulb is capable of producing approximately 1500 to 1700 lumens of light. For comparison, a 100-watt LED light produces around 8000 lumens of light!

Watts

So, what exactly is a watt? Watts are not a direct measure of brightness, but they are important terminology to understand when shopping for the brightest LED work lights. While lumens measure the amount of light output for a given light source, watts depict the amount of energy that is consumed in order to produce this brightness. Consistently, LED work lights use fewer watts of electricity to provide the same number of lumens as their incandescent and halogen counterparts.

Wattage Equivalence

‘Wattage Equivalence’ is a term you may run into while searching for LED work lights. Since many incandescent bulbs are advertised in terms of wattage, not lumens, wattage has actually become an industry standard to measure brightness. You will see many incandescent lights that are simply advertised by their wattage (60w, 80w, 100w, etc.). So, to measure LED brightness, a lot of LED lights have a ‘wattage equivalence’ number advertised. Wattage equivalence refers to light output, but instead of measuring it strictly as lumens, it measures it by how many watts it would take an incandescent bulb to produce the amount of light that the LED in question can produce. For example, a 14 watt LED work light might produce 1500 lumens. Since an incandescent bulb that produces 1500 lumens uses approximately 100w to do so, the LED light could be advertised as a “100-watt equivalent”.

Efficacy

Efficacy of a light is the number of lumens it can produce per watt of energy it consumes. The higher the efficacy number of a light, the more efficient that light is. LED lights have the highest efficacy numbers of any type of lighting. Efficacy is a great tool to use when trying to sort through different LED work lights because it points to the ones that can produce the most light and use the least energy.

The Secret to Finding Your LED Work Light

Alright, you’ve got the information, you know the key terms, and you are ready to find the brightest LED work light for your application. The secret? Look for the lumens and the efficacy numbers first. Lumens will tell you how much total light output an LED work light is capable of producing. The higher the lumens, the brighter the light. Once you have narrowed your search down to a few options with enough lumens for your application, compare their efficacy numbers. The light with the highest efficacy number of the bunch will provide you with the most light while using the least amount of electricity. Providing that this work light is also the type you want (portable, vehicle-mounted, etc) and has great features like durable siding, etc., you can rest assured that this is the brightest and most efficient LED work light available.

So, there you have it! The secret to finding the brightest LED work lights on the market! LED Equipped is proud to offer a number of LED work lights for sale. We only offer the brightest, highest-quality work lights, so you know you are getting a great product. Head on over to our products page to check them out! Thanks so much for reading!

Sources:

https://www.archdaily.com/897277/how-to-determine-how-many-led-lumens-youll-need-to-properly-light-your-space

https://www.ylighting.com/blog/guide-to-buying-led-lighting/

http://lightbarreport.com/finding-the-best-led-work-lights/