Dear mid-60s Buick owners who like illuminated spaces,
Newer garage door openers come with motion sensor activated lighting. It is a handy feature because frequently your hands are full around the garage and this spares you the hassle of freeing up a hand to turn on the lights. Alas, the lighting that is turned on is typically two dull 60 watt bulbs like this:
That's good enough to avoid bumping into things, but hardly good enough to see what's in your trunk or what's going on under the hood. With the LED revolution in lighting, shop lights are getting brighter while using much less power. Recently, Costco had a sale on 4 foot LED shop lights which use an amazingly small 17 watts, but are at least as bright as the old twin 40 watt fluorescent tube shop lights. It occurred to me that I could power 2 LED shop lights and still use about 1/2 the power of the old 60 watt bulbs that were in the garage door opener.
In order to make this work, I used an adapter to convert a light bulb socket into a standard electric plug. Here is an example on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/GE-54276-Polarized-Handy-Outlet/dp/B002DN6QX2I then simply ran some extension cords from the opener drive unit to the LED shop lights. Since very little power is involved, this is a perfectly safe arrangement. Here is what our garage looks like now:
The photo is actually deceptive, the garage is much brighter than this photo suggests! Of course it helps a great deal that the walls and ceiling are finished and painted white. The reflective surface does help spread the light everywhere.
This isn't a scheme that would provide enough light for a restoration garage, but for your daily-driver garage it is a way to make things more practical and pleasant especially during the winter months. With the reduced power consumption, the upgrade will eventually pay for itself.
Cheers, Edouard
