Shop Lights... *pics*

[AprilzWarrior]

Ok... for starters the shop is 40'x60'

I started with just a few flouresent lights from Home Depot as you can see I got lots of shadows and limited light pattern.
http://fototime.com/8831C8B8BF6F3A5/standard.jpg

Later adding a few more lights... same results because of poorly placed lights.
http://fototime.com/3E499B63B8622AB/standard.jpg

I later added a second lift and still had really poor lighting with how the lights were positioned and Massive shadows...

note my new toy that im soo excited about, its a 54 chevy bone stock.

http://fototime.com/831288CB17AE2C6/standard.jpg



So 1 whole day was spent running 220 power to the new lift, and running conduit for the new lights... All Home Depot lights 8' in length $25 each. Spread 5' apart and about 8' off the floor. Also added two 8' lights on the ceiling 5' apart. With this combo Im not getting ANY shadows... its really perfect. What you cannot see is my welding area on the right behind the door, and the metel shop (drill press, brake, rollers, and grinders) behind the left door, those areas have 4' HD lights working over head.

http://fototime.com/D9652CE74FDC8A7/standard.jpg

All in all im very happy, and owe my buddy a shitload as I didnt pay labor, and spent about $300 in all the stuff...

I hope this helps some...

:smokin:
AprilzWarrior

[tonyjsmithjr01]

What kind of shop is that I like it lots of room. Looks like you found a way to get the most light. I thought you would have need lots more than that to elimanate shadows.

[Junk Driver]

Damn thats a nice set up for a half round quonset.

[dirtytoy]

if you go to wallmart you can get those lights for 7 bucks each

[Toy boy 53773 7]

I think the ones @ Wallmart for $7.00 are 4' not 8' like his,
Just my .02 :smokin:

[ZJim]

Why didn't you go with halogen lights? Power consumption?

[Gummi Bear]

Why didn't you go with halogen lights? Power consumption?

Halogen lights really suck down the juice. You can get more useable 'light' from well placed fluorescent strips, for a fraction of the power consumed. I like the 8' strips that use 4-4' T8 lamps quite a bit. You can get them at Home Depot for less than $40 each, then you get lamps. For about $50 each, you get a fantastic fixture, with an electronic ballast (no hum, very little power loss/consumption, better low temperature performance without paying up for a HO fixture)

[ZJim]

I swapped out my fluorescent one in favor of a big halogen and it puts out WAY more light. I was having problems with the ballast in the fluorescent one... they never worked right and I was always going through bulbs. The halogen light I've got now has less bulb life, but it's worth it for the extra light IMO.

[AprilzWarrior]

if you go to wallmart you can get those lights for 7 bucks each

Those are the 4's only, already checked.



Why didn't you go with halogen lights? Power consumption?



Too many shadows from them. I had 3-4 of them in the shop, still have 2 hanging up. They were more flood like than anything, the the PG&E bill went up slightly since installing them, So I did not like them.

I am really loving this setup the way it is now !

[rusted]

That's a good setup.

In terms of efficiency, a halgoen light is about the worst thing on the market. You know how they get hot? Well, that's all the wasted electricity going up in the air. They're better heaters than they are lights.

It goes like this, in increasing efficiency, about:

Mercury Vapor
Flourescent
Metal Halide
High Pressure Sodium

The HPS is the yellow light of parking lot fame. Sucks for working with, so it's not really an option for a shop.

Metal Halide is by far the best bang for the electricity buck, but cycling the lights once a day puts a lot of wear on the bulbs, which are quite expensive ($20 and up). Like any High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamp, they also have a 'cycle time'. You can't accidentally flip them off and then pop them right back on. You're going to have to wait a bit before the vapors to ignite again after turning them off. These are also a 'point source' of light, which means you'll have to run many of them in order to eliminate shadows and hot spots.

A MH also has a blue-white light pattern which won't 'color shift' the stuff you're looking at.

Flourescent is your best bet. They are not point source emitters. They can be cycled frequently will little ill effect (with modern bulbs and ballasts). They are quite efficient. The length means that you can spread the light out, and can stack them together to acheive the intensities you want. They're also cheap.

You can get flourescent tubes in a variety of 'heats'. Which means you can get cool whites (blueish) or warm whites (reddish). If you run one of each in a 2-tube fixture, you get a fairly decent approximation of natural sunlight, the best you're going to get w/o spending 20x as much.
The Wal Mart $7 specials are not much better than a Halogen. The ballasts are fairly inefficient. They work like crap in cold weather. They have a long cycle time, for a flourescent. They also eat bulbs after about 2 years as the ballasts break down. A good Flo ballast should last you 15 years no problem.

AprilzWarrior, if he has the electronic ballasts, probably has the best thing going for a shop that size. Worth every dime for what he's doing, he's just sipping the juice, and getting good, even, spread light patterns.

That's all the light tech I know.

[Gummi Bear]

That's a lot of good information Rusted...


If you can find fluorescent lamps in about 3500K temperature range (this is a color index used by manufacturers) you will get a very white light. Not too much blue or red (cool white and warm white).

The fixtures that I suggested are worth every penny (Lithonia, I'll have to find the darn catalog #). I have them in my own personal space, and I've installed boatloads of them for other people.

15 years is a hell of a stretch on a fluorescent ballast. Most of the ones that I change out are from 2 to 5 years old. That being said, I have changed out ballasts that were over 25 years old. The cheap-o fixtures are basically shit, you'll pay more for limping them along than you would just getting a good fixture from the get-go. Most of your inexpensive fixtures will have an old style 'coil & oil' ballast, which is encapsulated in a PCB rich tar like substance. They are yucky, they smell bad, they hum and when they go bad, they leak the tar all over the damn fixture, making you have to replace it.

Electronic ballasts are wonderful, they consume very little power (an old ballast could consume up to .3 A, the electronic ballast will consume a much smaller amount than that even) not to mention that they weigh only a fraction as much, making hanging a fixture much safer by not having to wrestle such an awkwardly balanced piece up into the air. (an old style 8' ballasted fixture could weigh close to 30 lbs, which can make balancing up on a ladder pretty interesting. New fixtures weigh less than 10 lbs)

Here's a picture of what I'm describing:
http://www.homedepot.com/cmc_upload/HDUS/EN_US/asset/images/eplus/324708_4.jpg

Here's a picture of the cheap ass $7.45 fixture, they'd be fine if you were'nt in your shop very often, and the weather will play hell with their functionality.
http://www.homedepot.com/cmc_upload/HDUS/EN_US/asset/images/eplus/162474_4.jpg

[KS Toy]

I put in all 4' fluorescent. Fixtures are cheap and so are the bulbs. My shop is 30x60. I have them 2' apart running the 60' direction and they are 6' apart the 30' direction. Lots O' light!

[bob large]

Just a little FYI.

I’ve seen people stick Tin foil tape to the front side of the florescent bulbs, (a strip about 1.5”-2" wide) so that you can look directly at the light without getting blinded.
Comes in handy when you’re under a rig looking up towards the light on the ceiling. Defuses the light nicely too.

[Toy boy 53773 7]

BTW.Very nice setup AprilzWarrior, Hope to have a shop close to that this summer. :grinpimp:

[Denis4x4]

I have 12' ceilings and I bit the bullet and bought high dollar 8' fixtures with cold weather no hum ballast units. After 14 years, I've yet to change a bulb! Put the same units in a new shop last year and the units were about 25% cheaper this time around.

[AprilzWarrior]

BTW.Very nice setup AprilzWarrior, Hope to have a shop close to that this summer. :grinpimp:



Thanks... I try !

:D

[PTSchram]

1: regular fluorescent lights have a spectrum that is very irritating to the eyes. Either mixing warm white with cool white, using a wide-spectrum in each fixture, or adding incandescent lighting will help.

2: FLuorescent lights placed in regular identical positions will result in heavily polarized light that can be irritating to the eyes. If the lights are placed randomly in relation to each other, the polarization is reduced and eye strain is also.

3: Cheap Electronic ballasts can be a fire hazard if not mounted where they can get plenty of ventilation-ask me how I know!

4: 4' fluorescent tubes, while not usually as efficient as the 8' variety are almost always sufficiently less expensive (in other than serious industrial applications) to justify using the 4' tubes.

5: HPS will wear your eyes and brain out very quickly. The light emitted is to your eyes what fingernails on a blackboard is to your ears.

(I worked as a lightbulb salesman for a short period fo time-my dad sold industrial lighting for more than 20 years and helped me set up many shops and airplane hangars/shops. I learna lot from my old man)

My shop has lights mounted in what appears to be a random fashion, along with random lights, but it's all for a reason. I spend 16 hours a day there with my eyes open.

AW-beautiful shop. Isn't it amazing what good lighting can do for you?

[AprilzWarrior]

AW-beautiful shop. Isn't it amazing what good lighting can do for you?


Thank you, yes it is from the pics you can tell that it has taken me some time to figure out what I really needed.

[FSR BIKER]

I bought two big lights that are for outdoor pole use at Costco, they say they light up a 50x100 area each and were $20. They have a Fluorex bulb, I am guessing it is some fluorescent type bulb. I am still waiting for the snow to melt to put the shop up but I couldn't pass up trying these out.

[ErikB]

Instead of the cheapo $7 fixtures, I bought the $14 4' shop lights from Lowe's. They use T8 bulbs w/ electronic ballasts, so they produce more light with lower wattage (power) and supposedly last longer. You can see the difference from the old $7 T12 cheapo I have over my bench.

I've redone half my 24x40 shop so far and its looking much better! The new fixtures are more spread out, so that helps a lot with shadows. The old 8 footers were just run down the center.

[3/4tonYJ]

acouple of my shop lights, headlights (floodlights) are pluged into switched outlets........i planning on 2 more, but haven't seen the right grill while at the U-pull-it's

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=178160
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=178161

[Junk Driver]

LMAO, I quickly skimmed over your post without thinking and not reading. Was looking at the pics going and this guys pics are in a lighting thread for what?

Went back, read it this time, and all I can say is thats pretty cool!