FWIW, I work on my 4x4 in this shop, so it is 4x4-related. :flipoff2:

I'm fixing to install new lighting fixtures in my renovated shop -- the main room is 42 x 22, and I am leaning in the direction of two continuous banks of cheapo fluorescent overheads (with not-so-cheap 'cool' bulbs), switched separately, with another circuit of individually-switch incandescent floodlights set to pivot as needed, and separate task-lighting over the benches, as well as LOTS of outlets in nearly every conceivable place.

Comments, suggestions, or links to better ways to do it? The fluor's are my concern, will I end up hating myself for hanging a bunch of 4-foot $10 fixtures?

If you've lit a shop and wished you'd done it different, share!

Randii

i foget the name of them but get the kinda of lights that they use in wharehouses. ( go to home depot and look up ) they run on lower juice and you can find them used for a good price. i bet two of them would be enuff

Knew I forgot to say something.....

i forget the name of them but get the kinda of lights that they use in wharehouses. (go to home depot and look up) they run on lower juice and you can find them used for a good price. i bet two of them would be enuff

... I can't use mercury-vapor or sodium lights, since I have only 9.5' of headroom, so it needs to be a low-ceiling solution.

Thanks for the suggestion, tho.

If you are going flourescent try to find out what the smaller types with reflectors and stuff are.

I had a office/warehouse that I rented for a while that was formerly a small mchine shop.

1/4 of the lights were standard flourescent lights used in stores, and warehouses and such.

The rest were the above mentioned lights.
They were shorter, and smaller in diameter, and used reflecters to effectively multiply the light output.

They were WAAAAY better then standard flourescent set ups IMO for doing work like we all do in our garages, and these were like 20 ft up too.
Theyd be kick ass at 9.5 ft!

Someone thats an electrician should be able to steer you in the right direction.

If you had the headroom I'd go HID lights.
Waay more light for waay less money.

MJ

ya ya thats the ticket........... mercury-vapor or sodium thats what they are called.
:D


i guess it would be ackward if you used them in a 9 foot celing. you would have to duck under em.

anyhow i have floursents in my shop and the cool white or kitchen style bulbs make a HUGE diffrence.

randii,

I think THIS (http://www.surprise.com/kids/dancer/mirrored_disco_ball.cfm) is what I think you are looking for, but with the ceiling height it may not work.

If that style isn't right you might look at a higher end florescent fixtures. The reflector makes a big difference in the amount of light you get.

http://store4.yimg.com/I/elights_1680_2181811

http://store4.yimg.com/I/elights_1680_4253081

http://www.elights.com/flourwrap.html

I have been nosing around that site, but just can't bring myself to fork out $50 for a single light fixture when Home Despot has them for $8. Granted, that's no reflector, but white paint goes a long way!

Randii

All I use are the 4' florescents.

I have 6 hanging in the garage w/plans for 2 more.

I have 4 hanging in my wifes sewing room

I have 1 in the living room

4 in the kitchen

1 in the bedroom

They cost 7.50 at Home Depot and the bulbs are a buck each.

I like em.

Next thing we're gonna do is hang gears from the walls, my wife digs that chit.

Hey Randii. Just did the same.

The ballast is important. Get an electronic vs magnetic ballast. They dont humm, and they turn on instantly.

They also let you run the new T-8 bulbs. T-12's are the older common, 1.5 inch diameter fluorescent lights. T-8's are newer. They are only 1 inch in diameter. They are brighter, and smaller.

For bulbs check the lumens on the specs. and get a good brand. Get ones in the "cool" area of the color spectrum. You dont need the warm lighting effect of the warmer lights which are more expensive. Got all my stuff at Home Depot. The fixtures I used take 4, 4' T-8 bulbs. IIRC they were about $35 ea. The ones with the reflector are more

http://home.houston.rr.com/shrake/images/Lights.jpg

If you were closer I would fix you up, couple weeks ago I bought 400 4' fixtures with 2 bulbs for each, and about 100 extra ballasts at a school auction. All I wanted was enough to do my little 900sq ft shop but they sold them all in one lot. They were cheap. And they only draw 0.75 amps. The only problem is my shop is now filled with flourescent lights and I don't have enough room to move around to start wiring it.

They are for sell, CHEAP.:D

Metal Haylide(sp?) is the way to go. Dad got the hook up on 6 of these on a job. Work great plus heat the shop in the winter.

Ok randii,

you have heard all the advice, now go with your original plan ;)

http://www.surprise.com/images/ideas/0210-01.jpg

Man, Dan, I could do that, but where would I get the glitter?

Besides, the wife likes the mirror ball in the bedroom. :p :flipoff2: :p

So, either I add a second story so I can hang halide lamps, or hang flourescents low... I'll look into the electronic ballasts, over the cheapo ones. That may push me toward the eight foot flourescent lamps and away from the cheaper 4-foot fixtures, just becuase I'll only need half the ballasts.

Randii

What about mounting the lights at a 45 degree angle all the way around the room in the upper corners where the wall and ceiling meet? Then a single line of lights splitting the room in half. That would give you plenty of light...

"Metal Haylide(sp?) is the way to go. Dad got the hook up on 6 of these on a job. Work great plus heat the shop in the winter."

Uh, thanks but Sacramento, CA (Fair Oaks...same, same) is hot as sh*t in summer...we don't need no more stinkin heat! However, if you only wrench in winter, then they might be great as it's also cold as sh*t (well not quite) here in the winter.


Randii,
Now go get those flourescents from home depot with the 'warm' aka kitchen lights as they make it easier to see and are easier on the eyes than the cool whites. If you got room, several sets of the eight footers might be nicer.

Randii -

I bought 10 of those cheapies at Depot - They all sucked and I had to take them back -3 were dead right out of the box, a few mreo wouldn't start in 40 degree weather, and the rest died in a week.

I was PO'd that I wasted my time hanging them...

Jim

Originally posted by Nate C
"Metal Haylide(sp?) is the way to go. Dad got the hook up on 6 of these on a job. Work great plus heat the shop in the winter."

Uh, thanks but Sacramento, CA (Fair Oaks...same, same) is hot as sh*t in summer...we don't need no more stinkin heat! However, if you only wrench in winter, then they might be great as it's also cold as sh*t (well not quite) here in the winter.


Randii,
Now go get those flourescents from home depot with the 'warm' aka kitchen lights as they make it easier to see and are easier on the eyes than the cool whites. If you got room, several sets of the eight footers might be nicer.

Thatsa what the central air is for in the barn doofy, It gets hot here too...

Randii, if you recall I went through this same issue recently with my shop.

The basics: 30x40 shop, truss bottoms are @ 11'6" height inside.


I tossed around every possible way to go - including hign $$$$ "low bay" lighting, all the way down to the cheap stuff.


Wanna know what I settled on?

Those cheap $9.95 Home Depot 4 foot fixtures, 3 rows (one per truss) of 4 fixtures. I also spent my money on some good "cool" light bulbs.

I was sooooo worried about there not being enough light in there. Well, at this moment I have only completed one row of lights. I hot-wired them up the other night, and even with just that ONE row of lights I was amazed at how much light I had. When I have all 3 rows done (12 fixtures - 2 bulbs each) I am fully confident that it will be more than enough light.

Sure, I could have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on high priced and good quality lights, but WHY?

Yes, these cheap lights hum... But this is a SHOP, not a library! Does a slight hum really matter with compressors, welders, drills, saws, grinders, or whatever other noise maker being used as is normal in a shop? :p

Besides - if one of them croaks - who cares, $10 and about 30 min. work and I have a new one to replace it...


I originally went with this setup with the intention of later augmenting these 12 lights with some low bay sodium halide (or whatever other gas works best) fixtures - but I now realize that is just a waste of money.

To be honest, I will likely spend my money - once I have thew walls drywalled - to add a row of these same cheap fixtures around the perimeter of the shop on the SIDES of the wall about 8 feet off the ground, to get the light down where it is really needed.

Seriously Randii - I agonized over this for far too long, finally went the "cheap" route, and could not be happier :)

Randii,
I just installed 3 of those cheap HD fixtures with the "expensive" cool white bulbs, and couldn't be happier. I have 4 Metal Halides that I decided not to use and I am glad that I did. This was all installed in a 2 car garage so YMMV.

We're still renovating my new garage in Kirtland, just west of Farmington, and I'm going to opt for the new "High Intensity" flouresents my electrical contractor has recommended.
We supposedly won't need to add extra fixture cans as these new tech fixtures are touted to throw off tons of light....
Maybe worth looking into ....

I'm leaning to cheap fixtures and somewhat-more-expensive bulbs, but I'm curious about the 'High Intensity' fluors... John, do you have any more info on these?

I'll hit a loghting distributor tonight, and see what they have...

Randii

"Thatsa what the central air is for in the barn doofy, It gets hot here too..."

Toyota_Jim,
Oh, silly me shoulda known that! I usually work with the doors open to get more room and ventilation of welding fumes etcetera. The air would be nice though.

BTW, where the heck is, "By bus?"

Originally posted by randii
I'm leaning to cheap fixtures

Don't lean on them too much - from personal experience they are kinda flimsy and prone to bending :p

The shop space of my garage is 30x28. I have 18 (yes, 18) of the cheap 4" lights from home Depot. Work great. I didn't hang them - screwed them right to the ceiling.

If you want lots of like, sheet rock the walls and paint them semi-gloss white. Did my walls and ceiling this way and it REALLY brightened the place up.

Still need more light though.. :) Probably going to install a couple of Sky-tubes at some point.

bkg

A mistake I have seen a couple of times is to mount the lights so that they are covered up when the overhead door(s) are open.

What I did that was to run a 1x3 (stood on edge) below and between the overhead door tracks. This allowed me to mount the lights so that they are below the doors when the doors are open.

Very handy when you only need to pull the nose of the vehicle into the shop, or you want the door open to let welding smoke or spray paint fumes escape. My F-250 doesn't fit in the garage, so I appreciate this feature often.

It is a bit tricky, but with a little thought, you can do it so that the lights are only 1" or so lower than the tracks.

Also, I find that those plastic sleeves they sell for the tubes seem to help them work better when cold...They still take a minute or so to get up to full brightness though.

Randi,

I think the "high intensity" bulbs are the new T-8 bulbs I was talking about.

Jim

Originally posted by Dan-H
randii,

I think THIS (http://www.surprise.com/kids/dancer/mirrored_disco_ball.cfm) is what I think you are looking for, but with the ceiling height it may not work.

If that style isn't right you might look at a higher end florescent fixtures. The reflector makes a big difference in the amount of light you get.

http://store4.yimg.com/I/elights_1680_2181811

http://store4.yimg.com/I/elights_1680_4253081

http://www.elights.com/flourwrap.html

The one pictured at the bottom is what I was referring to.

I cannot stress enough how much better those were than the standard, and even larger flourescent fixtures.
Great for doing shop work...even mounted high up.

The setup Shrok did looks pretty effective too, and probably a lot less $$$.

MJ

The efficiency of lighting varies with the type of lighting used, and are ranked in the following order with comments:

Incandescent: Common garden variety light bulb, though you could throw in quartz lights in the incandescent family. Relatively cheep, but most expensive to operate on a lumen per watt basis. Give off a fair amount of heat, especially the quartz lights. Life of a lamp is about 1500 hours

Flourescent: Color rendition varies with the type of bulb you purchase. Varies from typically cool whites / warm whites; but you can also get fancy by purchasing high K factor spectrurm lights. Operate best in temps over 70 degrees. In the colder temps, they may have trouble striking and ballast will hum something fierce. Tubes will also give off a swirling look in cold climate. If you choose to go this route, opt for fixtures with QUALITY ballasts and stay away from the el-cheepo fixtures. You'll have striking problems, bulbs will burn out faster, and in the long run you'll wind up spending as much, if not more, replacing tubes and ballasts; than if you would have started out with a quality fixure in the first place. Operating cost wise, they rank above incandescent in a lumen per watt basis. Life of a lamp is about 12,000 hours

Now we ventrue into the HID (High Intensity Discharge) family. Keep in mind that they do require a strike up time before they come into full brightness. If your power goes out, they will need to cool down some before you can turn them back on again. They really don't like being turned on an off alot as it shortens the life of the lamp. Best used if you're going to be working for quite a while and will leave them on for that time period. Some folks will use HID fixtures over a work area, and supplement other areas of the shop with flourescent lights for their instant on capability. HID lamps typically are rated for about 24,000 hours. In order of ranking...

Mecury vapor: On a lumen per watt basis, these are the least efficient of the HID lights. They give off a blueish light as well. You can get some rather inexpesively at places like Home Depot and such. They come in low bay fixtures as well, for low ceiling applications. Ballasts do get toasty, so keep that in mind.

Metal Halide: Middle of the road in efficeincy as far as HID's go. They do offer the best color rendition as the light is basically bright white. Great when you are messing with wiring harnesses with different color wires and tracers. These are the lights used in most car lots as they display cars to their fullest. Available in low bay applications. You would probably want 2 over each work bay (fore and aft). Anything beyond 250watts per fixture would be too intense. Again, supplement with perimeter fluorscent light for safety.


High Pressure Sodium: The most efficient on a lumen per watt basis, but color rendition is marginal. This is your basic street light which give off an amber looking color. They will play tricks on your eyes when it comes to deciphering colors. Ever notice how "differnt" your care will look in a commercial parking lot lit with High Pressure Sodium lights? They do make color corrected high pressure sodium fixtures, but those are way pricey. Because of mediocre color quality, these are best left for outdoor applications....

Excellent discourse, GonePostal ... thanks! :beer:

Originally posted by Kevbo
A mistake I have seen a couple of times is to mount the lights so that they are covered up when the overhead door(s) are open.

What I did that was to run a 1x3 (stood on edge) below and between the overhead door tracks. This allowed me to mount the lights so that they are below the doors when the doors are open.

Very handy when you only need to pull the nose of the vehicle into the shop, or you want the door open to let welding smoke or spray paint fumes escape. My F-250 doesn't fit in the garage, so I appreciate this feature often.

It is a bit tricky, but with a little thought, you can do it so that the lights are only 1" or so lower than the tracks.

Also, I find that those plastic sleeves they sell for the tubes seem to help them work better when cold...They still take a minute or so to get up to full brightness though.

When my 10x10 overhead door is up, it covers just 2 of the 12 lights. When the other 9x7 door is up, it doesn;t cover any of them. Besides, even with the 10x10 door covering two lights it is all so high up that there is still plenty of light by the time it gets down to me.


As a side note, I picked up several medical office exam lights for use in the shop. You know the ones with the adjustable height and flexible necks you can bend all over the place? They are GREAT for working under the hood, or directing light where you need it - hands free.