shop lighting?

[Father Haskell]

T8 flicker rate is imperceptible at 24,000 cps, electronic ballast.

[Charley]

John,

I have 8' strips with 2 lamps each placed end to end in several rows across my shop and the light level and working conditions are great. As your shop is longer than mine you will need 5 rows of these strips spaced 5 ft apart with 3 fixtures in each row to cover the whole ceiling. That will leave you

2.5 ft between the last row and the wall in one direction and 3 ft to the wall in the other direction. With no reflectors on the strips and just a white painted sheetrock ceiling you will have very bright, even, and nearly reflection free lighting across your whole shop. If you wish, you can break the lighting circuit into 2 or 3 sections so that you can leave one end of the shop dark if you don't plan on working there. You should definitely get fixtures with electronic ballasts if your shop temperature will not be maintained above 60 degrees F or you will have problems when you turn them on and it's cold. I like daylight colored tubes in my machine areas and cool white in my finishing area. The daylight color helps me see lines better when cutting and assembling and the cool white helps me see colors as they will usually be seen when inside a home with incandescent lighting. My previous shop had 4' fixtures and I wasn't very happy with them. It seemed like I was forever replacing a lamp here and another lamp there. I have found that the 8' lamps in my new shop last significantly longer. In fact, the shop is now about 12 years old and I have only replaced 6 of the original lamps, and 2 of those were broken when they were hit by moving a long board.

Everybody has their own opinion about what is best in shop lighting. I suggest that you compare my way to a similarly illuminated store with a 10' white ceiling and 8' strip lighting somewhere in your area to see if that level of lighting is right for you. When I was planning my shop I based it's lighting design on what was in a store near me and it has worked out very well. The only dedicated use light that I have is on one of my drill presses, and it came with the drill press. I haven't had need for any other. Even the benches along the walls seem to have adequate light.

Charley

[David G. Nagel]

There is no such thing as to much light in a workshop...

Dave N

wrote:

[LAI]

John,

I ran your room through my lighting software program. The reflectance values were standard 80-50-20 which equates to white ceiling, tan - light painted walls and concrete floor. Mounted at 10'

To achieve the following use - 4' - T8 strip fixtures

30 average foot candles you'll need 6 at 4' - 2 rows of 3 40 average foot candles you'll need 9 at 4' - 3 rows of 3 50 average foot candles you'll need 12 at 4' - 4 rows of 3

I'd go with 841 lamps. They cost a bit more but they like all fluorescent lamps will last as follows

30,000 hours with 12 hour starts and 24,000 hours with 3 hour starts.

The 8 stands for 80+ CRI - Color rendering - The higher the color rendering the more a color looks like it should. Sunlight and an incandescent lamp have a CRI of 100. They encompass all the spectrum of light.

A higher CRI lamp will in a sense contain more of the light 'spectrum' per se'.

The X41 stands for 4100 Kelvin. An incandescent lamp is about 2700K. The higher the Kelvin the whiter and actually bluer it looks. For the older generation. A higher Kelvin is better due to visual acuity and the aging of eyes. Also the higher the Kelvin, studies have shown the lower amount of light is needed. If your wondering what the heck does

30 foot candles look like. If you work in an office its engineered at 30Fc, A hallway is at 10Fc. A parking garage is 5Fc. A Gym is 30Fc.

If you'd like, Send me an Email and I'll send over the lighting layouts for you.

[e-mail]

Bob

[Lew Hodgett]

AMEN!

Standardization.

#14 belongs in other people's place, not mine.

The amount of work involved in a wiring job makes trying to use #14 a waste of time compared to #12.

Lew

[Mike M]

Yep that's what we used to do, and thats what I have. Federal Energy regulation have made it so the old magnetic ballasts won't be available. Think in terms of electronic ballasts. The hottest technology is T8, T5/HO and LED. Cost wise look at T8. We are just finishing up a 3 Bldg complex by gutting the existing 4 lamp 2x4 troffers putting in a new 2'L reflector with a High Output T8 ballast and High Lumen T8 lamps. People are complaining its too bright and we cut the connected KW in half and the serving utility is paying 2/3's of the cost. Sixteen month payback. For a home shop look at the T8's good light higher CRI and will be current technology for awhile.

Mike M

[Mike M]

One other thought if dollars are tight and you have a lot of retrofits in your area, we usually have trailers of old lighting fixtures sitting around and we don't bother with security. Lot of times the local scroungers save us the trouble of parting them out for recycling. The copper fixture wire is gone the first night.

Mike M

[Bob AZ]

Bob

Where does one get a "lighting software program"?

Bob AZ

[Lew Hodgett]

You can always stay with the old grade school math program.

Assume lumen depreciation over life of lamp = 0.9 Dirt Depreciation =0.6-0.9 based on conditions Luminaire efficiency (Includes an up light allowance)= 0.6

Maintained Lumens = (Initial Lumens)(0.9)(0.8)(0.6) = 0.432)(Initial lumens), for medium dirt conditions.

(1 Lumen)/(1 square foot) = 1 foot candle.

The above are based on a florescent lamp source, and a maintained light level 36" above the floor.

Time for a beer.

Lew

[John Starr]

After reading the comments I am still a little confused on why would you use 4' lights v 8' lights. If the building is 30' long three 8' lights per row and you are done. Why string so much wire for 4''s?

From the comments I have come up with somewhat of a plan. A row along each side 4' from the wall, and than another row7' in from that one. 4 rows of 28' lighting.

John

[Lew Hodgett]

"John Starr" wrote: .

Take the time to examine the lamp terminations of a 4 ft lamp and then an 8 ft lamp.

The weak point in the 4 ft lamp system is the lamp/socket connection.

Lew

[jcatora]

Bob, Lithonia Lighting (Conyers, GA - outside Atlanta) has a pretty decent program - 'Visual' that comes in a 'basic' and a 'professional' version. The 'basic' version is free and will easily do things like a shop. The 'professional' version is far more versatile and really not that expensive ($125 when I got mine, but haven't checked recently - doubt it would be much more).

out the 'Basic' version -- I think you'll be satisfied.

-- john (Architect)

[Mike M]

You can get the 4' lamps in what's called a tandem fixture which has an 8' shell. Compare the price on 4' and 8' T8 lamps. Your going to be buying electronic ballasts so you might as well move up to the current technology.

Mike M

[Oughtsix]

I use 5 x 8' lights on the ceiling in my 20 x 40 shop mostly in the center of the ceiling. This is background lighting. I have 6 x 4' lights mounted 4' down from the ceiling on a piece of plywood. hinged to the wall. I have a string attached to the upper side of the lights so I can lower them down to be parallel to the ceiling or raise them to be perpendicular to the ceiling and out of the way. Because the lights are closer to my work I get much better illumination. Most of the time I keep the lights at 45degrees to the wall and the ceiling which does a nice job of eliminating any shadows anywhere in the shop.

[Oughtsix]

P.S. I would rather climb up the the ceiling and replace 5 eight foot bulbs than 10 four foot bulbs. And yes, the bulbs with the rectangular contact ends are much easier to replace than the pin end bulbs.