Shop Lighting

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I've used some of the features mentioned and a few others. I have a 22' x

22' shop and have 2 zones on switches. Both zones have 2 florescent fixtures, 3 would be better, mounted on the ceiling. There is a 3rd circuit with wall mounted fixtures. In addition, each zone has an 8', 95 watt, that is switch operated when I really need to see. Machines have halogen, or compact florescent fixtures to supplement. All the walls and ceiling are an off-white. This works quite well.
Reply to
AHS
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These are called "full spectrum" lamps and I second the recommendation.

Also to be considered is real daylight from sky lights, especially since you are building the shop.

Reply to
Roger Shoaf

I am in the throes of wiring a room with 2 small windows (Ontario, Canada) in the basement of our new home to be a wood/metal shop. I have read somewhere (I know not where) recommended lighting levels for a shop. The shop is 17ft. x 18ft.

Any advice on fluorescent wattage would be much appreciated, remembering we are talking about 63 year old eyes here.

Thanks, John.

Reply to
John Wilson

If this is a basement shop, make sure that you have enough outlets on the ceiling (if you buy plug type fluorescent lights, like those 48" ones at walmart), to plug in a lot of light. I have not yet been able to found a level of light that is "too much". The more I add, the better it feels. I have 4 double fluorescents in the garage, and it makes it pleasant to be and work there.

I will probably soon go to walmart and buy 4 more such lights, 2 more for garage and 2 for the basement.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus10062

In my 30' x 40' shop I installed 3 rows of 4 fixtures and I would say my lighting is very good. My smaller shop is 24' x 18' and that has 4 fixtures and the lighting is acceptable. You might try 4 but expect 6 would be good. The fixtures are 4 bulb flourescents using the newer T8 bulbs which have electronic ballast so they don't hum. Watch the light temperature when you buy the bulbs, I got 5400 K bulb as they match normal sunlight. When I put up another fixture I got the bulbs from Home Depot and they only had 6500 K bulbs which are very much bluer and have much more glare. Both my wife and I decided they were unacceptable and they got replaced.

Steve.

Reply to
SteveF

Don't buy cheap "shoplight" fixtures. Spend a bit more and get high-efficiency T8 fixtures.

From:

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Lamps Improve Efficiency Another important advance in fluorescent technology is the development of the T8 lamp. Featuring a tube of only one inch in diameter? compared with one and a half inches for the traditional T12 lamps?these lamps dramatically improve system efficiency. A 32-watt OCTRON® T8 lamp, for example, uses 20 percent less energy to provide the same light output as a 40- watt T12 lamp. T8 lamps employ special triphosphor coatings to achieve precise control over color temperature and CRI. The smaller diameter of the T8 tube means that less of these costly materials are needed. In addition, T8 lamps provide optimum system efficiency when used with electronic ballasts. This combination provides such dramatic savings in energy costs that billions of dollars are being spent each year to retrofit existing T12 installations with more efficient T8 technology.

Vaughn

Reply to
Vaughn

Iggy sez:

" If this is a basement shop, make sure that you have enough outlets on the ceiling (if you buy plug type fluorescent lights, like those 48" ones at walmart), to plug in a lot of light. I have not yet been able to found a level of light that is "too much". The more I add, the better it feels. I have 4 double fluorescents in the garage, and it makes it pleasant to be and work there."

Second that! Those cheap 48" flourescent fixtures are even better when you re-lamp them with higher quality tubes than they come with. The original tubes last for many hours, so well in fact that you aren't aware of the gradual.deterioration in light quality. Then when you relamp - wow! IMO, it is best to relamp them all at the same time. I have 10 fluorescent fixtures in my shop. One of them is a 3-tube "industrial" fixture and the rest are 2-tube el-cheapos. I've had no trouble with the "Wally Marts" except an occasional loose socket which was easy to fix. The 3-tube "industrial" has had its ballast transformer replaced once in maybe 30 years. I've only had 1 ballast problem with the other 9 fixtures and it was cheaper to replace the fixture than try to find a replacement ballast. Mine aren't wired to come on at the same time. I put pull chain switches in them (in groups of 2) so that I only need to have fixtures lighted over any particular work area.

Bob Swinney

Reply to
Robert Swinney

As I have 'ripened' and become more particular about lighting (flicker, spectrum, and intensity) my shop lighting has transitioned to a mix of Compact Fluorescent (multiple brands and color temperatures to get more spectral lines) ambient lighting with halogen task lighting. Most of the halogens are $20 fixtures that look like 3' long 4" diameter cylinders, each with 2 150W tubes and its own switch. They plug into ceiling outlets and are sometimes moved around to suit jobs in odd places.

Reply to
Fred R

SteveF wrote: Watch the light temperature when you

Roger on that one very loudly!

Someone tipped me off to the benefits of using "daylight spectrum" flourescents a few years ago. I found Phillips "F40DX" 40 watters at Home Depot for a very reasonable price, IIRC about twice that of the "commodity" 40 watt tubes sold there.

I installed them in every fixture in our office and everybody immediately noticed and commented on how much "nicer" and "warmer" the place felt. You can notice the difference just by walking out of the office into the hallway where the landlord still uses "regular" spectrum

40 watters in the fixtures there.

Nturally I'm using them in my home shop too.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Wilson" Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 12:20 PM Subject: Shop Lighting

Hi John; What part of Ontario are you in? I am near Sudbury and we are having a cool cool winter. Oh by the way I use 4 tube 8 foot fixtures in my shop, and the gang is right tough to get too much light, especially at 72. Reply if you want to via this group, e address is messed up to reduce spam.

Jack Hayes

Reply to
Jack Hayes

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions everyone. I had not considered pull switches to localize lighting to a work station, a good idea. If I have to purchase any additional fittings they will be T8. Any replacement bulbs will be 5400K.

Thanks again, John from Stittsville on the western fringe of Ottawa. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Wilson" Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 12:20 PM Subject: Shop Lighting

Hi John; What part of Ontario are you in? I am near Sudbury and we are having a cool cool winter. Oh by the way I use 4 tube 8 foot fixtures in my shop, and the gang is right tough to get too much light, especially at 72. Reply if you want to via this group, e address is messed up to reduce spam.

Jack Hayes

Reply to
John Wilson

Assuming you have EITHER a sheetrocked ceiling painted white OR fixtures with white reflectors, I would start with something like this: (all in High output lamp florescent watts)

Storage or occasional use 1/2 watt per square foot General use (assembly, glue up) 1 watt per square foot High level ( layout, chisel work) 2 watts per square foot Intense work (precsion lathe or mill work) 3 watts per square foot

Old eyes want another 50% on top of these.

White walls and white sheetrock ceiling will do wonders for both the light level and dust control. I have open joists in my shop, real dust collectors. And all the florecent fixtures have to have reflectors.

for your 63 year old eyes and shop size, I'd suggest 500 to 1000 watts (7 to 14 two 4' bulb fixtures) to be able to work anywhere in the area. If you go on the lower end, put the fixtures over your high intensity work. I have a table where I do all my layout, diassembly and analysis, and precsion assembly. Fixture is 4' away, directly overhead.

You might want to put all the lamps on one wall switch with pull cords on some of the lights so you can turn on specific lamps. Or put 2 light circuits so you can light half the room seperately. Or use 2 light switches so you can have half intensity and full intensity.

Task lighting over the vice, lathe, etc is a must. I found several drafting table style parallel arm lights are a couple of yard sales. 100 watt bulbs 2' from the task are NICE.

Use a power source and breaker seperate from your portable tool circuit. I just HATE it when I blow the breaker from overloading a tool and all the lights go out! (Unsafe too!) I have one circuit for my lights, 2x

120 volts for power tools, plus 2x 249 circuits for the dust collector and 5 hp planer. 3 hp rotary phase converter for a mill or lathe is on the agenda so it will have to share with the planer.

Cheers.

John Wils> I am in the throes of wiring a room with 2 small windows (Ontario, Canada)

Reply to
RoyJ

Reply to
carl mciver
[snip]

Plus it's a pain in the butt to have to work in the dark or by flashlight because you want to add another outlet and have the lights on the same circuit. I always put lights on a separate breaker.

Steve.

Reply to
SteveF

I plead ignorannt to the cold characteristics of flourescents other than noticing how awfully dim the CFs I retrofitted into the pair of outside lanterns straddling our front door are when I flip them on in our currently 20F weather here in Red Sox/Patriots country.

They do brighten up in about 5 minutes though.

Our (attached) garage is currently below freezing most of the time, and I've noticed a similar "dim start" on the single 40 watt flourescent I mounted under the cabinets above the workbench there. I haven't had to replace that bulb since I installed it a few years ago.

My guru for all things "light bulby" is Don Klipstein. Try this link and/or e-mail him if you decide to ask him about temperature effects on flourescent bulb life.

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Good luck,

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

That's what I'm using in my shop (the F40DX) and yes - compared to the "standard" bulbs, even new ones, they're a much better light. It's amazing how much the output of those tubes degrades long before they stop being lights. In a 4 tube fixture, replace one of 'em, and see how much difference it makes.

In a 16x24' room, I have (6) four-tube fixtures. It's not "too much light", but it's close.

Dave Hinz

Reply to
Dave Hinz

I'm pretty sure it's the ballast, not the tubes, that needs to be rated for cold environments.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Beware buying the cheapest "shop light" fluorescent fixtures. The very very cheapest use 25 W tubes and 25 W ballasts, and you cannot put "standard" 40W (really 34W) bulbs in them without serious problems (e.g. they never light up bright enough *and* you damage the ballast too.)

It is very much worth your while to take a step or two up from the cheapest. At the very least get an electronic ballast.

Tim.

Reply to
Tim Shoppa

"two much" is a pair of eight footers, about four feet over the workbench in a basement shop. "Okay I can see that, now."

tschus pyotr

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

makes sense, My shop with 14 foot ceiling has 29 square feet per 4 footer, you have 16. My shop is nice but could be slightly brighter[i'm gettin old] my old barn had 24 tubes at 930 square feet, ok but definitely dim. my office here[8x8] had 4 4 footers, and I unplugged 2,

8 foot ceiling
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yourname

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