Shop Lighting.

[billymac814]

I'm sure someone here knows about lighting. I recently moved some stuff around in my shop and 2 of my sewing machines ended up in a spot that is rather dark. I'd like to add some more lighting and/or rearrange some fixtures I have now. I have really high ceilings, 12-14ft, is it best to drop the lights down lower or have them closer to the ceiling. Right now I have some up high and over work stations I have lower ones right above the work area, I'm not sure if this is the best route though. It gives nice bright lighting on that area but outside of it its not as bright, I'm wondering if they were higher if it would cover more area?? It's also starting to look terrible with chains and wires hanging down for the lights although that's not my main concern.

[electrathon]

If you lower the lights down you will have more light where you need it. If you raise them up you will have more light all around, but less to see what you are working on.

Think of the light like water. If you had a gallon of water would it be better to poor it all on your bench or to spread it all over the room.

Aaron

[mikesmith648]

I am going to be setting up my shop in a little bit....my plan is to use the small halogen lights and put them where I want them...just a thought

[billymac814]

That's pretty much what I figured. I have the large 8ft lights up high and the shorter 4ft ones at each work station, the problem is I have so many areas I need light that I didn't know what was the most efficient. I seen someone's picture here recently of their shop and it seemed so bright. I have about 12 fixtures and my shop is roughly 1000sq ft. I'd like it to be bright everywhere and do it efficiently. Painting everything white would probably help quite a bit but that would be a huge project, everything is supposed to be white now but Its old and looking pretty ding. I could probably get by just doing the ceiling without too much difficulty, that would probably help reflect some light around.

What halogen lights are you thinking? Seems like halogens create a lot of heat and uses a lot of energy, but that might depend on the type, of course it may not be an issue if they are up high enough.

[mikesmith648]

I meant to say Xenon.....sorry........sort of like these

http://www.nslusa.com/xenonmini.html

[Beaverslayer]

Mike, these LED would be a better idea than the xenon you linked too. LED is far more efficient and does not create heat. Another plus, is that LED does not attract flies or bugs.

http://www.nslusa.com/ledthinstar.html

[mikesmith648]

that was my other preference....and they come in mini gooseneck styles so they can be directed where needed!!

[billymac814]

Those things look tiny. I'd need 100s of them or at least a lot. I'd prefer to have something that makes the whole shop bright and not just where I need it.

[David8386]

Led lights would be for task lighting but they do put out a lot more light than you would think. I would go to grainger or some other commercial supply company and see what would be best for a 1000 ft shop. halogen or xenon would be okay because you could go with fewer lights for overall light and led for task lighting.Led is cost is higher but they are supposed to last for a long time. When I remodeled my moms kitchen I went with led under cabinet lights and it turned out very good.

David

[billymac814]

I'll probably end up going with more flouresent shop lights and see if I can spread the light a little more evenly, I don't want to spend a fortune at this point, maybe if and when I remodel the shop Ill seek out a better solution. I may try putting a few more up high to spread it a little more evenly and add another lower one over the spot where the machines are now. I think the high ceilings hurt a little bit in this regard, if it were lower and brighter it may reflect more light down, that's my theory anyway.

[Beaverslayer]

One other solution is to replace the ballast in each of your fixtures with a high-efficiency electronic ballast, and replace the lamps with T8 high-CRI florescent tubes. This will give you a much better light as well as energy efficiency comparable to LED lighting.

You should be able to get them at Home Depot or any industrial lighting supply store.

[Northmount]

Light intensity decreases by the square of the distance. Place a light 1 foot from a surface. Then move the light to 2 feet from the same surface. The light falling on the surface has decreased to 1/4. (1/2x2). So as you have found, task lighting is more efficient. And yes, repainting your ceiling will make a big difference. The cost of electricity for high ambient overall lighting is high too. So the overall lighting needs to be bright enough for safe navigation and work. If you switch your lighting in banks, you can have light where needed, plus task lighting at your work stations. Unless you are using LEDs for task lighting, I would shut them off when not needed.

2 ea 8' fluorescent tubes are about 150 or more Watts depending on your particular model. So each pair uses 150 Watts x 8 hours divide by 1000 kWh per 8 hour period. 1.2 kWh. Multiply that by 30 days x your electric rate of say $0.20/kWh and you will have the cost per month. $7.20 per month. 4' are about half that. So total it up and see what it is costing you. Adjust days, hours, and your local rate accordingly. Then review what you really need.

Tom

My simple numbers didn't include the ballast, up to about 40 Watts for twin 8'. So get efficient ballasts to decrease your energy costs. Also consider that all adds to your air conditioning load if you have air conditioned work area.

Edited December 27, 2012 by northmount

[billymac814]

Tom,

Thank you for your reply, that is very informative. I'll look into the high efficiency fixtures and maybe look into ways to shut down areas that are not used very often. That would be good enough for me. I'll also work on getting the ceiling painted too. I just hate seeing all the cords and chains hanging down but that's pretty much in avoidable.

[dirtclod]

billymac painting the celeing will help a lot. You could make some reflectors for you lights. Fluorescent light used to come with or the one that hung down did. I have plugs in the celeing in my shop just so i can move light around if i want to move a work station. Another thing you can try is day light bulbs they are brighter than the regular ones and cost the same or not much more.

[billymac814]

The last time I bought bulbs I almost went with the daylight bulbs, the only reason I didn't get them was because I was unsure if it would look funny with different types of bulbs and I didn't want to replace them all at the time. I may try them though, I think they were only a few bucks more.

My ceiling is pretty much the same, its a drop ceiling so I use the hooks that slide on the rails to hang the lights and I have a track running down the center that has outlets that slide so its not hard to move lighting around. There's a few old not used fixtures all the way up there, I have no idea if they work but I doubt it.

It really looks kinda bad though with 12 or so fixtures that each have two chains and a cord and some kinda go on a diagonal to get where they need to be and I have no outlets in the center of my shop so I have to run cords down from the ceiling for a couple sewing machines and their lights that are in the center of the shop. The rest of the machines I try to keep along the wall but I'm pretty much out of walls now.

I would love to completely re-do this place and do things better but time and money won't allow for all that any time soon. A lot of this stuff was done by the previous owner. I'd almost prefer lower ceilings however I have shelves along the walls and I can put less important stuff up high so that is kind of nice however I could get a storage container put out back to do the same thing. I think when I do the painting Ill get some cords that are long enough to at least run the wires neatly down the chains and try to make it look somewhat presentable. In most cases customers can't see it but sometimes they walk back here, I can see it though, I may figure some type is switch in with the cord so I can shut down certain stations when not in use without going to the breaker boxes.

[groovytech]

I have 3 benches of varying heights. One for dyeing/finishing, one for tooling, and one for cutting. I have found that placing 4' dual lamp shop lights at 4' above the working suface, with daylight lamps, illuminates the working surface perfectly. I also have a 24" lamp under the shelf on my tooling bench facing forward so as to minimize shadows when tooling. An 18" over the dyeing bench serves the same purpose. I use daylight((5000`K) lamps to avoid the dreaded 'dull,dumb' lighting associated with 'drone cubicles' in offices.

Hope this helps ya.

[billymac814]

I'm going to give the daylight bulbs a shot and add a few more fixtures to where I moved the machines too and then at some point this summer ill do some painting. That'll be as good as it gets for a while. I may start replacing fixtures with those high efficiency ones as I go along too.

[joe59]

I have high/vaulted ceilings in my shop and as with most shops, lighting and storage are always a problem. I solved both by building a 36"x 96" re enforced plywood shelf. It is anchored to the wall on one side and hung by chains from the ceiling on the front side. I store full sides on the shelf and mounted two four foot shop lights on the under side. I put 3 inch spacers between the lights and the bottom of the shelf to limit any heat from the lights. The shelf is 7' from the floor and my sewing machines are underneath the shelf. Just a thought.

JOE

[sinpac]

I use a Ott Lite bench model for concentrated light in one area.

Just my two cents

http://www.ottlite.com/

Chris

[billymac814]

I have high/vaulted ceilings in my shop and as with most shops, lighting and storage are always a problem. I solved both by building a 36"x 96" re enforced plywood shelf. It is anchored to the wall on one side and hung by chains from the ceiling on the front side. I store full sides on the shelf and mounted two four foot shop lights on the under side. I put 3 inch spacers between the lights and the bottom of the shelf to limit any heat from the lights. The shelf is 7' from the floor and my sewing machines are underneath the shelf. Just a thought.

JOE

In my old shop I did something similar except I didn't hang them by the ceilings, I basically made a ceiling from my workbench by running 2x4s up, everything was white as well, including my workbench so it made a nice bright work area and gave me extra storage. I could probably do that now but now I have a lot more room and more work stations so I would need to do it at each station.

[groovytech]

For task lighting on my press and sewing machine, I use a 5W superbright white LED in a PAR16 can that is mounted to the machine. LEDs produce the brightness and focus needed and aren't affected by vibration from the machinery, i.e. no "filament flicker". Best move I ever made for machinery lighting. I even integrated LED lighting on my Dremel tool.

[raysouth]

The lighting situation has been a problem for me as well, having 12' ceilings in my shop area, (40x40), but mid 2012 I decided to move my carving/burning work areas into what was once my small sales office, (12x30), which has 8 ft. ceilings painted white. Still a problem for me, not getting the lighting where I needed it most so have gone through, led, xenon, floods, spots, halogen and whatever else I could find, and noe perfect but at least I have learned ways to combat the shadow thing, which has been a problem for me. Eyesight noy what it was years ago so had to compensate. Use a combination of extendable/pivoting desk lamps, (halogen), led strips inder shelf at work tables, 6' flour. on ceiling and even though a bit of inconvenience. at times, it does a fair job for me. Suppose we have to try different approaches until we find something that fits our particular application.

Hope you can find a solution and plenty of assistance here on this site.

Ray

[billymac814]

Here's my update.

I went to Home Depot and got 3 more fixtures, they are the two bulb, 4ft T-8 made by Lithonia. They have small reflectors and were 19.99 which was only 7.00 more than the cheapest ones that use the T-12 bulbs. I replaced two of my existing fixtures with these and added the third over where I moved two of my sewing machines. I also got the daylight bulbs which are a brighter looking light. The added feature of these lights are that they have a pull chain so I can easily turn ones off that aren't needed so the two I replaced are in areas I don't always need lit. I will over time switch out the rest of my existing lights for these ones which should save some money on electricity. I still hate looking at all the chains and cords but I will just live with that and route the cords a bit neater as I replace them.

Another thing I changed out at the same time was my sink, the only water source in my shop was a small bathroom sink which was always a problem because I couldn't even fit a bucket under the faucet so I put in a large laundry tub type sink with a pull out faucet. It will be much nicer having a legit sink in the shop for cleaning items or just filling up a bucket or even a large spray bottle. That was a fairly cheap project too, the sink was only 25.00, the faucet was 40.00 and a few extra bucks for some fittings and I had to change the direction the door swung so it didn't hit it but that wasn't a big deal. I should have done that a long time ago.

Once I slow down a bit, maybe over summer, Ill try to get the ceiling and maybe even some of the walls painted.

Thanks for everyone's opinions.

[groovytech]

sounds like you are goin' with a good plan. The utiliy sink will make your life much simpler. Tip: most towns/cities have a Habitat for Humanity organization and most have thrift store that sells surplus & wreck-out stuff from their projects. Goes to a good cause and usually good deals. Heads up!