Shop Lighting

[Ben Abate]

Hello all,

I need to replace most of the 4 foot fluorescent bulbs in my shop. It has been a long time since I saw this topic come up. Presently I have a combination of bulbs, Cool Whites and Daylights. The Daylights in my opinion are much brighter than the cool whites. The Cool Whites seem to give off a pink cast. I remember this being brought up somewhere before about which bulb is better for a shop. It has to do with how much a light bulb simulates daylight. Calvin or Kalven (sp) sorry for the spelling. In my case I would like to get it as bright as possible. I have to replace about 30 of the 48 that are in there.

[Ken Pywell]

I have the daylight deluxe bulbs (t8). Combined with white walls, nice and bright.
Ken

[JayStPeter]

There are two factors in how a flourescent tube will show colors. The first is the Color Rendering Index (CRI). Look for above 90 to get full spectrum color. The other is the color temperature in Kelvin. Look for above 5000K.

Halogen and Incandescent are always 100CRI (perfect). But, incandescent bulbs are very low in temperature at <3000K. The coatings on the "daylight" incandescent bulbs raise the temp at the expense of CRI, so incandescent is not a good color rendering bulb.

The reason to be concerned about this is if you want to be able to match finishes or see the true color of your finish in your shop under the lights. If you aren't concerned about that, then just get what you like.

I have found I like the daylight style bulbs better anyway. Mine are not specifically called daylight, but are 92CRI and 6500K ... I think.

[Ben Abate]

Thanks guys,

I believe I will try to purchase a few bulbs and then see how I like it. My fixtures I purchased used when I put my shop together. Now; a few years later the bulbs are getting dim and some are burned out. I can really see the difference in the quality of light I now have.

Funny thing; I called a few electircal warehouses yesterday and asked for prices on a quanity of bulbs. I thought I was asking for directions to Mars, everyone of the guys I spoke to had not a clue of what Daylight bulbs were. They could not give me a price because they said they have never ordered them so the bulbs are not in there system. Of course Lowe's has them in two packs. I counted my bulbs last yesterday 54, it gets expensive buying them by the two pack. I may buy a couple of two packs to test out how I like a new Daylight. About half of my bulbs are Daylights and the half are Cool Whites. But since all of them are 10 years old or at least 6-7 years old new ones should look quite different.

I will keep in mind about the CRI and the Kelvin rating. One fellow at the warehouse did tell me that Daylights go as hight as 6500 in the rating. I belive the ones that Lowe's carried were 4000

I may have to try a specialty lighting store. I am amazed that I have a hard time finding these.

Thanks fellows
Ben

[Rob Beckers]

I purchased a box full-spectrum Excella tubes from 1000Bulbs.com (http://www.1000bulbs.com/product.php?product=306) for my shop. They were double-boxed, and all arrived intact. The color and brightness of these bulbs is great for shop use.

-Rob-

[Joe Mioux]

Here is another vote for 1000Bulbs.com. Good prices.

Joe

[Tom Hamilton]

Ben, the Jan-Feb 2002 issue of FWW covered this in some detail and the article is available on their web site to download. I can email you by Adobe copy, I think, if you wish.

Also, there's is another article on Woodcentral's archive on shop lighting.

Best regards, Tom who thinks with shop lighting too much isn't enough.

[Pete Brown]

Ben, I use full spectrum lighting. It makes working in my shop a pleasure. I also use a high quality electronic ballast, so no hum.

Model Railroading is one of my hobbies. I put together a page (http://www.irritatedvowel.com/Railroad/Layout/Lighting/CompareFluorescents.aspx) that compares the light from all sorts of different types of lamps. What it doesn't show is that due to the full-spectrum coverage on some of those lamps, they actually appear brighter than the equivalent standard lamps. They are easier on the eyes, and better for your mood (it's true!)

Daylight lamps may be fine, but they're not full-spectrum. Once you use full-spectrum, it is hard to use anything else :)

I have a room in the house with my model railroad in it. When I have the lamps on in there and I open the hall door, it looks like sunlight streaming into the hall. My wife first noticed that, and it's proof of the quality of the light.

Pete

[Pete Brown]

I purchased a box full-spectrum Excella tubes from 1000Bulbs.com (http://www.1000bulbs.com/product.php?product=306) for my shop. They were double-boxed, and all arrived intact. The color and brightness of these bulbs is great for shop use.


That's the tube I and a photographer friend settled on for our work.

Pete

[David Cramer]

Don't forget shipping. I just off the phone with 1000bulbs and found out that one case of 8 foot 110W High Output (15 in a case) was going to cost $51.21. Then I was told the shipping on each case was $45! Yikes! She verified it for me twice and said it was because they were 8 foot bulbs.

Just something to think about. It comes out to $6.41 including shipping per bulb, versus Home Depots $5.93 plus tax coming to $6.29 per bulb (when buying a case of 18). It is only a 12 cent savings per bulb, but with Home Depot you can go back and immediately get a new bulb if there is a problem. I don't own stock in either company and am merely pointing out the big picture.

There was a coupon code box on the 1000bulbs site, so maybe that would bring things down a bit (if you have one).

Hope this helps a bit.

Dave

[JayStPeter]

My shop has a mere 48 bulbs required. I bought mine locally at a lighting place. They are Sylvania bulbs and I believe they were under $2 ea by the case. I was amazed after searching the web for prices that they beat the best price I had found on comparable bulbs and no shipping. I had to order them and wait a few days, but for half the price of anything I had found ... OK.

[Ben Abate]

Fellows,
Thanks again for the info, Pete that is quite a demo you put together. I also see what you mean about yellow casts. I did like the more white back ground. It takes a bit of time to see what you were talking about but there is a difference. I will check out the web site you recommended. I will also try a local lighting dealer.

I was having this conversation with a co worker yesterday and he was pretty amazed at some of the comments about lighting for a shop. He assumed that a bulb is a bulb and there weren't any differences. I also let him look around the site for a few minutes, he changed his mind about people that work with wood. He didn't realize that we talk about much more than making saw dust.

I just checked out that website and found some interesting bulbs. The verilux sounds interesting, it has a Kelvin rating of 6250 and a CRI of 94, I would like to buy a few to give them a try. First I will look at the local places for lighting.

Thanks fellows
Ben

[Al Willits]

Just wondering, does anybody besides me think the Daylight bulbs have a blue tint to them?
Found that a bit hard to take after years of basic shop/utility grade lights, so I mixed them and seems better.

Have to try the full spectrum though, thanks.

Al

[Rob Beckers]

...
Just something to think about. It comes out to $6.41 including shipping per bulb, versus Home Depots $5.93 plus tax coming to $6.29 per bulb (when buying a case of 18). It is only a 12 cent savings per bulb, but with Home Depot you can go back and immediately get a new bulb if there is a problem. I don't own stock in either company and am merely pointing out the big picture.
...
Dave

Your Home Depot sells full-spectrum, high CRI, bulbs?
I simply couldn't find anything decent locally. All HD here sells are standard (ie. 'cool' and other) bulbs, and one type of 'daylight' bulb which was more expensive than those Excellas I bought. Since I wanted the full-spectrum bulbs it was the Internet or nothing. I should mentione that all my fixtures are 4', so shipping was not as big of an issue (forgot what I paid, but it was not the type of price that would leave an impression).

-Rob-

[David G Baker]

Just wondering, does anybody besides me think the Daylight bulbs have a blue tint to them?
Found that a bit hard to take after years of basic shop/utility grade lights, so I mixed them and seems better.

Have to try the full spectrum though, thanks.

Al
Al,
When I was much younger I printed wedding photographs and found that many people have color lighting preferences. Some wanted the peachy flesh tones while others wanted the cooler bluish or some other tint. Not really sure why but guess it is how they think it should be. I have noticed that several people seem to object to the bluish tint in their lighting, all in a matter of what makes you comfortable.
Daylight bulbs try to duplicate daylight which has a high color temerature, (I think it is around 12,000 kelvin at noon on a normal sunlit day) making the light color more blue.
I haven't tried the full spectrum bulbs yet but plan on giving them a try when I start fixing up my shop area. I am looking for a good source for the T8 ballasts and fixtures. I am not sure about the Home Depot quality.
David B

[Rob Will]

Just wondering, does anybody besides me think the Daylight bulbs have a blue tint to them?
Found that a bit hard to take after years of basic shop/utility grade lights, so I mixed them and seems better.

Have to try the full spectrum though, thanks.

Al

Al,

I did a side-by-side test in my shop and came to the same conclusion (the daylights were too blue). Designer warm whites were too pink. Sooooo.......I just stayed with regular Cool White because for me, they seemed brighter. Having said that, I have not experimented with Full Spectrum bulbs but that might be of interest.

In my house, I use Designer Warm White because the color temperature blends well with the light from incadesent bulbs.

Rob

[Al Willits]

Thanks, until the wife came out and said they looked blue also, I was afraid the 60's had come back to haunt me...:D
Have to check HD/Lowes/Menards, one of them must have a 2 pack of full spectrum to try.
For some reason the blue tint doesn't seem as bright as the Daylight bulbs, might just be me though..
Curently I'm using a combination of the blue tint, daylight and three flood lights I used for spray painting, when I really need light, god knows what anything I finish will look like outside though...:)
Al

[Ralph Snodgrass]

When I wanted to improve the lighting in my shop ( 6 200 watt incondecent lights), I debated on the purchase of new flor. fixtures, but decided it would be quite expensive. I found '1000 Lights' on the internet and found they had 80 watt screw-in Flour. bulb. I ordered 3 6000 K ' daylight" bulbs. Works great with half the power requirement.


:D :D :D

[Chris Padilla]

I have 8 8' T8 electronic ballast fluourescent lights (takes 4 4' bulbs). I bought a mixture of 3 differerent color temps and mixed them all in. I figured I've got everything covered and it works for me. Everything was purchased at the borg.

[Sam Chambers]

I found '1000 Lights' on the internet and found they had 80 watt screw-in Flour. bulb. I ordered 3 6000 K ' daylight" bulbs. Works great with half the power requirement.
Ralph, did you mean "1,000 bulbs"? I found that one OK, and they have quite a selection of screw-in compact flourescent bulbs. I hadn't thought of going that route in the shop. I recently put a 200 watt equivalent in my garage, and it's like a small sun!

[Chris Friesen]

Your Home Depot sells full-spectrum, high CRI, bulbs?
I simply couldn't find anything decent locally. All HD here sells are standard (ie. 'cool' and other) bulbs, and one type of 'daylight' bulb which was more expensive than those Excellas I bought.

Around here HD sells T12 Phillips "Natural Sunshine" bulbs with a CR around 92. They're fairly expensive though.

[Pete Brown]

Around here HD sells T12 Phillips "Natural Sunshine" bulbs with a CR around 92. They're fairly expensive though.

Just keep in mind that most daylight bulbs aren't the same as full spectrum. I'm not familiar with the Phillips, but I haven't found any true full spectrum lamps at any of the local box stores.

Pete

[Boyd Gathwright]

....Ben, this thread might be of some help:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=451869#post451869

Cheers

:)



Hello all,

I need to replace most of the 4 foot fluorescent bulbs in my shop. It has been a long time since I saw this topic come up. Presently I have a combination of bulbs, Cool Whites and Daylights. The Daylights in my opinion are much brighter than the cool whites. The Cool Whites seem to give off a pink cast. I remember this being brought up somewhere before about which bulb is better for a shop. It has to do with how much a light bulb simulates daylight. Calvin or Kalven (sp) sorry for the spelling. In my case I would like to get it as bright as possible. I have to replace about 30 of the 48 that are in there.

[Rick Cabot]

Hi Ben
We found the following article very helpful when we built our new shop. We were initially going to install the 8' sections but found that the 4' sections were more easily managed and had greater supply potential for the lighting bulb inserts. 8' foot bulbs were just too hard to manage! We found that the daylight bulbs were far superior to anything else that we tried.

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/Workshop/WorkshopPDF.aspx?id=2771

Regards
Rick Cabot

[Mike Deschler]

Ever since we moved to our new house, I have had a real problem with shop lighting in general since there is no ambient light present. I tried various combinations of 4ft and 8ft fixtures both with 2 and 4 light combinations and figured that I would need upwards of 20 fixtures to get the amount of light I would be comfortable with. My shop is very dark so it was that or nothing.

I ran across an article several years ago about essentially driving each tube with its own electronic ballast and achieving greater light output from each tube and thought I would experiment further with this concept. I bought a few 2 tube t8 fixtures at H.D. for approximately $6 each and removed the ballast from the donor fixture and assembled it into the other fixture along with a pull chain switch. Additionally, you have to do some more modifications such as paralleling the outputs from each electronic ballast but being an electronics engineer by training, this was not a problem. This btw, can only be accomplished with electronic ballasts, do not try this with magnetic ballasts.

Two years later, I am running a very bright shop (24x32 with 10 T8 32W 2 tube fixtures with daylite bulbs) and enjoying it every time I turn the light switch on. Average cost per fixture for all modifications is approximately $16-17 less bulbs and without a power switch. I am not experiencing any excessive rf noise and can play my am radio anywhere in the shop and have not had any tubes burn out from being overdriven. So far, I have only replaced one ballast but the cost was only $7 (inflation) by buying a new fixture and removing its ballast and using it in the faulty fixture. I haven't analyzed the failure mode but suspect it was one of the drive transistors failing. The bulbs do indeed run hotter but the ballasts remain cool to the touch and as a result, I do not feel there is a safety/fire problem with my approach that I know of.

Needless to say, I am pleased with the results.

[Ben Abate]

Hi Fellows,

I have to thank all of you for your replies, Boyd that was a pretty interesting chart. I will have to agree with whom ever said that these specialty bulbs are not available at the local H-D or any place else that is for general purpose use.

It seems that we have two groups of thought on this subject. One group likes the Full Spectrum and the other group likes the Daylights. Boyd; do you feel that the Cinema bulbs fall into the Full Spectrum range or the Daylight range.

As I mentioned in my first post that I have a mxture of Daylights and Cool Whites and possibly a few of what ever. I would have to say that I have more Daylights than anything else but I don't believe of the 54 bulbs 50% or them are Daylights. I have not notice the blue that a few fellows mentioned. But then again I might be used to it or I don't know what to look for. In my opinion from what all of you have contributed a Full Spectrum 5500, CRI of 90 -95 would be a great bulb. You fellows have me thinking that if I would go with 54 Daylights that it maybe too white and put strain on my eyes.

I can remember when I put this shop together 8-10 years ago how I thought that I could get a sun burn in there it was so bright. Now years later I am noticing the lack of light. The yellow I guess you would call it. It is like someone put a dimmer on my wall switches. I guess you just don't realize over time how they loose their ability to give proper lighting.

Its funny since I started this thread a week ago and reading all of your posts how I have been taking notice of all the lights in my office and our board rooms and just about every place else that has fluorescents lighting. I was sitting in a meeting on Wednesday and noticed how the lights were botheing me sort of. There was not enough light in the room, I live in the Pittsburgh area and at 5 pm the sun is down but there is still some daylight but the lighting was terrible.

Again, thank you for all of your comments. It is nice to have all of you participate in the topic. I am always amazed at the effort that you fellows will go to, to help out others.

Thanks Ben

[Boyd Gathwright]

Hello again Ben,
.... Let me answer your question this way. I will be replacing all my original bulbs with the Cinema bulbs as my old one's burn out. Excuse the expression but it is the difference between NIGHT and DAY. I feel these give me the best light to work with. As one becomes more aware or more sensitive to the subject you begin to see what you did NOT reconize before.

Good luck on your choice.

Boyd


:)




Hi Fellows,

I have to thank all of you for your replies, Boyd that was a pretty interesting chart. I will have to agree with whom ever said that these specialty bulbs are not available at the local H-D or any place else that is for general purpose use.

It seems that we have two groups of thought on this subject. One group likes the Full Spectrum and the other group likes the Daylights. Boyd; do you feel that the Cinema bulbs fall into the Full Spectrum range or the Daylight range.

As I mentioned in my first post that I have a mxture of Daylights and Cool Whites and possibly a few of what ever. I would have to say that I have more Daylights than anything else but I don't believe of the 54 bulbs 50% or them are Daylights. I have not notice the blue that a few fellows mentioned. But then again I might be used to it or I don't know what to look for. In my opinion from what all of you have contributed a Full Spectrum 5500, CRI of 90 -95 would be a great bulb. You fellows have me thinking that if I would go with 54 Daylights that it maybe too white and put strain on my eyes.

I can remember when I put this shop together 8-10 years ago how I thought that I could get a sun burn in there it was so bright. Now years later I am noticing the lack of light. The yellow I guess you would call it. It is like someone put a dimmer on my wall switches. I guess you just don't realize over time how they loose their ability to give proper lighting.

Its funny since I started this thread a week ago and reading all of your posts how I have been taking notice of all the lights in my office and our board rooms and just about every place else that has fluorescents lighting. I was sitting in a meeting on Wednesday and noticed how the lights were botheing me sort of. There was not enough light in the room, I live in the Pittsburgh area and at 5 pm the sun is down but there is still some daylight but the lighting was terrible.

Again, thank you for all of your comments. It is nice to have all of you participate in the topic. I am always amazed at the effort that you fellows will go to, to help out others.

Thanks Ben

[Chris Padilla]

One thing I see not mentioned here is the color of your shop walls. Reflection of light can go a long ways as well as the quality or color of your bulbs.

I painted everything I could in my shop a nice semi-gloss white. It was god awful boring painting white everywhere but my shop lights up very nicely. The semi-gloss also makes wall wipe downs a little easier

For my shop cabinets, I chose a nice clean, white maple cabinet. White, white, white!

[Bill Brady]

You will want to use the T8 lamps in any installation. Both 4' and 8' fixtures are available.

With T12 lamps there is a loss of light output of 30 to 40 percent in about 2 years. This is as little as 10 percent over the life of the lamp with T8.

With the T8 lamps and electronic ballasts when you loose one lamp in the fixture the others will stay lit.

The federal government has also limited how long T12 lamps and fixtures will be available with the 2005 Energy Policy Act.