Lighting the Small Workshop - by Jack Lindsey

[Steve Milito]

Ahh, I didn't get the 4 x 4' lamps in an 8' fixture.
I am planning a shop of about the same size, when I googled to find a source for fixtures I could not find 4 x 4' fixtures anywhere, but found plenty of 4 x 8' industrial fixtures. I wrongfully assumed you we using the 4 x 8' fixtures.
Thanks for the great article.

[Jack Lindsey]

Ahh, I didn't get the 4 x 4' lamps in an 8' fixture.
I am planning a shop of about the same size, when I googled to find a source for fixtures I could not find 4 x 4' fixtures anywhere, but found plenty of 4 x 8' industrial fixtures. I wrongfully assumed you we using the 4 x 8' fixtures.
Thanks for the great article.

Your welcome, Steve. Glad you found it useful.

[John F. Gates]

Jack, you help in the original article in FWW was awesome and your further help to all of us is very much appreciated! I've just relocated from Alaska to Western NC and am setting up my shop in a 3 car garage (it is 35' wide X 25' deep). I'm using 2 of the bays and my shop will be 24' wide by 25' deep. The 24' wide area has 2- 10' garage doors that I'm hoping will be open a lot down here (thankfully)!

Do you have any suggestions on lighting ideas for garages with garage doors open (under the open garage doors). I've placed my main bench and saws away from the doors (opposite end of the shop) - and will focus my lighting on those areas.

I'll do my best and attach a photo of a rough shop drawing. The garage doors are at the bottom of the photo.

Appreciate the help!

John
[IMG]Gates Shop.jpg[/IMG]

[John F. Gates]

Jack, here is another shot at adding my shop drawing.Gates Shop.jpg

[Jack Lindsey]

Thanks for your comments, John. It's good to know that the articles are useful. Unfortunately in this case I'm not going to be much help. Other than locating the major work areas away from the doors there really isn't much else that will help. The doors will block light. Painting the walls and the inside of the doors white will help a little. If the doors have windows you can locate fixtures above the windows so they will shine through the glass, but really not a perfect solution but better than nothing. On the plus side you should get quite a bit of light in through the door openings when the doors are up, and locating fixtures on the ceiling above the open doors will provide light when the doors are closed. Your layout looks similar to the one I had in the garage before building my dedicated shop. I opened the doors during the day and had no problems. Hope that works ok for you. Please let me know if you find a better solution.

[John F. Gates]

Thanks Jack. I'll do just what you've suggested - mount the lights as if there were no doors and then when they are open, I'll enjoy the natural light from outside.

Another note, I've got 7 - 8' 2 bulb (16 - 4' sections joined together) and then 8 - 4' 3 bulb fixtures. They are all T-8's. So, I'll just install them across the workspace accordingly. In the past, I've installed 2 - 8' sections close together above the bench for additional light, but you don't suggest this in your article. Rather, always the layout is systematically proportioned to the space. Interesting.

Again, thanks for the help.

John

[Jack Lindsey]

Thanks Jack. I'll do just what you've suggested - mount the lights as if there were no doors and then when they are open, I'll enjoy the natural light from outside.

Another note, I've got 7 - 8' 2 bulb (16 - 4' sections joined together) and then 8 - 4' 3 bulb fixtures. They are all T-8's. So, I'll just install them across the workspace accordingly. In the past, I've installed 2 - 8' sections close together above the bench for additional light, but you don't suggest this in your article. Rather, always the layout is systematically proportioned to the space. Interesting.

Again, thanks for the help.

John

John, there's a couple of reasons why I recommend uniform lighting systems for small shops. First, the spaces aren't really large enough to benefit from task oriented lighting fluorescent systems since the task areas are close together and the light distribution characteristics of the fixtures cover fairly wide areas. Secondly, in a small shop the work areas move about frequently and we are likely to perform seeing tasks at virtually any location in the shop.

[Jim O'Dell]

Was I whining??? RRREEEEEAAAALLLLLLYYYYYY?????? If that was whining, then it looks like it worked!!! Thanks Ken for the extra effort to get the calculator to work within the confines of the software. It looks like several people used it judging from the comments. It's also obvious I haven't looked in on this thread in a long long time. I'm super happy that so many have benefited from the work that Jack put in on it. Jim.

Jim....this version of VBulletin won't allow Microsoft Excel ".xlsx" extention files to be upload. However, I did a little research and found out how to save Jack's calculator as a ".xls" file.
So here is Jack's calculator:

Attachment 232593

[Ken Fitzgerald]

was i whining??? Rrreeeeeaaaallllllyyyyyy??????:d if that was whining, then it looks like it worked!!! Thanks ken for the extra effort to get the calculator to work within the confines of the software. It looks like several people used it judging from the comments. It's also obvious i haven't looked in on this thread in a long long time. I'm super happy that so many have benefited from the work that jack put in on it. Jim.

:d:d:d:d

[Tom VanDenEng]

Thanks for the great article, there is diffidently alot more to proper shop lighting then I thought

[Richard Demaray]

It's good to see the interest in lighting from other woodworkers. Other articles or comments might expand or add information about color rendering index, color temperature, day-lighting and cost and recommendations for particular lighting products. I recently received a light therapy light which is wonderfully bright and added it to the sources over and around my work bench. It is like working in the best sunlight I can imagine, not to bright or hot but wonderfully clear like the sun through a frosted glass overhead and also no shadow. I plan to bring home a LUX meter and see what kind of 'therapy' it is that I'm enjoying. I can see very clearly light traces from my marking knife and I think I have less eye strain.

I'm work daily with what might be of interest once the general illumination requirements are established. I just attended the DOE Solid State Lighting Conference in Long Beach in early February and the presentation for that meeting should be available any day now. You might not want to dive down into the deep end of that pool, but more than half was dedicated to information that is directly intended to help regular consumers and manufacturers of high efficiency and high quality lighting make good choices with new and recently tested products that are now for sale. See

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/building...entations.html

for the latest videos, webinars, publications and presentations on product performance, selection, efficiency, quality, reliability, and cost effectiveness, updates on Lighting Facts, CALiPER testing and demonstrations of the bulbs and fixtures you can choose from the store today. Several years ago, many LED and other lights didn't test up to the label but now many do and some exceed performance specifications. It's paid for with our taxes and IMHO a great bargain for those looking for sensible practical information to help guide a purchase.

Even though I work on the technical side, I'm also a wood worker with a garage shop that is begging for some better lighting. And even though I work in the OLED and LED solid state areas, there is quite ready information of fluorescent and induction lighting choices which are quite competitive, particularly if you are like me and sensitive to the purchase price. The fluorescent tube is not setting still and is giving LEDs etc. a very good run for the money, even in energy efficiency, lifetime, cost of electricity, heat load, etc. LA has saved a huge amount of money and will soon have installed 140 thousand LED streetlights. Sacramento did the same math and picked non-solid state street lights. So there is a horse race where we are the winners!

Last, no discussion is complete without just a mention to look up or evaluate the color temperature, color rendering index, reliability and cost of the products you can choose. I'm looking for 3000 Kelvin or higher, a CRI of at least 81 and have found many products to install with a cost less than $10/meter sq. I put in a double glass door and a new garage door with "lights" along the top for more day light, but a sky light and a window are on my shopping list. Cheers

[george newbury]

Is it now time to bring into this great discussion LED?

I just saw where HD is selling a 2' x 2' LED that someone says puts out 11,000 lumens. I've an RV shed that could use 50 to 100 lumens and presently has 8' T12's whose ballasts are going.

I was planning on putting up t5's but lower maintenace LED's might make the cost tradeoff worthwhile.

[Eric DeSilva]

Interesting--here's the link to HD's site: http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/2038127...0#.UbIIYJyv_5E. 11.2K lumens in a 5" x 15" x 23" package for $199. It would take two ($400) to get to the same light (more or less) than the 4xT5HO package they have at ~$120 with bulbs. HD estimates the yearly cost of a T5HO at $6.50, so $26 v. $18 (based on the LEDs being 31% more efficient). Even if you have to replace the T5HOs once (they have 1/2 the est. life of the LEDs), my quick math suggests a 14 year pay-off v. T5HOs. Still, that is a lot of progress. The math could be a lot different in a year or two.

[Jack Lindsey]

While LED luminaires have undergone significant technological improvements during the past year they are still much more expensive than conventional T-8 strips. The LED fixture cited in the post costs $219 compared to about $40 for a 4 lamp strip that produces about the same lumens. LED's are improving and at some point they will be competitive for small shops but that day is still in the future.

[Jeff Erbele]

Thanks for the great article. I am new to SMC and discovered it while exploring this site. It was a timely find as we are building a new house with a dedicated shop area in the 4 bay attached garage. Two bays are 20' x 20' and the adjacent dedicated shop area is 20' x 30'. Thirty some years ago when I built my first workshop 24' x 24', I was clueless regarding lighting requirements. My solution was to wire rows of switched outlets on the ceiling. Back then, a basic hanging T-12 shop light with reflector, with two 4' 40 watt lights retailed for $10. I hung them all over the place and turned on as many as needed. Call it the trial with room for expansion method. While it worked, I would rather design a proper lighting system upfront. Your article solves that, providing the basic information required.