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Thread: Shop lighting......

  1. #61
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    Thanks for the info.

  2. #62
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    So much to consider. I used this thread several years ago to light my garage shop with florescent lighting. Worked great. Trying to find a calculator for LED lighting in my new shop, all walls sanded plywood, probably not paint. 10 foot ceilings, 24 x 32, 8 x 24 room in the back. Seems a lot of big box LED tube lighting is 42 watts. What do I need for the space I described? I like BRIGHT.

    Mike

  3. #63
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    You can apply the same principals to any type of light. Watt, luminance, temperature, and CRI measurements don't care what the source is.

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike OMelia View Post
    So much to consider. I used this thread several years ago to light my garage shop with florescent lighting. Worked great. Trying to find a calculator for LED lighting in my new shop, all walls sanded plywood, probably not paint. 10 foot ceilings, 24 x 32, 8 x 24 room in the back. Seems a lot of big box LED tube lighting is 42 watts. What do I need for the space I described? I like BRIGHT
    Mike
    Mike,
    I am going with high bay LED lights that are almost 23,000 lumen per fixture. 1600 square feet and 14 foot ceilings. 5 are operational thus far out of a total of 10. All I can say is WOW!!!! 5 would probably be enough for most people if they were centered. Even though this row is only on one side they are amazing. These came from Menards. $90 per fixture. I saw where a good rule of thumb for working height was to have 100 lumen per square foot. So I wanted a minimum of 160,000. White ceiling and walls and it's going to be nice. Over kill? Maybe but I don't want to say I wish I had put more lights up.

    menards.com/main/lighting-ceiling-fans/indoor-lighting/work-shop-lights/patriot-lighting-reg-22364-lumens-integrated-led-high-bay-light/ledhb160-5k-mvdim10v-sn/p-1551943911940-c-1472133557086.htm

  5. #65
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    I have purchased a lot of light fixtures for my shop and I have replaced a lot of light fixtures. So here are a few opinions I have from experience.

    I will never go back to fluorescent lights. LED shop lights have been superior and you never have to replace bulbs or live with less-than-new quality bulbs. I have had some LED fixtures go bad (Chinese quality), so now I only buy fixtures that have a 5 year warranty. That means I always get at least five years of use for the cost of the fixture, normally more. I'm okay with that.

    My pet peeve is intense glaring lights! The lower the ceiling, the more annoying they are. I want the total light emitted from the fixture to be over the largest surface area possible. For a given amount of light, the smaller the emitting area, the more intense it has to be. That is why I only buy the LED shoplights now that are about 4' long and 6" wide. No intense glare but lots of light output. The fixtures I buy now are 4000k temperature light. Seems pretty good for the shop.

    I also painted my shop walls white and I try not to block the white walls too much, like with pegboard and things hanging on the walls.

  6. #66
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    Thank you ken and jack I need sunglasses in my shop .i love this forum

  7. #67
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    Thanks Ken and Jack I need sunglasses in my shop now thanks again

  8. #68
    This thread is not very active right now, but just in case someone looks to it for ideas, I'll post a few. When I built the shop almost six years ago, LED light fixtures were relatively expensive and did not have lots of history behind them compared to fluorescent fixtures. I was given several 4 ft troffers ( 4-bulb fluorescent fixtures) and decided that new ballasts, "tombstones", and bulbs and silver chrome paint would make them serviceable. I also bought several "shop-lights" at a good price after seeing one hold up outside for a year during shop construction. Additionally, I bought some white ceramic fixtures and also bought 12 inch reflectors that screw into the fixtures and then accept a bulb. So you may be starting to think "hodge podge" but there's method here.

    My shop is not strictly a woodworking shop but is set up for woodworking to flow through it as needed. I garden a lot, maintain equipment for a large landscape and a house, and a decent-sized shop is truly a blessing. Even after six years, I still pinch myself (not literally) when I walk into the shop each day. Back to lighting - I thought for sure that LED lighting technology would improve in price and performance over time so I planned shop lighting for basically two different levels of light. The ceramic fixtures hold a single bulb and they have a reflector behind them that is painted with Krylon's silver chrome enamel. They are placed in pairs at four locations around the shop for "general" lighting. Depending on the area, some have 8W led bulbs that are 60W equivalent and some have CFL bulbs that use 23W and are 100W equivalent. These fixtures were all hard-wired with my theory being that bulbs may change, but the need for a little light in those areas will not. Each one of these four locations, primarily entrances and shop perimeter, has either fluorescent fixtures (general lighting) or directed track lighting (task lighting) and are separately switched for when more light is needed. The main shop floor is well lit with all fluorescent fixtures, either four bulb troffers, or two bulb shop lights that happen to work out to eighteen bulbs (32W each) in each half of the shop. This is where the set up, measuring, cutting, etc. all happens. It's very bright and even these lights are separated into four different switch banks. My point is, you buy a good quality switch once that may keep you from paying for electricity for an "all on" scenario from now on.

    I just did a small shop project in one corner of the shop that I'm very happy with. This was the one fourth of the shop where the ceiling is highest going from 9 ft to nearly 13 ft with no overhead obstructions. The other half of the "tall side" of the shop has a storage loft. Near this corner of the shop, I had two ceramic fixtures six ft apart and two four-bulb troffers hanging further in for bright "woodworking" light. These were connected to one switch and I wanted to change that. I sorted through supplies and thought of what I might need to do but settled on a solution that was much easier than any other I'd considered. For background, when I wired for all of the shop's fluorescent fixtures, I wired to four square boxes in the ceiling joists and rafters with two duplex outlets each. This made all the fluorescent lighting plug-in since the shop lights had cords and the troffers were easily outfitted with cords. To separate the eight bulbs (32W each), I mounted an unused power strip/ surge protector near the four square box and plugged the power strip into a remote receiver that then plugged into the four square box. The remote hangs on a magnetic hook on the end of the workbench that is lit below. This was the only place in the shop where fluorescents and ceramic fixtures were not initially separated. I used the plug in boxes so I can easily adapt to changing technology should I abandon fluorescent lighting altogether. In the meantime, the entire shop is well lit when woodworking; if I'm in and out of the shop, I do not feel guilty about leaving four to six 8W LED bulbs on for while. This last change saved me from burning 8 Xs 32W fluorescent bulbs just to leave a little light on in that corner.

    I've used these remote controls ($15, choose carefully) in a few places in my shop. They are rated at 13A and there's a newer model rated at 15A. They are advertised as indoor/outdoor and are so far very reliable. I have a small dust collector (11Amp) hooked to one and wear the transmitter clipped to a belt loop when I’m cutting, routing, etc. I have another one hanging by my exit door that controls the box fan/air cleaner that is mounted up high and awkward to access. Those two have been in service four to five years with no problems. The lumens per watt are very similar for my fluorescent tubes and today's "on sale" led shop lights, so I do not see me changing anything yet. I've not needed to replace any bulbs or ballasts in the six years since building the shop so neither cost nor maintenance is causing me grief. If you are planning a "hobby" woodworking shop, think about two different levels of lighting - one for just getting tools and materials, and another higher level of brightness for the details of woodworkin

  9. #69
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    A lot of the threads concerning high CRI LED bulbs are lower and always seem to go towards buying older fixtures, removing the ballasts, and installing hyperikon LEDs which have the high CRI rating. Is this still the only route or are there more self contained options that aren’t insanely expensive?

  10. #70
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    What's wrong with good old fashioned florescent bulbs? The led lights don't really burn out, but they do dim over time. I'm going to have my two led lights taken out and changed out for 6 florescents. The cost for that is about $125 plus installation labor.

  11. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by Travis Conner View Post
    What's wrong with good old fashioned florescent bulbs? The led lights don't really burn out, but they do dim over time. I'm going to have my two led lights taken out and changed out for 6 florescents. The cost for that is about $125 plus installation labor.
    That's a backward step. By the time a decent LED lamp dims enough to be noticeable, you'll have replaced the fluorescent lamps at least 2 to 4 times and some ballasts as well. Fluorescent lamp life is greatly shortened by frequent switching, like what happens in a home shop.

    Fluorescents also use about 3X the power for equivalent light levels. Technically, LED's don't make a lot more light than fluorescent, but almost all of the light produced gets out of the fixture & onto what you're trying to light up. The price difference between fluorescent & LED has closed to the point where you'll save enough in energy cost to pay for the extra in just a few months.

    So, you're basically throwing money away by replacing LED with fluorescent.

  12. #72
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    If you have them installed in a bathroom where they only turn on for a minute or so then yes you'll replace them like hotcakes, but if the run cycle is a few hours at a time you'll get 4 or 5 years out of them. I have a set that I left on for like 3 years straight and still haven't burned out

  13. #73
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    Those are at about 26,000 hours now, so they are approaching end of life. But the more a fixture is run, the more sense it makes to go with LED. The relamping of fluorescents is more of an inconvenience than a cost issue. It's the energy that is the big expense.

    One 4' fluorescent lamp running for 26,000 hours will use about $90 worth of electricity. That lamp could be replaced by an LED that would use about $36 over the same time period. What does a 4' LED lamp cost now? Pretty sure a good quality one is around $10 - $15.

    Another consideration is the increased cooling load in the summer. Someone with HVAC experience would know better, but I think for every 100W of heat you generate in a space, it takes something like 30W of cooling to get rid of it.

  14. #74
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    fluorescent lights also dim with use. I would go into Revco drug stores and replace all the fluorescent light bulbs and you could really see the difference. I changed out my fluorescent bulbs about 3 years ago in my shop and they still are brighter then the old fluorescent.

  15. #75
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jerome Stanek View Post
    fluorescent lights also dim with use. I would go into Revco drug stores and replace all the fluorescent light bulbs and you could really see the difference. I changed out my fluorescent bulbs about 3 years ago in my shop and they still are brighter then the old fluorescent.
    That they do. I bet those lamps of Travis's that have been going for 26,000 hours are only at 50 - 70% of their original luminance.

    As recently as 5 years ago I'd have said that fluorescent gave a bigger bang for the buck than LED, but no more. Around here, the electrical distributors hardly carry any fluorescent fixtures and virtually no metal halide fixtures. About the only fluorescent fixtures being installed anymore are T5 high bays in warehouses.

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