Shop lighting layout

[Thomas Crawford]

Thanks Thomas. I am a contractor by trade who went into real estate investing, so def can handle the electrical myself as well. I don't mind doing a bit of extra work for more versatility, just wasn't coming up with any good ways to split up my design that wouldn't be a total mess of wiring... How many of those lights do you use at once? You're over 100k lumens in not a ton of space, i'd imagine about half of them would be the max you need for almost any task...

I just finished this weekend. I actually ended up with less lights up than my original plan - 36 bulbs * 2300 lumens = 82,800 lumens.

As you can see below, I have the ceiling vaulted up to 12'.

I have 5 zones split up on switches (each vaulted side plus the middle):
Zone 1&2, short sides: 9200 lumens ea
Zone 3&4, long sides:13800 lumens ea
Zone 5 (middle, constant 12' height): 36800 lumens

My plan is to have Zone 5 on the majority of the time, and then flip on whatever side I happen to be working at. During a bright day I may only have on of the smaller side zones on.


Here's some pics:

[Peter Christensen]

Michael to add to post #30. I was outside at noon today and it was heavily overcast, actually snowing a little, and the phone app showed 5300 Kelvin.

[Thomas Crawford]

One other thing I'll add is that there is shockingly little light on the ceiling with these LED's. In the picture above the wall and ceiling are painted the same color.

[Gary Radice]

Gary, I was hoping someone would chime in on that specifically as well. As I design my kitchens, I almost always do 30" off the walls for can lights over kitchen counters. I wasn't sure if that would apply the same in a shop space or not, as I don't plan on a lot of benches along walls. I like open space, my main bench will probably be pulled out from the wall down where those 2 windows are. Other tools I figured will be used out from the wall a bit, as my shop is small and I'll have to have most things on mobile bases. Miter station usually has to be deeper than 2' for the tracks, even if you get an articulating Bosch or something, so probably 30" min there. What stations other than a workbench if you like that against the wall would you be working that close? Not trying to argue, and I'm not fixed on the 3' dimension, just curious.

OK, i just measured. When I stand at my drill press, my head is 30" from the wall so the chuck and my hands are closer than that. I'm a little closer than 30" when I use my lathe, which against the wall. My band saw backs up to a wall and the blade is 30" from the wall so my head is usually about there, too. The rest of my shop doesn't have tools against the walls. One wall is shelving and I did move the lights out a bit farther from that wall so light would cast deeper into the shelves. My main bench is in the center of the room and for that I put the lights directly over the bench.

[Michael Cummins]

Looks great Thomas. I like the perimeter so that you get nice even wall washing, and it is pretty amazing how little light goes to the ceiling. With a white ceiling and reflection, the ambient lighting can be nice to keep it less harsh, but then you need even more lights to get adequate light levels at work surfaces...

How far from perimeter walls are those outside lights mounted? Shadowing at wall work stations is def one thing I'm thinking about a lot.

Love the abundance of outlets. Def the way to go. I planned to do similar, except now in order to control sound I'm going to do it all surface mount with conduit. Won't look as pretty, but doesn't matter how nice it looks if the neighbors shut me down for noise issues... conduit will let me change things up as needed too.

What made you decide to do the LED tubes rather than linear fixtures or something?

One other thing I'll add is that there is shockingly little light on the ceiling with these LED's. In the picture above the wall and ceiling are painted the same color.

[Michael Cummins]

Yeah, I'm aware that outside lighting is way higher Kelvin. Just not sure why everyone thinks that is the ideal work environment. Living spaces are generally warm lighting. That's where 99.9% of what I make will go. That's where it needs to look good. I can use a window for daylighting. 4000K already is starting to make my skin crawl. Def can't understand how some of you guys work in 5000+

Michael to add to post #30. I was outside at noon today and it was heavily overcast, actually snowing a little, and the phone app showed 5300 Kelvin.

[Michael Cummins]

Yes, the plan is switched outlets for sure (or at least switched boxes with a hard wired whip - still easily customizable/changable later), so that this plan can be modified as needed. I just hope to get a good overall plan so that I don't need much changes from the get-go. Added task lighting I can do later, just want to be sure that I have the ability to flood the whole space with even lighting, hopefully without having to redo things. But if I do have to move things around, won't be a huge deal.

My father came up with a good solution about 70 years ago. he mounted switch controlled quad boxes on the ceiling of his basement shop. then he plugged in several hanging florescent fixtures. By the time I was born he had settled on there locations and only changed a few around when he replaced some fixtures with newer non starter ones.
in other words he used outlets so he could add and move stuff if he needed to. A fancy lighting design is great if you plan to never add any new equipment to the shop or if you plan on not letting your eyes get older so they need more light, or God Forbid you change hobbies, or the new home owner, and get rid of some big machines and replace with other stuff.
Bill D.

[Michael Cummins]

This is great info, thanks for doing that for me. With the 2nd layout plan with just 6 lines of lights across the room, the ends would be 30-33" from the side walls, and the bottom part will be my bench which won't live against the wall. Top part not sure about yet, but likely to be my miter station, which will need to be at least 30" deep to start, so standing position further out than that. I could shift the lights a bit further out in that second design, or buy the 1' linking cords (the ones I'm thinking of buying are a great price, but don't come with 1 foot link cords, only the end to end connectors) to split the pairs and push them further out. Do you think that would work out better? If I knew all lights would be on at all times, I think I prefer my original design because I know it will be even wall lighting... but I can't figure any good ways to break that up into logical switch sets without a huge mess of wiring (and conduit everywhere, as I'm surface mounting all electrical).

OK, i just measured. When I stand at my drill press, my head is 30" from the wall so the chuck and my hands are closer than that. I'm a little closer than 30" when I use my lathe, which against the wall. My band saw backs up to a wall and the blade is 30" from the wall so my head is usually about there, too. The rest of my shop doesn't have tools against the walls. One wall is shelving and I did move the lights out a bit farther from that wall so light would cast deeper into the shelves. My main bench is in the center of the room and for that I put the lights directly over the bench.

[John K Jordan]

... I also paid attention to what my garage doors would cover if open.

I'm surprised no garage door companies are offering my unpatented invention as a option: garage door lights, mounted on the inside of the door, wired to automatically turn on when the door is fully open. Or maybe someone has and I just haven't seen it.

A lot easier these days with bright LED panels.

[Jim Becker]

Michael, you should definitely embrace the color temperature that you feel most comfortable working with. I will suggest, however, that going "really warm" like in a home's sleeping and communal areas, might not be the best choice for actual woodworking and finishing. 4100 K (which is readily available in LED fixtures) can be a reasonable compromise between the 2700-3000K that's typical for "warm" home lighting and the harsher 5000K+ lighting that some folks prefer. Back when I set up my shop two decades ago and didn't know any better, my T12 fixtures were on the cooler side. I didn't notice at that point how it affected my work until I "accidentally" bought a couple of replacement tubes that were labeled as "daylight". I could see far clearer in that area and I suddenly noticed stuff I was missing. Some of that is very likely due to my eyes, but I do believe that some of it was very much related to my lighting. Everything is at 4100K now since I switched to LED and it's helped my eyesight a lot while working in the shop. I'm probably "over lamped" a little, but I'd rather have more light than not enough. My suggestion for you would be to buy a few sample fixtures/lamps so you can do an actual comparison between the light sources. Preferably, they should be identical fixtures other than color temp if that's at all possible, but at least of the same lumen output.

BTW, I'm with you around the 5000K+ color temps...I like that for my vehicle lighting, but it's too harsh for my eyes in the shop.

[Michael Cummins]

Genius!

Would be a little bit of a wiring trick to allow for the door motion, but def workable. Guess everyone just figures leaving that to the opener is good enough... also, if it bright out, probably don't want the lights on. So maybe a daylight sensor on the bottom of the door that only turns them on below an adjustable light level.

I'd never work with a garage door open in my urban area (prying eyes...), and the opener lamps are enough for just getting in and out of the car, but for many this would work out nicely.

I'm surprised no garage door companies are offering my unpatented invention as a option: garage door lights, mounted on the inside of the door, wired to automatically turn on when the door is fully open. Or maybe someone has and I just haven't seen it.

A lot easier these days with bright LED panels.

[Michael Cummins]

Thanks Jim. I think I'm good with 4000-4100K. Been trying them out in a little space in my basement that I work in, and its not terrible. I don't have enough light down there, but it doesn't feel overly cool.

If I do use these ones I've been looking at online, don't think there's any way to test them out like that. Will be ordering them by the 25 unit case. Probably will wait until the walls/ceilings are up and do some night time testing with some other lights before I pull the trigger, but with plug in setup, its really only a matter of moving a few screws etc to change it. I just want to get in the right ballpark so I order enough lights and don't do something too crazy in either direction that its hard to tweak to a good place.

Michael, you should definitely embrace the color temperature that you feel most comfortable working with. I will suggest, however, that going "really warm" like in a home's sleeping and communal areas, might not be the best choice for actual woodworking and finishing. 4100 K (which is readily available in LED fixtures) can be a reasonable compromise between the 2700-3000K that's typical for "warm" home lighting and the harsher 5000K+ lighting that some folks prefer. Back when I set up my shop two decades ago and didn't know any better, my T12 fixtures were on the cooler side. I didn't notice at that point how it affected my work until I "accidentally" bought a couple of replacement tubes that were labeled as "daylight". I could see far clearer in that area and I suddenly noticed stuff I was missing. Some of that is very likely due to my eyes, but I do believe that some of it was very much related to my lighting. Everything is at 4100K now since I switched to LED and it's helped my eyesight a lot while working in the shop. I'm probably "over lamped" a little, but I'd rather have more light than not enough. My suggestion for you would be to buy a few sample fixtures/lamps so you can do an actual comparison between the light sources. Preferably, they should be identical fixtures other than color temp if that's at all possible, but at least of the same lumen output.

BTW, I'm with you around the 5000K+ color temps...I like that for my vehicle lighting, but it's too harsh for my eyes in the shop.