Quick question – I am putting up a new shop (30’x40′) and am restling with lighting. I plan on using double 4′ T-8 fixtures so each fixture is 8′. Are four banks with three fixtures per bank running along the 40′ length enough for this size shop (12 fixutres total)? The sales rep for Lithonia stated that would be more than adequate. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
There will be 12′ sidewalls with all walls and ceiling sheetrocked and painted white.
Thanks Aaron
Replies
Hi Aaron,
You might want to consider low bay metal halide. You can pick them up on Ebay pretty reasonably. I took out all my old flourescents and love the halide. Very efficient and casts a bright clear white light, full spectrum.
I know the T8 flourescents are much better than the old T12s but I guess I just prefer these.
If you haven't purchased the T8s yet you could buy them online and they should be able to give you information on how many to use for your space.
Tom
You Don't Want to Know.
You Aren't Going to Know.
Hi , as a suggestion, ask the nice sales rep to provide you with the photometric data for those fixtures, and have him calculate the correct # of fixtures required.
Why not 8" fixtures ? you could use fewer hangers ,neater looking, ...just curious
Wihout doing an extensive analysis, your arrangement sounds pretty good to me. I'm an EE and I regularly specify T8 fixtures in commercial projects, arranged similarly to what you are planning. They will provide good, bright and even lighting. The T8s are a lot better than the old style fluorescents, you shouldn't get humming or flickering like they used to do.
I'm glad you're talking to a Lithonia rep; they are a good brand, and you don't want to cheap out on the lighting. Ask your rep about what will be the best color warmth for the lamps (3500 degree K is a good number), as well as what's the best style of fixture to use (a Lithonia EJA232 would be a typical fixture for a shop area.) With that many lights, you may want to put them on two circuits, with two switches at the door.
Edited to add: Maddog asked about using 8 foot lamps instead of 4 foot ones. It's more a matter of personal preference than anything else, but I like the four footers if for no other reason than the lamps are easier to carry home from the store and to install. If you keep some spare lamps on hand, the four footers are a lot easier to store, too.
Edited 9/26/2005 1:34 pm ET by Stuart
Thanks for all of your quick responses.
Stuart, I'm not sure of the exact model #, but the one's I was looking at are sold at the Home Depot? any experience with the quality of these. They sell for about $40 w/o bulbs. I am putting them on two switches.
Again thanks for the responses.
Aaron
I'm not sure what all they sell at Home Depot. I just checked their website, and the only 4' T8 Lithonia fixture I found for $40 was a Model SB2-32-120-GEB. It has a plastic diffuser over the lamps so it has a cleaner look and probably provides a more even light than the one I mentioned, which is a regular open-style fixture with the shade on top. If this is the one you're looking at, I think it would be a good choice (go to http://www.homedepot.com, and type "Lithonia SB" in the search box in the upper right hand corner.)
Edited 9/26/2005 2:29 pm ET by Stuart
I was just wondering, ....8 footers are a pita to put up by yourself"
There is a Fine Woodworking article January-February 2002 page 56 to 61 called Lighting for the workshop by Jack Lindsey
It is the most detailed article I have seen and it,s well worth a read
regards Charnwood
I've worked in shops lit with fluorescents, and in shops lit with halogen floodlights. IMHO, halogens are way, way better. There are two reasons:
* Fluorescents generally make light which uniform and diffuse. With that, I can't see little imperfections -- for instance, butt-jointed planks not being exactly flush, or a jointer not quite hitting the full length of a board's edge. I can see those problems with incandescent lamps.
* Fluorescents are the wrong color. The worst are awful, and the best are merely bad. I can't tell what color the wood or the finish is unless I use sun light or incandescents.
I know that utility companies love to tell us to use fluorescents, but think about it this way... The amount of money you'll be spending on light is much smaller than you'll be spending on running your machines. For instance, my 2 hp chip collector alone burns about 2500 watts. Incandescent lighting for a one-man shop may consume 500-800 watts. Changing to fluorescents may drop the lighing consumption to 300-500 watts. You save a couple hundred watts, which is inconsequential compared to other usages in the shop, and in return you get lousy lighting. This is a bad trade-off.
First, I prefer the 4 footers to the 8 footers primarily because they are easier to transport and easier to store.
Regarding bulbs: Buy bulbs with the highest CRI (Color Refractive Index) that you can find. They run as low as 70 and as high as 96. A CRI of 100 would theoretically be equal to the color of sunlight. You can find at Lowes and Home Depot bulbs with a CRI of 92.
For Reference, when we use light tables for our color transparencies for the photo studio, the light tables were using bulbs with a CRI of 92. This is very good.
The CRI diminishes with age. I like to place the new bulbs in the most important area of the shop (finish area) and retire those bulbs to other areas. This keeps the light in the finish area up to par.
For the record, the problem with fluorescents is not the color of the bulb, but the missing colors in the bulb.
When you light with an incandescent bulb you get every color from black up to the color temperature of the bulb (2,800 degrees Kelvin or 3,200 degrees Kelvin for tungsten). Think of heating a bar of steel with a torch. As it heats it becomes red, then orange, then yellow, then pale yellow, then paler. If you could apply enough the heat and the steel wouldn't melt you would eventually reach 5,600 degrees and equal the color of sunlight.
With the fluorescent bulbs with a low CRI you are missing certain bands of light frequencies. The overall effect is white, or cool white or warm white because of the blending of the colors that are included. But when looking at a colored item the missing bands of colors will render the color quite differently from the way it would look in daylight.
Always judge color using the kind of light you intend to view the item under.
I like fluorescents because the keep the shop cool, the light is soft and diffuse and with really good bulbs the color is good. I use a halogen light to check on the surface of items that I am finishing; skimming the light across the surface works well for showing finish imperfections.
Fluorescents use about a quarter of the power that incandescents use, so 800 watts of incandescent lights would translate to 200 watts of fluorescent light, a saving of 600 watts per hour, cosiderably more than the few hundred watts you suggested. Over an 8 hour day the power saved by using fluorescents would be 4,800 watt hours which is worth a few dollars in savings.
If the dust collector ran all the time it would consume far more power, but if the DC actually ran for an hour each day it, which is more typical, it would only use 2,500 watt hours for the day, only a little more than running the fluorescents all day. Also, the wattage rating for the dust collector is the draw under full load, if the system is well designed the dust collector might only use half as much power as the nameplate rating.
Any time you judge power usage you have to look at both the power draw and the amount of time the equipment is on. Looked at this way the equipment that runs all the time, such as lights, is usually where the best savings can be made.
John W.
John --
You're right, the lights are on more than the dust collector. However, the dust collector is only one machine in a shop which has many. My point is that lighting is not the dominant electric cost in a typical shop, and it is a false economy to accept bad lighting.
I just finished a shop also 30x40 and used T8 8' and ran them end to end front to back along the 30' sides - 6 rows of 5 each. Each row on a separate circuit to turn off and on as I need them. I dont need any extra lighting on any tool I use. I would not do it anyother way and I used it now for about 2 years. My neighbors laughed when they saw how much lighting I was putting up but I can see a pencil line anywhere I work.
Dave,
Thanks for your info. That is alot of lighting i was thinking at most of doing five banks of three lights running along the 40' wall with about 4' between each fixture end to end and about 5' between each of the banks. If i go with four banks of three, there would be 6' spacing between each and the outside walls.
Since I will have to live with this, i will go with five banks, better more than less when it comes to light.
Thanks to all other replies.
Aaron
I think you are better off with more than less especially when you consider each fixture pulls only about 1 amp ! That is extremely cheap for the lighting you get except for the orig investment. By the way, I used a drywall lifter to help install the lights by myself.
Aaron,
Fluorescent fixtures with the correct lamps provide great general shop illumination.
I prefer to supplement fluorescents with incandescent task lighting, especially in areas where shadows and raking light are helpful, as when carving.
In the finishing area, my ideal is redundant lighting (and windows) that will allow me to replicate the kind of lighting that's being used in the place where the furniture I'm building will eventually live; most living rooms don't have banks of fluorescent fixtures.
In both homes and workshops, I like the idea of installing "night lights" on a separate circuit at floor level - preferably a circuit that's also energized by an emergency power source; when all of the other lights go out, you can still see where you're going, and get there safely.
Good luck,
-Jazzdogg-
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Gil Bailie
I'm with jazzdog. Put some incadescent lighting in also, or at least have some available when finishing and sanding (oh horrors). (:
I have one of the "drafting" type incandescent that have the spring tension arms.
At the bottom is a C clamp base that is removable and leaves the base with a post. A little play and I made a hole in a dowel that fits snugly on the post and in turn fits into my bench dog holes on the work bench. Between the 2 bases I can use it in a lot of locations.1 - measure the board twice, 2 - cut it once, 3 - measure the space where it is supposed to go 4 - get a new board and go back to step 1
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