I’m in the process of rebuilding my workshop (from the ground up), and I’m finally onto interior finish. As I consider lighting, I’ve always been less than happy with plain Fluorescent fixtures. Anyone have any thoughts on recessed lights ? Do any type of recessed or high temp haolgen lights cause a possible hazard from dust buildup in the fixture ? Am I overthinking this ?
Rob.
Replies
Rob,
I'd stay away from halogen; even the new one are pretty hot. Why not stay with florescent, but use the wide spectrum bulbs? (Even mixing in some grow lights will help.) If you go with recessed florescent fixtures, consider using the reflective diffusers which result in almost no shadows. I would stay away from the long tubes though. Their cost per foot is very expensive compared to 4' tubes and the ballasts they require are quite costly and prone to be short lived.
Adding some incandescent lights at specific work stations such as the drill press, grinder, and band saw should give you a satisfactory and inexpensive lighting system.
Jeff
Thanks - all good advice !
If you didn't see it, FW had an article on workshop lighting Feb 2002 pages 56-61.
Jeff
I'm in the process of designing my new shop as well, Rob, but I will definitely *not* use flourescent lighting. This type of lighting creates a strobe effect that can, at certain RPM's, make a rotating tool look stationary. As innefficient as they may be, I'm planning on using incandescant of one type of the other.
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Newer electronic ballasts cycle at about 20,000 hz verses 60 hz like the old magnetic ballasts. They don't hum or flicker. Well worth a couple extra bucks.
Bob
>> Newer electronic ballasts cycle at about 20,000 hz verses 60 hz like the old magnetic ballasts.
I should sit down and do the math before posting but - wouldn't there still be a possibility of something like a saw blade or tool bit that could approach that speed and thus be "stopped" by the strobe affect of the light?
Dennis in Bellevue WA
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Doesn't seem likely. First, there may not be any measurable flicker. The physical components of the circuit may simply be unable to respond fast enough to flicker. But even if the lights do flicker, there's also that extra factor of 60 between cycles per second (Hertz) and revolutions per minute. 20 KHz is 1.2 million flickers per minute. An 80 tooth saw blade at 3000 rpm is 240,000 teeth per minute, so the light would flicker about five times in the time the saw turns one tooth space. A two flute router bit at 20,000 rpm is 40,000 edges per minute, or thirty flickers per tooth space. No tool I can think of would even come close to matching the flicker frequency.
Edited 10/8/2002 1:17:34 PM ET by Uncle Dunc
Lessee .....
khz = cycles per *second*,....
RPM = revolutions per *minute*
Yeah, Dennis, your math sux. (hehehe)
OK, compact flourescents it is.
The color temperature seems to be much more natural as well.
Dennis in Bellevue WA
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Couple important aspects when choosing lighting are color temperature (warmth or coolness) and color rendering (the ability to accurately reproduce all the colors of the spectrum) .
Incandescent lights tend to have a warmer range of color temperature but the color rendering is pretty near perfect.
Flourescent lamps (by lamp I mean the actual bulb) have a whole range of color temperatures from warm like incandescent to cool like "daylight" but the color rendering can be pretty bad (why flourescents have such a bad rep). The main advantage of flourecent is efficiency and long life.
You can buy flourescent lamps that have a high color rendering (CR) rating but naturally it gets more expensive the closer you approach 100 (perfect). For instance in the graphic arts industry the price of lamps for a viewing booth (controlled lighting area for color matching) can run about $20 each. For the shop you can get a pretty good lamp for $5-$8 each.
Anyhow the all important CR number is sometimes on the lamp, usually you have to do a little research to find it. There are lighting supply sources on the web where you can compare all the relevant numbers and get an idea of what kind of compromise you might want to make. For reference the cheap lamps, the ones that make everything look sickly, have a CR in the low 60's.
One other issue with flourescent lamps is the size. Most fixtures use T12 lamps (the 12 stands for 12 eigths or 1-1/4 inch circumfrence). T8 lamps put out a little bit more light and take less energy (32 watts vs 40 watts for a 48" lamp). Unfortunately T8 fixtures are still kind of new and therefore more expensive that T12 fixtures.
What I did (since I came across 50 "adequate" T8 bulbs for about $7 for the lot) was buy cheap 4' fixtures and I replaced the ballasts with electronic T8 x 4 lamp ballasts and wired two fixtures together at a time.
Bob
Why are you so concerned about this? Do you think the "stopped" blade might fool you into thinking it really is stationary, whihc would be a safety hazard?
I don't think there's much concern here. The flourescent lightt are poor strobe lights; the on/off pulses aren't very sharp. So, the "stopped" blade will look pretty blurry, unlike the way it would look under a real Xenon strobe light.
This has not been a problem in my shop, with any type of tool. My fixtures have HO ballasts and bulbs, but I think they're still magnetic (they hum a little bit).
>> Do you think the "stopped" blade might fool you into thinking it really is stationary, which
>> would be a safety hazard?
I have seen exactly that risk cited in multiple places. Can't remember ever seeing a report of it actually happening, so you may be right. The risk may be more conjectural than real.
Edited 10/9/2002 3:33:41 PM ET by Uncle Dunc
It's not that I'm "concerned" about it; my present shop (the garage) has flou. lighting and thus far it hasn't been a real problem, no. But I've seen the effect of flou. lighting strobe effect when playing table tennis, of all things. The ball came back at me in a series of jerks (grin). Of course I was playing a pretty strong player at the time.
Actually if I'm not mistaken, any multiple of the on-off pulse of a strobing light sourve would cause the same effect.
Dennis in Bellevue WA
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