Iwill be building a new workshop , 18’x38′. It will be chain link fenced in a large warehouse, with complete steel deck above at a 10′ height. The deck above will serve to store trade show displays and their shipping containers. My question concerns lighting the work area. The warehouse has terrible lighting and I require a brite work area, any good ideas?
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Replies
I got a 24 x 30 shop with 16 (2 bulb)4 ft flor and its not enough light
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Haga su trabajo de fricken
GFW
lite is a tiny portion of what you should do.. better to have white paint on walls and ceilings and hopefully floor because then your lighting requiremnts dramatically decrease plus it's easier on your eyes and less heat is generated..
FWW had an article a couple of years ago.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
My old shop had a bunch of salvaged 3-tube fixtures (yep, the ones with starters) that I filled with F40D tubes (daylight, not cool white or warm white). Light was really good, and I had some incandescents as well to eliminate strobing. Saw a film once that showed a table saw blade that appeared stationary until a board was fed into it, at which point it was obvious that the blade was turning.
Never noticed the stobe effect myself, but I figured better safe than sorry.
Daylight bulbs are expensive as hell, but worth it, IMHO.
Three tubes per 100 sq. ft. of floor space. Works great!! Get the new Electronic Ballasts as they will light the tubes in cold weather and have almost no hum.
Bill
Bill, play it safe and go with 5 per 100 sq ft. I have a 22 by 50 and have 18 8ft t8 2 bulb fixtures. plenty a light. As long as you can add more, don't worry about it.
-Lou
Lou,
Wow! That's a lot of light. What is your ceiling height?
I have a 9' ceiling with 20, 4-tube fixtures in a 30'x40' area. I wired them so I can turn on sections of 2 fixtures per switch and a center string of 6 fixtures.
You might keep your eyes pealed at the local Lowe's store. Two weeks ago, I saw the 8ft tubes on clearance and marked down to less than $1 each.
Bill
lotta light, 13 ft ceiling. I like alot of light. they are on 4 switches
-Lou
I think I will ultimately go with the choice of many of you, and stick with the 8' florescent fixtures for most of the shop area, but I will try a halogen fixture over the table saw just to see the difference it provides. I had planned to paint the bottom of the steel storage deck white to bounce light off of, and I will probably epoxy coat the shop floor white as well. The general work area is neither heated or cooled, but during our coldest days it may get into the lower 20's in the warehouse. Is that cold enough to need to upgrade the ballast?
yes on the up grade...Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Thanks, figured that would be the answer.
use halogen wide beam lights in task areas to supplement flouresecent.
i use 2 90w for the large tablesaw and outfeed areas. closest thing to daylight.
Expert since 10 am.
lite is a tiny portion of what you should do..
What Frenchy said. My outside heated shed is 24x24, has 28 ea 4 ft tubes, still not enough by itself.
THEN, I pickup every free old mirror I see at garage sales, and either glue or attach them with rails to the ceiling between the lights - nice and bright.
.. even have a workbench that has mirrors on the bottom of the benchtop, big help in finding stuff stored under the bench.
I thank everyone for their responses, I have had florescent lighting in other work areas and was never satisfied with the candlepower they provided. I was leaning more to the halogen for the individual task areas, table saw, router, planner, jointer and assembly table/workbench areas, but I have no past experience with this type of lighting. I hate to expend this money and end up not satisfied with the final result and still needing more. What has been your experience with this form of lighting? Does it have any disadvantages? Also, please expand on the strobing effect, as this is an area new to me. What do I need to look out for, or do to avoid this situation?
Halogen is extremely inefficient. The result is lots of heat. If you can deal with that, it does produce a strong light.George Patterson
I am siuated in South Texas, in a 384,000 sq. ft. warehouse with only roof vents for cooling. I have large fans to circulate the air which provides some relief. I doubt that I would notice any heat from the lighting. Most all of my work benches, tables and work stations are topped with a white rigid pvc material, which helps reflect the light. It also has the advantage of making every surface a dry erase board, never a shortage for somewhere to jot a note or dimension down.
So. Buy one and try it. If you like it, buy some more. As was said, the light quality is great.George Patterson
If you get generic cool white/warm white blubs the CRI is low.If you tubs with rare earth phosphorus (SPX series or better) you get CRI's of about 80. And the eye responds much better to those. They are much bright to the human than the low CRI bulbs although the lumems are the same..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
I have exactly what BilljustBill has. (Post #6)
It's perfect. They are 8-footers, btw.
Edited 9/13/2007 10:46 pm by splintergroupie
There are two basic methods. You can put in lots of lamps in the main lighting system, or you can put in minimal to adequate lamps there and supplement that with task lighting at the various work stations. I opted for the latter method in my shop.
My shop is 22x15. I installed two of the Simkar 8' double fluorescent fixtures right down the middle and added a Simkar 4' work light over each bench or major tool. The Simkar units are readily available and have industrial ballasts (which means they will work at low temperatures). There are probably more efficient units available.
In your case, I would probably use two rows of three 8' fixtures for the main lighting, though you might be able to get by with one row if you paint everything white.
Hi GFW!
With 10' ceilings like yours I would suggest 4' long T8 fluos. with programmed start electronic ballasts. The elec. ballasts operate at 20 KHZ compared to the 60 HZ of magnetic ballasts. This means that stroboscopic flicker will not be an issue compared to conventional fluos. The programmed start ballasts give the longest life expectancy to the bulbs (compared to instant start as an eg.) and the best lumen maintenance, (the amount of light output stays more consistent over the entire life of the bulb).
The present fixture I have over my own workbench is 8' long (2 end-to-end 4' fixtures with (4) T8 bulbs in each) & the light output is awesome!
The bulbs I use are Philips TL80 with 4100K colour temperature specs. I find the colour produced by these bulbs to be better for me than the 5100k type. The electronic ballasts also produce extremely little noise if your shop happens to be quiet & you find the hum of regular fluos. to be annoying, (as I do).
The problem I seem to have with my incandescent type of lights (such as Quartz Halogens) is the point source nature of the light. Since the fluorescent tube produces light over such a large surface area it cuts down on the shadows you can find on point source lamps. Their light intensity is also not quite so bright as a Halogen, for example which also cuts down on glare, this doesn't mean the shop will be darker since the halogen brightness falls off rapidly as you get off-axis from the bulb, where the light from the fluo. fixture will be more even and spread out over a much wider area. I also favour the use of task lighting right over selected work areas or machines. I do also use clamp-type single bulb lights but substitute compact fluorescent bulbs for the regular incandescent bulbs.
The fixture is important since directing the light down to where you need it is accomplished by the design of the reflector. As a few have pointed out, the colour of your walls & ceiling can also have a profound effect on light levels. White is a better choice of colour than a highly reflective surface IMHO since glare is reduced.
If the shop might be subjected to cool temperatures, you can look for ballasts that will start reliably at below freezing temperatures.
Wishing you a Bright future,
Regards,
STAINLESS
Thanks stainless for the clue on the programmed start ballasts. I will have to look into the 4100k lamps and compare them with what ever it is we stock. Are these in the cooler range? I think my existing stock is the warm range. Most of these are used in the offices and breakrooms. Most of our shop lights are mercury vapor lamps hung 20' up from the floor, and every 30" or so between them. Not great work light.
GFW, sorry about the delayed response...been far too busy for my own good.
Yes the 4100K lamps are a yellower light than the hotter bulbs but not by much. (They are considerably less expensive, also.)
If you have high-bay Mercury Vapor fixtures you might want to see if it would be possible for a switch of those to Pulse Start Metal Halides. The metal halides will give you much improved colour rendition when compared with mercury vapor lamps.
Although I have run across the odd supplier of electronic Metal Halide ballasts most are magnetic types due to the much higher wattages you usually run across (400 Watt is a very common size for many HID lamps, 1000 watt bulbs are not uncommon.) The newest Pulse Start fixtures are claiming CRIs (colour rendition index) similar to the best T8s with the improved phosphors as well as reduced start & restrike times compared with conventional HID lamps. (The real weakness with HID lamps when compared to fluors. IMHO) I often need my lighting NOW, not 5 min. from NOW.
(Reminds me of the joke about the impatient person praying for more patience..."Please God, grant me more patience, and send it to me RIGHT NOW!)
Lumen maintenance is also supposed to be improved as is overall efficiency (lumens per watt) on these pulse start Metal Halides.
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
Thank you, I doubt that the company is going to retrofit the upper lighting, just tell me get what I need. I have resigned myself to starting with a bunch of fluorescent lights, placed over each work station and the assembly area, and then see what else I need after working with that for a little while. I do wish to thank all of you for your time in responding to my question. I can already see where joining this forum is going to turn out to be a blessing.
I have the 8' high outputs in my shop. four of them in a 24 x 18 space with 13' ceilings and tons of glass. they light that thing up like a ball field and fire in the cold. for every day use I have CFLs on motion detectors that light up as soon as I open the door and stay on for 12 minutes so I can run in with my hands full and not have to search for a switch or burn out my night vision when I'm just running through with the recycling or to get a screwdriver.
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Thanks for the response. My shop are is going to be not much bigger than yours, with a 3' lower ceiling height. I only have one window, but the walls will be white as well as the epoxy coating on the floor. This should help spread the lighting quite well. Things are not progressing fast enough for me. Just having to make do for now.