Lighting plan

[rosinante]

Hi all,
Mentally planning my new workshop when I move, it is essential a single garage which forms part of the ground floor of a 2 storey extension, it is about 21ft long by 13 ft wide Q, what amount of hf fluorescent lights should I fit?
It will be mainly used as a woodworking shop but occasionally for motors as well,
Thanks in advance for any helpful tips
Cheers
Chris

 

[Parm]

If your anything like me then as many as possible with additional task lighting over the main working area

 

[gordon stephenson]

Wait for better advice, but i believe people are using LED " fluorescent " tubes now,

 

[Burdekin]

These are what I have and supply quite a bit of light: http://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-t8-high-frequency-weatherproof-batten-2-x-58w-5-1565mm/60410

This is a section of the workshop and might help. It's nice and bright.

 

[rikrobson]

Plan out more lights than you think you need then add some more. There are always dark areas and light never where you need to see.

You could mut them on split circuits too. this means you can turn of 1/2 or 1/3 depending on how they are setup.

 

[Maker]

Wait for better advice, but i believe people are using LED " fluorescent " tubes now,

Be careful though, I've heard of cheaper led bulbs having a slight flicker/strobe effect which can make spinning chucks and blades appear still. Not a huge issue but something to consider.

 

[Parm]

Wait for better advice, but i believe people are using LED " fluorescent " tubes now,

Made by Dextra in the uk, was there last week, quite expensive though

 

[500e]

We have LED tubes\ fittings in our 2 big shops saved their cost in under 12 months compared with the sodium's we had, & better light. (They are on 12 \ 15 hours a day)
The first lot were SFix twin tubes units to replace wall lights over benches they proved so good we bit the bullet & bought 130 watt hi bays.
+ I think 35 x 5 ft tubes no problem in fitting to existing fittings,
You can do a deal with LED HUT if you are buying a No of units we also had some 30 watt & 10 watt flood lamps, one went wrong they changed it next day don't want the dud back

 

[cumbriasteve]

Same size as mine and I have 3 x 5ft x 60w fitted and seems good, although the walls and ceiling have been painted white...made a world of difference.

I also have a 20w led floodlight that I can move around if working on anything that gets shadowed, for example brake pads etc

 

[DAPPH]

Hi all,
Mentally planning my new workshop when I move, it is essential a single garage which forms part of the ground floor of a 2 storey extension, it is about 21ft long by 13 ft wide Q, what amount of hf fluorescent lights should I fit?
It will be mainly used as a woodworking shop but occasionally for motors as well,
Thanks in advance for any helpful tips
Cheers
Chris

Forget fluorescent strip lights , at a slightly increased price there are much better things available that don't suffer from the 50 cycle a second flicker plus they run much cooler which is useful in hot sticky weather like today . In winter the gentle radiated down back ground heat from the LED units allows me to happily be out in the garage @ minus 6 oC.

Garage has an insulated Kinspan steel foam steel Plastisol sheet roof & we've had a second skin of 3 inch blocks with a 3 inch un insulated gap added internally to not only keep out the damp of Wales on a mountain but to also act as a thermal barrier & to stop wind currents blowing in cold air. This year we've also put in one of the ( £ 800 ) electrically operated insulated aluminium roller shutters in place of the up & over door .. what an amazing improvement this has made for when you are inside and the roller is down .

Using the new LED strip light as a main area lighting...like me ...3 in a letter " H " up at the roof ..... They can be placed so you get a decent wash light on your left & right as you stand at the main work bench area .
Then run a 5 amp protected spur line with ten single switched sockets on it . Into these single sockets plug in 10 x 30 to 50 watt LED wash/floods.
So that each machine you use has one pair either side of you the operator , so they shine down onto the work area high up out of sight line and not from behind & above your head where they will create a shadow .
The reason for the run of ten single sockets is that all my sealed flods came with 300mm long flexes and are a real bind to easily extend to any longer , so I ended up wrapping a few strands of copper flex wire round each of these lamp wires and soldering them in place ..this allowed me to put a 13 amp plug with a 3 amp fuse on to each light unit .

Costs .
Almost two year ago ...
Three LED four five strip tubes direct replacements into old fluorescent fittings after grinding off a bit of a plastic lip on the fitting at each £ 48 for three ( eBay ) .

This year
10 x 30 LED flood lights £ 31 ( eBay ) , 10 single deep plastic pattresses & 10 single switched face plates £15 ( eBay ) .I already had half a roll of 1.5 lighting cable , box of 100 x 1.5 mm clips obtained locally £ 2 ish .

I'm so pleased with these LED lights I doubt I'll ever think in terms of incandescent or fluorescent lighting ever again .
One thing though above the lathe I have two white lights wash floods on theouter edges and one warm light at the middle area .. this has softened the light considerably and leaves me feeling less like a rabbit caught in the head light of the on comming car .
I also have one of those beauticians lights on an adjustable arm for declicate fine lathe work, it has ring fluorescent light set around a x 5 magnifying glass .
( when it dies I'll be putting in or modifying it to an LED a led lit one .)

To clean them every now & then , such as after hours of stick welding & angle grinding or powered wire brushing for a few days , all you need is to have then switched off & feeling cool , then using one of these new fangled micro fibre cloths , newly washed & well run out in a bucket of warm water that has a few drops of washing up liquid added to it gently wipe them clean ..
Don't under any circumstance use a dry cloth as it will pick up any abrasive particles and scratch the glass on the floods or the scratch high clarity outer covers on the LED strips .

I decided to put three of the 30 watt led wash floods at my lathe . One a foot to the left of the chuck at six foot six high and just about in line with my left ear whilst I'm stood at the lathe so it shines down onto the chuck jaw area , one at the other end of the lathe so it shines to about half way along the bed as that's where a lot of work/ adjustment takes place and one directly above the average place where the tailstock work end is so the whole job is fantastically lit with shadow-less light that doesn't flicker in any of the harmonics of a 50 Hz supply

 

[macandmoss]

my friend who is a sparky just put some of the led floodlights up and they are surprisingly bright , he got them off a Chinese site for about £15 , took about three weeks to come and wasn't sure if they would be rubbish but they are really bright and cost next to nothing to run ,told him to order me a couple