Shop Lighting

[Doug Krebs]

This weekend I intend to make the area where I'm going to be building lit up very well. I'm planning on just using the cheap fleourecesent hanging fixtures. I've also heard that you can use the thinner bulb's in them like the one's office building's use and they are cheaper and last longer? Anyone know anything about these?

[aggielr]

can't help ya much on those, but ya might want to look here or here

[eight]

Those florencents aren't enough for working. Good for general lighting but get some quarts lights from walmart for about $8 each and hang em over the work area. That's how my shop is set up. We tried the florencents first.

[Cajun]

I've got the cheap Lowe's shop lights in mine, they're great. Of course, I've got 15 of them...

[robertf03]

I've got 4 flourescent lights in my garage and then a regular shop light with 2 of those halogen replacement lightbulb deals. would be really bright in there but the walls and ceiling are seafoam green. paint it a light color and you'll be good.

[Mack84]

yeah those quarts lights are like 500 or 1000 watts thats alot of power. plus when they shine on your they make you hot. i would go with the flourescent lights

[BlueYJ]

When it comes to lighting it is all about lumens! Regardless of the source type you are concerned with overall lumen output. A 40W 48" fluorescent tube is good for 2800-3400 (depending on what one you select. Halogens are 13 lumens per watt so a 500W halogen and a twin tube (40W bulbs) 48" fixture offer the same light output (lumens).

I have 3 twin bulb fixtures in a 22' x 18' garage and it is pretty good, one more fixture would be nearly perfect. That said - your goal should be roughly 65 (minimum) lumens per square foot.

Hope that helps!

Tom

[redcagepatrol]

we put up tons of florencents at our shop - the cheap Home Depot kind - like $8 each I think.

One thing that we had a problem with was them lighting in cold weather. we had to change many of them to different bulbs so they would "strike" in cold weather

What I am trying to say is that the really cheap stuff just doesn't always work right - we had some bad fixtures right out of the box, and the cheap bulbs didn't work in cold weather...

[Doug Krebs]

Just so happens that sears has the cheap flouresecent lights on sale for 6 bucks and a dollar a bulb. I'm think I'm just going to get 10-15 of them.

The best and also most expensive is to get the new T-8 bulbs and fixtures. They are brighter and more efficient compared to the old T-12 bulbs. They are also instant on and work in cold weather. The T-12 one's take ~ 2 seconds and sometimes won't start in cold weather. The cheapest I could get the T-8 was in a fixture that held 4 bulbs, but it was 40 bucks.

[Doug Krebs]

Hung 6 lights in the area where I'm goign to build the buggy. Still have 6 more lights to hang and 3 that are already there that I'm going to reposition.

[uglyota]

function is beauty...

Hey, can we play "make-believe OSHA" with your pictures? It'll be fun!

[Doug Krebs]

more lights YEAH!!!!!!!!



and what is so un OSHA unhappy? the fact that i set the ladder ontop of the brushog praying to god the hydraulics don't leak when i hung the second set of lights??

[mark]

Holy fire-hazard Batman!

[eight]

Those lights hardly pull any electricity, that many is no problem even with 14ga wire. Its less than 600 watts. Thats about what a good 3/8" drill pulls.

[mark]

It not the load. The wiring just seems to have a bit of a "neatness" problem.