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Shop Lighting

Subzer008

Red Skull Member
Joined
May 22, 2020
Member Number
1192
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61
Loc
NY
Trying to figure out what kind of lighting to run in a 40x48 shop. 14’ tall walls with a current exposed truss system. Plan is to eventually do a white steel ceiling on the bottom of the truss but will be this way for a little while will the funds recoup.

What’s everyone running? I’m not the biggest fan of the big hanging lights but if that’s the cats ass then maybe I need to reassess them.
 

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No matter what you do it'll cost you a few hundred bucks.

I'd do 4ft twin tube LEDs on literally every one of those trusses, 4-6ft spacing. I bet if you shop around you can find someone selling them for $20ea in bulk.
 
Just find the 4500-5500 lumen 48" shop lights that are everywhere. Treat them as disposable and just hang a shit ton of them. I've got 7 in my small two car garage, can't even tell when the sun goes down and have yet to lose one...but if I ever do, I'm just swapping it out for whatever the latest version is. I added the 7th one (had just 6 before) and it doesn't match but even with my OCD (I'm pretty particular about shit matching) it doesn't bother me at all.
 
No matter what you do it'll cost you a few hundred bucks.

I'd do 4ft twin tube LEDs on literally every one of those trusses, 4-6ft spacing. I bet if you shop around you can find someone selling them for $20ea in bulk.

I like the LEDs , but I don’t think you need that many. My shop is 40 by 60 and I have 4 double tube 8’ lights. It is lit up fine for walking around and finding stuff. If your working on something, you will bring in a close light anyways.
 
I like the LEDs , but I don’t think you need that many. My shop is 40 by 60 and I have 4 double tube 8’ lights. It is lit up fine for walking around and finding stuff. If your working on something, you will bring in a close light anyways.
Disagree...I'm around 75 lumens per square foot and it feels just about right, though I have one slightly darker spot I've considered adding another light to get me up to around 100 lumens per square foot on average.

Task lighting is kinda useful but it's nice to be able to do 95% of what you want to do without having to grab extra light and position it and work in shadows and shit.
 
Go to your local electrical supply house and you want high ceilings LED shop lights mine were 27,000 lumens a piece and cost 150-200 a piece with 6 of them my shop was brighter than daylight it was amazing .
 
if youre lazy like me and dont want deal with wiring up 20 different lights you just get these and plug them into each other, about 4ft apart and work great

bonus is you can turn one off but the others linked behind will stay on
 
I had a 4000 sq ft shop 16ft eves and I ran 14 of these. and only had 14 because of the office I didn't need any lights over that area in it. With that many I had dimmers and I only ran them at about 60% power and it was plenty of light. My new 2400 sq ft shop I am going to have 8 of them and I know it will be more light than I will need. Not that cheap but work awesome.

 
I like the LEDs , but I don’t think you need that many. My shop is 40 by 60 and I have 4 double tube 8’ lights. It is lit up fine for walking around and finding stuff. If your working on something, you will bring in a close light anyways.
Need vs want. I have slightly less than that much light/sqft in my basement machine shop with an 8ft ceiling. It's great. I could make do with far, far less but it was well worth it.

Disagree...I'm around 75 lumens per square foot and it feels just about right, though I have one slightly darker spot I've considered adding another light to get me up to around 100 lumens per square foot on average.

Task lighting is kinda useful but it's nice to be able to do 95% of what you want to do without having to grab extra light and position it and work in shadows and shit.
For task lighting you gotta go to the thrift store and get some old clip on desk lamps. They're rated for 60w, which is about how much a "250w equivilent" outdoor flood draws and they use a through bolt to mount to the clamp so you just ditch the clamp and bolt them where you want them.
 
Need vs want. I have slightly less than that much light/sqft in my basement machine shop with an 8ft ceiling. It's great. I could make do with far, far less but it was well worth it.


For task lighting you gotta go to the thrift store and get some old clip on desk lamps. They're rated for 60w, which is about how much a "250w equivilent" outdoor flood draws and they use a through bolt to mount to the clamp so you just ditch the clamp and bolt them where you want them.

I agree with all this. My point was if he didn’t want the cost or hassle of wiring a bunch in. I don’t care about the cost so much as the PITA of wiring. (I put all my wiring in metal conduit) It just seems like a shop is a never ending project. You need lights and recepticals and plumbing and metal racks and shelving and and and…
 
I agree with all this. My point was if he didn’t want the cost or hassle of wiring a bunch in. I don’t care about the cost so much as the PITA of wiring. (I put all my wiring in metal conduit) It just seems like a shop is a never ending project. You need lights and recepticals and plumbing and metal racks and shelving and and and…
That's the great thing about the 4ft LED shop lights. You run one wire down one wall with a junction box with an outlet at the end of each truss. The lights plug in and daisy chain to each other. Stupid easy to just leave a couple trusses bare and add more as needed or stretch/condense the space between lights.
 
This thread has the best info I have found on the cheapest QAULITY light fixtures, with replaceable lamps so in a few years when they start flickering or burning out you can re-lamp them and not have to buy all new, different mounting/wiring options than the previous version.

This is a layout tool to design your workspace and get foot candle measures based on your layout.

Layout tool Visual Interior Tool
 
i bought these last year for my brothers garage and they seemed to work well. the mounting on them is pretty cheap and the clips bend really easy but for the price they are not bad. they seem to be pretty similar to the ones louis winthrope posted. probably made in the same china factory just different brand names.

 
i bought these last year for my brothers garage and they seemed to work well. the mounting on them is pretty cheap and the clips bend really easy but for the price they are not bad. they seem to be pretty similar to the ones louis winthrope posted. probably made in the same china factory just different brand names.

Buddy has the 8' version of these in his garage and is very happy with them.
 
I bought a set of those 8's and ended up having enough to do my workshop and attached garage as 10 in the workshop was too bright haha! Looking at buying some more for the rest of the shop - would definitely recommend as they work in all temps and any time I flip the switch.
 
I'm planning on redoing mine with 8' single "bulb" integrated fixtures. I just keep forgetting to measure so I can figure out how many to order.


I can get T8 and T5 retrofit bulbs dirt cheap from my utility company because they forced the second meter on my shop to be a business account. Like $2/each cheap but after buying fixtures to house them and then the extra wiring, the integrated ones are cheaper. And being able to daisy chain the power to them they'll go up a hell of a lot faster too.

Question for those that have done them - would you use the short plug to but them right up to each other or space them a couple feet apart?
 
I spaced all of mine apart with the ~4' wires included. No light loss or dark spots, so I don't think butting them together is necessary.
 
I spaced all of mine apart with the ~4' wires included. No light loss or dark spots, so I don't think butting them together is necessary.
Exactly, They are really bright and I did not see the need to have them that close to each other.
 
Well pulled the trigger on these. I’ll follow up with a review/update when they get here. Ordered the 8’ 10 pack, curious how much they’ll throw out.
Hey, Because you have the trusses exposed don't bother with the clips at first just zip them up and make sure you know where you really want to mount them. Then it's super fast to throw up and not bother with the somewhat crappy clips they come with. I moved mine around a little to get them where I wanted with a car and the lift and such... Then when happy mount them nicely.
 
I just put 6 of the 8' barrina leds from amazon in my shop. 28 x 48 with 10' ceilings. It's plenty of light but I may go back and add another light to fill in for the lights that are blocked when I open the garage doors.
 
I just put 6 of the 8' barrina leds from amazon in my shop. 28 x 48 with 10' ceilings. It's plenty of light but I may go back and add another light to fill in for the lights that are blocked when I open the garage doors.
I'm planning on putting a light on the side rails of my doors or possibly even on the door itself with a coiled cord that will stretch when the door is open. I figure one light mounted at the top of the door would still give good coverage when the door is open. Bonus points if I can make a simple swivel mount that points it somewhat down when the door is closed and straight down when open.
 
I have the my main shop area (60x40) lit with 10 of these. 20k Lumens. Mounted 15' from floor. Eaves are 16'. My RV bay (60x20) has 8 cheap single row LED's from Amazon. There is no comparison.

cityelectricsupply.com/tamlite-lighting-ibled44-200d2l850-mf-4ft-ibled-4brd-20000lm-5000k
 
I have the my main shop area (60x40) lit with 10 of these. 20k Lumens. Mounted 15' from floor. Eaves are 16'. My RV bay (60x20) has 8 cheap single row LED's from Amazon. There is no comparison.

cityelectricsupply.com/tamlite-lighting-ibled44-200d2l850-mf-4ft-ibled-4brd-20000lm-5000k
Those are intriguing as the area I'm slowly turning into my larger shop is around that size. What's the ballpark price on these?
 
We put up a pile of these at work last year, and they are BRIGHT, 30,000 lumens each: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GGT68JL/
They have a 1/2" NPT connection that the hook screws into and the center of the hook threaded piece is hollow so you can put a piece of threaded rod through it if you want.
We have them in a single row about 25' up and about 20' apart in a 20' wide hallway and they light it really well.

Aaron Z
 
Those are intriguing as the area I'm slowly turning into my larger shop is around that size. What's the ballpark price on these?
I think list on them is about $190 each but my local supplier gave me a slight discount since i bought 10 of them. They aren't cheap but are well worth it in my opinion...
 
Those are intriguing as the area I'm slowly turning into my larger shop is around that size. What's the ballpark price on these?
lights.jpg

I did 6 over my main work area on the right and 4 on the left hand side. You can see the difference when you look through the doorway into my RV bay which has 8 single row LED's from Amazon.
 

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I have the my main shop area (60x40) lit with 10 of these. 20k Lumens. Mounted 15' from floor. Eaves are 16'. My RV bay (60x20) has 8 cheap single row LED's from Amazon. There is no comparison.

cityelectricsupply.com/tamlite-lighting-ibled44-200d2l850-mf-4ft-ibled-4brd-20000lm-5000k
These have to be real similar to mine I also got mine at city electric and they were absolutely amazing . I had a lot of people come over that were in construction I’m friends with and a couple of them were electricians and they bought them for their own shop and priced them to people after that . After seeing his pictures they’re not the same at all I wish I still had a link .
 
These have to be real similar to mine I also got mine at city electric and they were absolutely amazing . I had a lot of people come over that were in construction I’m friends with and a couple of them were electricians and they bought them for their own shop and priced them to people after that . After seeing his pictures they’re not the same at all I wish I still had a link .
I can't remember if those are "exactly" the same ones as mine or not. They came from City Electric, were 20k Lumens, and were Tamlite.
 
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