My Lighting Layout is Asymmetric

[Rusty Bolt]

I'd like some feedback and suggestions on my lighting layout in for my main shop area. The "best fixture" and "layout collection" threads and that have helped a lot.

I've been using DIALux and was targeting 100 FC over the area. I think what I have is passable but my layout seems a little too bright, over 130 FC in some places, and I don't see a straightforward way to reduce the overall illumination while keeping the illumination fairly uniform unless I use dimmers or maybe different fixtures?. I'd rather buy something like the James Industry High Bay fixtures than spend a lot of time putting together Frankenfixtures unless I can save big bucks.

I used bigger fixtures (5 - James 225W High Bay) in the corners to brighten the corners and 9 - James 110W High Bay fixtures elsewhere.

The building is currently under construction (stick built) but the walls and ceiling will be drywall and painted white. The floor will be light gray. The ceiling is flat at 14'. The room will fit into a 42'x45' rectangle. It's an awkward shape see below and see pictures.

The primary use of the room will be woodworking and metal machining.

I'll be hanging the lights, so there is at least a 50% chance I could get them where the layout says by the 3rd or 4th try. The asymmetry probably comes from my space not being symmetric.

The room corner coordinates (counter clockwise from lower right) in DIALux are:
42, 0
42, 45
14, 45
14, 28
0, 28
0, 20.5
10, 20.5
10, 0

 

[Lelandwelds]

How did you end up with such an oddly shaped new building? Tying existing and new construction together can make some strange results but all new construction? I am really curious about the why behind this.

Why so few fixtures? I would have expected twice the fixture count of much lower wattage. Again, just curious.

 

[Rusty Bolt]

The shape is the main work area. The notch in the upper left is a separate weightlifting room, the notch at the bottom left is a bathroom, utility closet, and to avoid a driveway.
The actual building is 42x45 with an 8x10 notch to avoid the driveway.

The only fixtures that I found in the best fixtures sticky that weren't cobbling together fluorescent fixtures with retrofit LED tubes were the James High Bays and similar (identical?) lights. The smallest of those is the 110W. If you have a suggestion for a smaller fixture of similar quality, I'd like to hear it.

 

[Lelandwelds]

The shape is the main work area. The notch in the upper left is a separate weightlifting room, the notch at the bottom left is a bathroom, utility closet, and to avoid a driveway.
The actual building is 42x45 with an 8x10 notch to avoid the driveway.

The only fixtures that I found in the best fixtures sticky that weren't cobbling together fluorescent fixtures with retrofit LED tubes were the James High Bays and similar (identical?) lights. The smallest of those is the 110W. If you have a suggestion for a smaller fixture of similar quality, I'd like to hear it.

I swear I have seen a 90 watt James fixture. I almost expected to see three rows of six 90 watt fixtures and one or two in your little finger room.

Not a critique. I am a lighting newbie. I can't work the modeling software and have never installed LED lighting. I am just saying I have noticed some similarities between the different installs.

I guess your doors are on the little end?

 

[Rusty Bolt]

This is the first real lighting plan that I've ever done. All I know is what I saw on garagejournal.com. It doesn't help the planning that lighting is changing and improving so rapidly, though it does mean I can get more for less.

AFAICT, the James fixtures are listed with a couple of different wattages depending on which piece of marketing literature you look at. The part number might say 110W, but the marketing literature often have values between, say, 90W and 100W. I think it's the same, 110W nominal, fixture but I'm not sure. Maybe different versions or different measurement techniques or they're just using SWAGs.

I originally did the layout with similar Aleo fixtures but I couldn't find them for sale online. I chose Aleo because they had all of the fixtures in one IEC file. The James fixtures are a little brighter, according to their IEC files.

The 110W fixture also seems to have only a clear diffuser - if I'm ready the part number correctly. Platonic Solid recommends a frosted diffuser, so that's a negative for the 110W.

DIALux is a useful program but it's a minor PITA to use. It takes a lot of clicks to get anything done, and it often just doesn't behave the way I'd expect a program to. But at least the price is right

The main garage door is at the bottom and the man door is to the left of that and at right angles to it, if that makes any sense.

 

[Platonic Solid]

Oh my, those 30,000 lumen fixtures have got to go.

 

[Rusty Bolt]

Oh my, those 30,000 lumen fixtures have got to go.

Do you have suggestions on a better fixture choice?

 

[Lelandwelds]

. . . lighting is changing and improving so rapidly

AFAICT, the James fixtures are listed with a couple of different wattages depending on which piece of marketing literature you look at. The part number might say 110W, but the marketing literature often have values between, say, 90W and 100W. I think it's the same, 110W nominal, fixture but I'm not sure. Maybe different versions or different measurement techniques or they're just using SWAGs.

I originally did the layout with similar Aleo fixtures but I couldn't find them for sale online. I chose Aleo because they had all of the fixtures in one IEC file. The James fixtures are a little brighter, according to their IEC files.

The 110W fixture also seems to have only a clear diffuser - if I'm ready the part number correctly. Platonic Solid recommends a frosted diffuser, so that's a negative for the 110W.

That is the nature of Chinese manufacturing. A former employer had products that under went four major revisions. All used the identical part number and packaging. Some shipments used radically different packaging and left off all part numbers for all items.
( try accurately counting that.) Then they went back to original packaging for some of it for the next shipment. Sometimes all the items they couldn't neatly divide into standard package counts were boxed all in one box mixed together. Sometimes every item type would be randomly divided between the three 40 ft container shipment. Sometimes the order actually contained items scheduled to ship in the planned order due to ship in three and six months. (They mfg and shipped entire production run and paperwork and planning be damned.) Sometimes nothing matches nothing.

When ready, you need to pick up the phone and hope you get someone competent.

I have been told that this weird cling wrap makes an excellent diffuser.

 

[Platonic Solid]

Do you have suggestions on a better fixture choice?

See this post:

Qty.16 GreenTek GT-H2-110W 16,400 Lumen sold by greenlightdepot for $85 (link) = $1360.
It does not have surface mounting brackets available, but does come with “V” hooks and chains.

GreenTek is a relabeled James ZY-H2-110W fixture also sold by ledlightingwholesaleinc for $95 (link)

Dialux PDF Report (link)

Avg yield @ 30” workplane = 101fc
Total Lumen output: 262,528 lm
Total Wattage: 1760W (14.67 Amps @ 120VAC)

images linked to larger pics


​

 

[Rusty Bolt]

Platonic Solid -

I actually had looked at that layout before, it's what got me started.

So, I redid the layout using only the James 110W High Bays. That's 17 of the ZY-H2-110W. The arrangement is a lot more regular now, though that little area on the middle left is a PITA. I might have most of the fixtures closer to the walls than would be ideal.



The isolines and false color are still OK, I think, except for that little area is still dark. Maybe I need a completely different lighting strategy for that small area? Maybe mirrors on the ceiling, like in the bedroom? since that area "can only see" the 2 fixtures in the area, it doesn't get much help from the rest of the fixtures.

Most of the main area is 100-110 FC, which I can live with. The little area on the left is 60FC to 100 FC; that might be too much lighting variation over a small distance.

 

[Banucopaf]

seems the uniformity of 0.65 is already quite satisfactory

 

[Lelandwelds]

Platonic Solid -

I actually had looked at that layout before, it's what got me started.

So, I redid the layout using only the James 110W High Bays. That's 17 of the ZY-H2-110W. The arrangement is a lot more regular now, though that little area on the middle left is a PITA. I might have most of the fixtures closer to the walls than would be ideal.



The isolines and false color are still OK, I think, except for that little area is still dark. Maybe I need a completely different lighting strategy for that small area? Maybe mirrors on the ceiling, like in the bedroom? since that area "can only see" the 2 fixtures in the area, it doesn't get much help from the rest of the fixtures.

Most of the main area is 100-110 FC, which I can live with. The little area on the left is 60FC to 100 FC; that might be too much lighting variation over a small distance.

That's pretty even for such a quirky shape, isn't it? That's far brighter than any place I have ever worked in.

I can't wait for the after photos.

 

[Rusty Bolt]

That's pretty even for such a quirky shape, isn't it? That's far brighter than any place I have ever worked in.

I can't wait for the after photos.

I can't wait for it to get done either!

And I hope I can get it done before materials finish going through the roof. Construction costs here have gone up around 50% in 2 years according to my contractor. We had to sheath my shop in 1/2 inch OSB because we couldn't get 3/8. That's better construction but more expense. I tried to get this thing started last June. Didn't get the dirt work started till November because I couldn't find anyone to do the work.

They'll start framing the interior walls that make the cutout in the lower left corner of my floorplan today. I might adjust the size of the room that makes the cutout in the upper left, or even move it, once I see the physical structure. I'm going to build that room (it's not on the approved plans but they usually don't care a lot about non-structural walls around here)

BTW, I'm getting serious about fixture shopping so I was looking at the James Industries High Bay data sheet again and there is an 80W version of the H2 (1'x2') format 10,400 lm. There are also 2 versions of the 110W fixture. The H2 and H3 (1'x4') both 14,300 lm. I might experiment with those in my layout. It gets confusing with so many similar and rebranded fixtures. Ref for those old and geeky enough: "you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different"

 

[Platonic Solid]

Somethings just not right with your layout. If I make a basic 30x45x14 room and place a 3x4 pattern of 12 16400 lumen linear LED high bays in there, I get 107fc at 30" workplane. You need to change LLF to 90. Max/Min ratio of 3.0 or less is acceptable.

 

[Rusty Bolt]

Somethings just not right with your layout. If I make a basic 30x45x14 room and place a 3x4 pattern of 12 16400 lumen linear LED high bays in there, I get 107fc at 30" workplane. You need to change LLF to 90. Max/Min ratio of 3.0 or less is acceptable.

The LLF was set to 90 based on one of your old posts.

Thank you for your skepticism.

I took your base case and morphed it, step by step into a new plan. I ended up in a different, better place. What I did originally was to start with one row of lights, then add 1 light at a time. That the plans come out differently seems to be a demonstration of the risk of getting stuck at a local maximum.

I originally tried to start with a wizard-generated array in Dialux but that generates a "luminaire arrangement" and I couldn't figure out how to break it into individual pictures. I recently figured out how to do that.

In case anyone is interested, here is the step-by-step approach starting with the base case of a 30x45x14 and a 3x4 grid of 110W 1x2 James Linear High Bay from James Industries.



But my room is a little bigger, so adjust the dimensions to 32x45x14 and generate a new 3x4 grid.



With the same number of lumens spread over a larger area, I'd expect overall the plan is a little darker than the base case: the corners are darker, the edges aren't as well lit, and bright center is much smaller: compare the 111 FC area in the center. But it's probably not worth adding another row of fixtures.

My room is also not a rectangle, so lets take out the gym's incursion into the upper left corner.



That puts the fixture in the upper left corner almost in the wall, so adjust that row of fixtures.



That doesn't lead to a big change, though the upper left and right corners are getting a little dimmer.

OK, now add that little key area on the left.



That key area looks kind of dark, It seems to take 2 fixtures to brighten it up, viz.:



OK, I think that's acceptable. Compared to the plan that I came up with on my own, the new plan

• uses 14 110W fixtures instead of 17
• saves about $330
• average illumination is 101 FC versus 110 FC
• minimum illumination is 44 FC versus 61 FC
• maximum illumination is 143 FC versus 131. This is due to the bright spot outside the "key". One 165W fixture there instead of 2 110W fixtures or adjusting the position of the fixtures in that area would help

Using a couple of 80W James Linear High Bay fixtures instead of 110W fixtures in the key area might help too but the ies file James has says it's a 110W fixture inside.

 

[Platonic Solid]

What version of Dialux are you using? In Dialux Evo 7.1 64-bit you can adjust the lumen output of any fixture to emulate a lower or higher output similar beam spread fixture. What will you be using that 7'x10' area on the left for?

 

[Rusty Bolt]

What version of Dialux are you using? In Dialux Evo 7.1 64-bit you can adjust the lumen output of any fixture to emulate a lower or higher output similar beam spread fixture. What will you be using that 7'x10' area on the left for?

Thanks for all of your feedback

I'm using Dialux 4.3. Adjusting the output of a fixture in the program sounds a lot easier than editing the ies file! (I did spend a few minutes looking at that). I did have to edit one of them to fix the name in the file so that it matched the other files. I'll upgrade to Evo 7.1 and play around some more.

I don't know what I'll do with that small area. It takes at least 2 - 110W fixtures to light the area because that area can't "see" many fixtures in the rest of the room. That seems excessive (~$220 to light 70 square feet) and makes a bright spot at the entry to that area. I'll update to 7.1 and see how 80W fixtures work. If I could find some ies files for smaller fixtures - like non-high bay, just regular LED panels, I'd try those out too. I want to start doing the electrical work in a week or two, I'll need to know where to put the boxes by then.

I've made a late plan change that makes modeling the lighting even harder. I had the carpenters frame a platform that cantilevers out 3'6" from the bath and utility rooms (the cutout at the bottom left). Essentially, it's a partial mezzanine level that increases my storage and will (with the addition of a stairway) make access to the storage area in the attic easier. That's going to make some shadows, so I might (a) adjust a few fixture's positions and (b) add some lighting under the platform. I'll probably want some rudimentary lighting on top of the platform too.

I'm starting to think that that the best thing to do will be to go with the plan I have now (modulo some playing around with 80W fixtures) and see how it works in real life then make adjustments as needed.

Playing with Dialux has been educational. I was really surprised by how much the fixtures in the room interact. My intuition was that each fixture would primarily light something like a 12 foot circle directly underneath it. What actually happens is that the nearby fixtures add almost as much light to the area below a fixture as the fixture directly above it does. I think that's a good thing - fewer shadows.