Looks like April Wilkerson is in for a huge disappointment with her lighting choice. I hope she got those fixtures as part of the sponsorship deal. She states the same 13,000 lumen rhetoric that is on the Bigass website. So that’s 13,000 lumens for $400 which is a pathetic 32 lm/$.
Once you go to their website and click the “Garage Light Spec Sheet” you’ll see that it’s not 13,000 lumens, it’s 12,740 lumens – but that’s really nitpicking on my part. Get out the magnifying glass and read the microprint: “Measured at 277 V, 4000K color temperature without lens” - the key there being “without lens”. According to their “5000K with lens” IES file it’s actually only 10,858 lumens. So we’ve lost over 16% of our light output just by reading. 10,858 lumens for $400 = 27 lm/$ . . . Ouch.
I decided to make a rough guess based on number of sheets of plywood that April’s workshop is 40x40x12. She’s got a metal ceiling, unfinished plywood walls and concrete floor. So I’ll be generous and set the Ceiling|Wall|Floor reflectance to 40|30|20. The end result = 44 fc @ 30” work plane which is poor by any workshop standard. A 40x40 room is too big for only 9 fixtures thus they end up being spaced way too far apart. The result is an underwhelming uneven shadow prone layout which would cost $3,600 retail! That’s just sad.
At 8:00 in the video April asks: “Do you want to see what 9 fixtures at 13,000 lumens looks like?”
My response has to be: “Not really, but would you like to see what 20 of these 10,858 lumen fixtures properly spaced looks like?” That is how many you would need to hit 93fc @ 30” work plane. Thus 20 fixtures x $400 = $8,000 to hit proper light level in a 40x40 room. That’s just insane. I’ve done 12 bay dealership garages for less.
Then I noticed her fixtures were only 24" long so now I don't feel so bad since mine are 96" long. Mine weren't sponsored though, so I got what I could afford. I plan to add more in the future though.
