19x42 Garage Lighting

[timgradywy]

After doing a lot of research on here, I downloaded Dialux Evo and put together a giant spreadsheet of lighting options (lumens/ft, cost/ft, lumens/watt, total cost, etc.). I've come up with two options I think will work, but wanted some input on it before spending the $$ and time buying and installing them.

My garage is very oddly shaped given that I live in the city. Think of it as 20' W x 42'L x 12 to 13.5' H with one corner chopped off diagonally. At ~710 sq. ft. inside/ 778 sq. ft. outside, I've maxed out our lot coverage. I've got 4 cars stacked in the back in a ~19W' x 18'L (interior) 2-car garage area (BendPak HD-7P nested beside a HD-9XW). I've got 1 car in the front on a custom BendPak HD-9TG 4-post lift in a 12.5'-19'W x 16'L area. In the middle is a 7'L x 19' wide working area + the triangular working area off to the side of the 4-post lift.

With 2 or 3-cars in the air at any given time, lights on the ceiling struggle to translate into lumens on the ground level other than in the middle workspace area. I was modifying a 600 W brushless Corvette cooling fan for my S2000 and found that I couldn't even see the shroud as I was cutting it. In my last garage, I also had a lot of trouble seeing what I was welding.

Existing layout:
11x WAC I Can't Believe it's Not Recessed in Ceiling
4x WAC I Can't Believe It's Not Recessed in Side Wall
~15,000 lumens total for 15-18 fc at work level.
This was OK for being in the garage, not nearly enough to do work...

Install in-process:
4x LumeGen 1'x4' 5080 lumen 5k panels installed on side wall next to 4-post lift.
https://www.lightup.com/1ftx4ft-led-slim-backlit-flat-panel-40w-dimmable-5080-lumens.html
Lutron Vive Dimmer
These four lights will more than double my lumen count.

I'm hoping that these will give me some light under my lift when it's up. They're mounted roughly halfway between the floor and the bottom of the lift when raised (~40" to the top of the lights). These don't solve the problem of 15 fc in the workspace area.

The Plan:
Originally, I wanted to put more of these 1x4 fixtures in the ceiling, but the mounting kits cost almost as much as the lights and they're a pain to surface mount and wire. Now I'm considering strip lights + conduit like many of the other builds here. Current plan calls for at least 5k lumens each with a minimum of 22 lights. I'd love to have 8k lumens/light, but most of these don't seem to be dimmable or if they are they cost a fortune. I would prefer to keep my total lighting cost under $1500 shipped.

Looking at a 6x4 layout of these lights. 22 lights in total to add 117,612 lumens. These would be in 3 dimmable zones, each zone would be 2 lights wide. With the custom 4-post lift with rolling jacks down, I've got a relatively large area > 100 fc. With all lifts up, that area shrinks considerably and I'm not sure it would be enough light. A 6x5 layout rectifies some of that, but now I would need to install and wire 27 (or 28) lights (139887 lumens).
https://www.ledlightingwholesaleinc.com/E5SLB35D4-850-p/e5slb35d4-850.htm

The other option I'm considering is 22x of the TechBrite 3-lamp LED fixtures. I don't like the look of these as much, but I like that they should be easy to replace/repair and if I didn't want full light, I could remove the center tube. This would be over 176k lumens with local hot spots approaching 160 fc even with the lifts in the air. Cost is virtually identical to the 27x energetic lights above. This appears to be the overkill option.
https://www.prolighting.com/commercial-lighting/ledready/t443ssubcxx00p0-18w5k.html

Pictures of the garage are at the link below. They'll help explain the word soup above. I've also saved pictures of the Dialux Evo results here with a bit higher resolution. The ones attached to this post have very low resolution.
https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0s5yeZFhvgEkv

Thanks.

Tim

 

[cybrdyke]

Couple of things to understand...total lumens doesn't mean anything, so dont worry about that number. Lumens per square foot isn't a thing, either. Lumens per watt is a measure of efficiency, if that's a concern. Wall mounted lights are glare bombs and really only useful if you're detailing, painting or inspecting.
You can spend your money lighting the work area to 70fc, which is great. A pro shop is recommended to be low 90's. Higher than that is wasteful unless you have eye issues.
The areas over the lifts can be 40fc, and then use task lighting if you decide to lower a lift to work on a car.
CD

 

[timgradywy]

Thanks for the recommendations. Makes it sound like 20-22x of the Energetic LED strips (or something similar) may be the way to go on the ceiling.

The spreadsheet I put together just helped eliminate non-competitive light fixtures and guide me towards a few to try modeling in Dialux. Surprise- the best ones just happen to be the exact ones Platonic Solid keeps recommending...

foot-candle = Lumens/sq ft. This is widely used. Not sure I follow why lumens/sq ft isn't a thing.

I was also looking at lumens / foot of light fixture as a measure of potential glare, PITA factor for shipping/installation, and a limiting factor for how much light I might be able to get with a given # of fixtures (and the inverse of that- how many fixtures for a given amount of light).

I was looking total lumens as a very rough way to compare the overall brightness of various fixtures installed in similar locations without resorting to modeling.

Efficiency is not a giant concern, but it's certainly not nothing. My preference is reliability first and then efficiency. Given roughly equal pricing/reliability/ease of installation, I'm going for whatever is more efficient.

Your comment about wall mounted lights being glare bombs is exactly why I chose a dimmable panel on it's own circuit with remote dimming vs. using Amazon T5 LED strips. Because they're a panel, they've got 80% less light per area and dim way below that. I'm not sure how well these will or won't work, but I'm hoping they help more than they hurt. If not, I'll rip them out and regain 1.5" of clearance.

I've never been a fan of task lighting. It seems like power cords are never long enough, batteries are never charged, it never illuminates just what I'm looking at, etc. I don't mind needing task lighting when working fully under a car, but from the top or side, I don't want to need it. I also won't have a fixed workbench location where I can install permanent task lighting. My welding table and workbench are both portable and will move wherever they're needed and wherever they fit.

Tim

 

[cybrdyke]

foot-candle = Lumens/sq ft. This is widely used. Not sure I follow why lumens/sq ft isn't a thing. Common mistake. That's not the full definition of a foot-candle and will lead you down the path of a disappointing end result.

I was also looking at lumens / foot of light fixture as a measure of potential glare, PITA factor for shipping/installation, and a limiting factor for how much light I might be able to get with a given # of fixtures (and the inverse of that- how many fixtures for a given amount of light). Glare is defined (loosely) as unnecessary light at an angle toward a viewers eye. You can look at some things like lumens per beam angle and BUG ratings (this is an outdoor thing) to help you determine this. Lumens and footage wont help you determine this.

I was looking total lumens as a very rough way to compare the overall brightness of various fixtures installed in similar locations without resorting to modeling.
Too crude. Without knowing where that light is going,the total number is pointless.

You seem to be heading in the right direction. It also seems like you enjoy learning about things as you build. Im just trying to help you with the lingo and the thought process so you dont get caught in any traps.
There's two schools of thought on how to get around obstacles that can be moved...like lifts. You can either light the entire floor as if the lifts aren't there, so that if you want to ever work in that space, you have appropriate light. In this case you would definitely want to zone the lighting with switches or dimmers. Or you can focus on the work areas and spend your money there, without over-spending on areas that will never be used. In this case, putting lights over the spaces between lifts might make more sense than putting them over the lifts.
CD

 

[timgradywy]

Absolutely. That was one of my thoughts- to reduce the number of lights that were hidden by the cars, increase the number around them, and try to focus lighting on the work areas. The attached files show an example of that idea. These probably have the most consistent lighting in the work space of any calculations I've done.

My plan is to have 3 zones. The left side, middle, and right side. Each will be independently controlled/dimmable.

Thanks.