Going from CFL's to LED big space

[Steve from Socal]

I am considering replacing my CFL's with LED UFO's. My shop area is 75X 120 but not all of that is lit and some area are lower light areas. I have 105 watt CFL's that are 13-16' high every 15' in areas where work lights on machines fill in the blanks. The overall light quality is OK not bad but not great. I saw some 150watt UFO's 21000Lm and they say 24 would be needed for an 80X80 space. I have 20 CFL's now? They show the lights at 17' my shop could keep them all under 15' the area of the 80X80 is close to the area I want well lit perhaps even a bit less. The way these shake out the power would be higher than what it is now?

 

[LopezBart]

What problem(s) are you looking to solve?

 

[Steve from Socal]

The CFL's are getting long in the tooth, several have died, I am down to one spare. Better light quality in some areas as well.

 

[dscheidt]

Your existing lamps are probably around 7000 lumens each, or were when they were new. So replacing them one for one would give more light. If you are doing this yourself, try one.

 

[LopezBart]

I'm a novice at this, but I have spent some time figuring this out for my own shop.

A 105 watt CFL produces something on the order of 5000-7000 lumens. You have 20, so that 80x80 foot space has
about 19 lumens/square foot. The proposed LED lighting is 21000x24/80/80 = about 80 lumens/square foot - much brighter, at a cost of 3600 watts instead of 2100. Most of these UFOs as dimmable, of course, so you can reduce the brightness to save power when less light is wanted. This would be the preferred way of adjusting brightness rather than spacing the lights out more. If you never want it that bright, I believe 100W units are also available, and are often installed at a lower height. The usual suggestion is to keep spacing about the same as height....

Here's one 150W UFO in my shop at 12.5' or so; I'll be using 8:

 

[cybrdyke]

Lets get you on the right path....
It's kind of irrelevant what you have now. They're old and not doing what they're supposed to anymore, so lets forget about those.
You need to decide how bright you want it. This is answered in foot-candles. Most people dont know how to figure out how many foot-candles they want, which is understandable. So, some examples might be helpful. A common school classroom is lit to about 35-40 fc. A common grocery store is 45-50fc. A warehouse is 10-ish fc. An pro auto shop is about 60-70fc, with some benches up to 100fc. A common residential garage is around 30fc. Your living room is about 20fc. So, tell us where on this scale of things you think you want your space to be. That's step 1.
Step 2 is to decide what type of fixture you want to use. This is totally up to you. If you like the UFO's, that's fine, but this is the time to determine this for yourself.
Step 3 is to put that info into a computer and it will tell you how many of your favorite fixtures you'll need to achieve an effective layout. It's helpful to include the color of your ceiling and walls and the material of your floor. This will include spacing and height. Sounds like you're already set at 80 x 80 x 17.
Step 4 would be to decide how you want to wire up your lights. You can use dimmers (or not), multiple zones, or even motion sensors.

Take a minute and let us know what you think about steps 1-4.

Good luck,
CD

 

[cybrdyke]

I'm a novice at this, but I have spent some time figuring this out for my own shop.

A 105 watt CFL produces something on the order of 5000-7000 lumens. You have 20, so that 80x80 foot space has
about 19 lumens/square foot. The proposed LED lighting is 21000x24/80/80 = about 80 lumens/square foot - much brighter, at a cost of 3600 watts instead of 2100. Most of these UFOs as dimmable, of course, so you can reduce the brightness to save power when less light is wanted. This would be the preferred way of adjusting brightness rather than spacing the lights out more. If you never want it that bright, I believe 100W units are also available, and are often installed at a lower height. The usual suggestion is to keep spacing about the same as height....

Much respect for taking the time to try to figure it out. You did good. It's simple on one hand and complicated on the other.....
Be careful dividing the lumens by the square footage. It will eventually lead you down the wrong path since it's not really a figure that's used in lighting calculations. When calculating foot-candles, it's not the source lumens that are used in the formulae.
The OP is probably getting about 70% of initial lumens at this point. He doesn't say if they're in some kind of fixture or not. Assuming bare bulbs, that's anywhere from 4000 to 5000 lumens each, from one single point, in an omni-directional blob of light. Who knows where all those photons went....
The same amount of light from a new fixture that's harnessed the beam would be a huge improvement to the OP. Whether that's a UFO or a linear strip, or whatever, he'll likely be really happy with the results.
CD

 

[Steve from Socal]

Lets get you on the right path....
It's kind of irrelevant what you have now. They're old and not doing what they're supposed to anymore, so lets forget about those.
You need to decide how bright you want it. This is answered in foot-candles. Most people dont know how to figure out how many foot-candles they want, which is understandable. So, some examples might be helpful. A common school classroom is lit to about 35-40 fc. A common grocery store is 45-50fc. A warehouse is 10-ish fc. An pro auto shop is about 60-70fc, with some benches up to 100fc. A common residential garage is around 30fc. Your living room is about 20fc. So, tell us where on this scale of things you think you want your space to be. That's step 1.
Step 2 is to decide what type of fixture you want to use. This is totally up to you. If you like the UFO's, that's fine, but this is the time to determine this for yourself.
Step 3 is to put that info into a computer and it will tell you how many of your favorite fixtures you'll need to achieve an effective layout. It's helpful to include the color of your ceiling and walls and the material of your floor. This will include spacing and height. Sounds like you're already set at 80 x 80 x 17.
Step 4 would be to decide how you want to wire up your lights. You can use dimmers (or not), multiple zones, or even motion sensors.

Take a minute and let us know what you think about steps 1-4.

Good luck,
CD

I never said they are not doing what they are supposed to? The one size fits all is not the plan. The brightness does not have to be constant and the height of the lights could vary from over 15' in my bridge crane bay to under 13' over my machine tools. I am not sure that one level of brightness is the answer in any zone of the shop. Just doing simple work or clean up may need half the light needed for a complex task. My shop has several zones or areas; machine shop, welding/fab, auto with 2 post lift, material storage/sizing. Flex space for large projects a bridge crane bay 30X75', off the main shop inspection/assemble and grinding/metal finishing.

The ceiling is/was white insulation now tan, walls are white, floor is concrete. Ceiling height is 12' at eaves, 18' peak.

I am not stuck on UFO style, strip lights may work but require many more fixtures?

Regarding the spacing, NO I was using the 80X80 figure because it was an aprox area. My shop is 76X130' the 17' figure was from the light supplier, their lighting plan.

I would like to use dimmers on all the lights, not sure how many lights on each dimmer 2-4 in some areas, perhaps 6-5 in others?

 

[cybrdyke]

I never said they are not doing what they are supposed to? The one size fits all is not the plan. The brightness does not have to be constant and the height of the lights could vary from over 15' in my bridge crane bay to under 13' over my machine tools. I am not sure that one level of brightness is the answer in any zone of the shop. Just doing simple work or clean up may need half the light needed for a complex task. My shop has several zones or areas; machine shop, welding/fab, auto with 2 post lift, material storage/sizing. Flex space for large projects a bridge crane bay 30X75', off the main shop inspection/assemble and grinding/metal finishing.

The ceiling is/was white insulation now tan, walls are white, floor is concrete. Ceiling height is 12' at eaves, 18' peak.

I am not stuck on UFO style, strip lights may work but require many more fixtures?

Regarding the spacing, NO I was using the 80X80 figure because it was an aprox area. My shop is 76X130' the 17' figure was from the light supplier, their lighting plan.

I would like to use dimmers on all the lights, not sure how many lights on each dimmer 2-4 in some areas, perhaps 6-5 in others?

What I mean when I say "they're not doing what they're supposed to", is that their output has diminished over time by as much as 40% compared to when they were new. In the lighting industry, we would consider them dead. Sorry for using industry lingo.
Hypothetically, if you were to just replace your existing fixtures 1-for-1 with an equivalently bright UFO, you'd be looking at a 60w (9000lm) fixture. That's still a lot more light than you have now.

Is there any way that you can post up a sketch that shows the various areas that you mention?
CD

 

[Steve from Socal]

Well,

I got a 6 pax of 12K LM LED's to try and I have to say, my wore out old CFL's appeal to my eyes over the LED's The warmer color is not as harsh and the omni directional light of the CFL's give a lot of reflected light that is not there with the LED's. The 120W LED Vs 105W CFL was the test, I don't see any real advantage to the LED's in power consumption or perceived light?

 

[LopezBart]

I bought 4000K LED UFOs for the shop; I find the standard 5000K too white.

Our house has 3000K and 2700K for warmer colors....

 

[LopezBart]

This might be handy: https://hi-hyperlite.com/blogs/comprehensive-guides/garage-high-bay-lighting-guide

 

[Steve from Socal]

I am not sure that LED's are in the offing at least in the short term. I found a whole carton of CFL's that were hiding. Honestly, I like the light my CFL's produce both in color and light output. I have been doing a lot of long neglected maintence and repairs of stuff here. One thing I noticed, the CFL's have a lot of dust on them. Cleaning the lights makes a noted difference alone!

I was in Mexico for 6 months and before that I partly unpacked my 48' trailer with stuff from my house in L.A. This is week two of clearing and cleaning, I almost have the first qudrant of the shop in order. Two big projects are scheduled for March and I need to have the shop functioning. At the end of the day, the switch to LED's 'may' offer some benefits but, no real energy saving. Going by the site above and several others my lghting load would nearly double? Would the light quality improve? I am used to what I have, my machines have work lights, I have task lights for spot work and with my windows/skylights daytime work is fine, nighttime I am not doing brain surgery.