Hello, New to the forum. I've past my point of frustration and tired of shelling out $$ for lighting trying to get my shop bright. REALLY STINKING BRIGHT. This has turned into a battle. The one area I'm trying to light is 40x40, 13' ceiling. When I bought the place previous owner had painted everything antique white. I didn't have time to repaint. Lighting was 6 ceiling outlets with 60 watt bulbs. Horribly dark. I bought 30 8' long, 72w, 120 degree, 2 row LED fixtures 5000k@10k lms. 20 went on the ceiling along with 4, 4' T8 wall fixtures, 6 100w LED's in the sockets and 4 adjustable 3 position LED screw in bulbs. We've dealt with it for the last 2 yrs or so. I finally got fed up with it being dark still and ordered an 8 pack of high bay lights, 5000k, 14k lms, and ripped all the lights down. Spent the last 2 days repainting the ceiling and walls in semi gloss ultra white, painted the garage doors inside so everything is white. Then I hung up all 8 lights with 6' spacing, added 2 5000k high bay 1'x2" adjustable 25k lm lights between the garage doors and a 24' section of the single row LED's I took down a long with 1 adjustable screw in LED and this dam shop still isn't bright enough. What lights are you guys using that are super bright or do I need to order metal halides for this thing or what. Epoxy white floors? Building hot rods is hard enough without being able to see well. Suggestions please!!!!
LED Lighting blues
- Thread starter Covert1
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mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Your ceiling isn't high enough for high bays, so that isn't helping.
I'd do some searching on lighting design here and get a real layout to achieve the brightness you want
I'd do some searching on lighting design here and get a real layout to achieve the brightness you want
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Your new lights are though
Headlamp as needed? New eyes? I have eight 4ft LED fixtures in my 24x36 shop with white ceilings and walls, its bright as heck. I have LED strips running between the LED fixtures and sometimes just run those when I'm not performing surgery on cars as I can turn them down so its not as bright. If your doing bodywork or painting you probably need some fixtures on the walls, or a rolling light rack. A rolling rack might be helpful in general for you, depending what you are doing. I used a cheap rolling clothing rack with a couple of 4ft LED fixtures strapped to it in my last place that was really dark.
Dagny
Well-known member
I would put 4 foot 40 to 50000 lumen fixtures. bert is right your in no mans land.
American Locomotive
Well-known member
1600 square feet is a pretty big area to light. "Really bright" would probably be about 100fc at your work surface, which means at the minimum you're going to need around 200,000 lumens worth of light, factoring in losses, etc... A couple of quick checks on some lighting calculators seems to agree.
13' ceilings are pretty low for high-bays, so you're probably just firing a bunch of your light at the floor. To get the lighting you want, you're going to need a lot of strip lights, IMO.
To get close to 100fc, with a nice even light, you're going to need around 45, 2-bulb 4' fixtures with LED ~2200 lumen (16- 18w class) bulbs in them
13' ceilings are pretty low for high-bays, so you're probably just firing a bunch of your light at the floor. To get the lighting you want, you're going to need a lot of strip lights, IMO.
To get close to 100fc, with a nice even light, you're going to need around 45, 2-bulb 4' fixtures with LED ~2200 lumen (16- 18w class) bulbs in them
wantedabiggergarage
Member Emeritus
If mine weren't bright enough for the little bit I get to be out there (cancer takes priority), I was looking at those Hex lights at one point.
kbuhagiar
Well-known member
Like you, I wanted my garage to be BRIGHT. It measures 52' x 20', and is tandem style (three car widths wide and two car lengths deep). The rear (old) portion has 10' ceilings, and the new addition on the front has 14' ceilings.
I have three rows of flush-mounted ceiling fixtures running the entire length of the garage, front to rear, and each row has two courses of replaceable 4' LED tubes. Each tube is rated at 3000 lumens.
All walls and ceilings are painted in semi-gloss white.
All I can say is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED; I have PLENTY of light, so much so that one of my friends calls it the 'operating room'. I do not believe your 13' ceilings should be a problem.
I have three rows of flush-mounted ceiling fixtures running the entire length of the garage, front to rear, and each row has two courses of replaceable 4' LED tubes. Each tube is rated at 3000 lumens.
All walls and ceilings are painted in semi-gloss white.
All I can say is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED; I have PLENTY of light, so much so that one of my friends calls it the 'operating room'. I do not believe your 13' ceilings should be a problem.
BillK
Well-known member
Something does not add up here. I have 6 8' 2 row fixtures in a 30 x 60 x 15' tall building and even though there are a couple of spots that could use some more light, in general it is fine for my Automotive Machine Shop. The walls are semi gloss white and the "ceiling" is unfinished flat roof metal trusses. Each fixture has two of these tubes in it:
Keystone Technologies KT-LED43T8-96G-850-D-CP :: 8' 43W T8 LED Lamp, 50K :: Rexel USA
LED Lamp, T8, Linear, 96 Inch Length, 43 Watts, Single Pin, 5500 Lumens, Ballast Bypass, 5000K, Fa8 Single Pin, Cat #: KT-LED43T8-96G-850-D-CP, Mfr: Keystone Technologies
You have 5 times as many lights in a smaller area and its not enough ???? Something is not adding up.
Attachments
Check out https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/led-shop-light-calculation-confusing-myself.544622/
Additionally: there was a lightning engineer at the place I worked (20 years ago) when I was figuring out my garage. He had software that was able to provide layout that met my requirements for brightness and overlap in just a few minutes. A simple rectangular floorplan without interior walls or other interruptions is as simple as it gets.
One thing that he recommended was three circuits. 1. General walk around lighting that was on a ceiling mounted motion sensor; 2.&3. Are strip lights with every other light on the other circuit. It’s been very functional to have 3 levels of brightness available as needed.
Of course there’s still task lighting at specific tools but it’s not needed unless I’m getting into detailed work.
Additionally: there was a lightning engineer at the place I worked (20 years ago) when I was figuring out my garage. He had software that was able to provide layout that met my requirements for brightness and overlap in just a few minutes. A simple rectangular floorplan without interior walls or other interruptions is as simple as it gets.
One thing that he recommended was three circuits. 1. General walk around lighting that was on a ceiling mounted motion sensor; 2.&3. Are strip lights with every other light on the other circuit. It’s been very functional to have 3 levels of brightness available as needed.
Of course there’s still task lighting at specific tools but it’s not needed unless I’m getting into detailed work.
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BillK
Well-known member
We are probably wasting our breath. The OP has not been seen since he first asked the question 
This is why I rarely respond to folks with only one or two posts.We are probably wasting our breath. The OP has not been seen since he first asked the question