lighting for 8' workbench

[boo radley]

I did a quick search and didn't find a thread which *quite* helped me out.

I just bought and 8' long workbench, which will be installed in a fully enclosed RV garage. The RV garage is lit by several T-12s fluorescents, which are mounted on the 20' high ceiling. They provide enough light for getting around the garage but not enough for the type of stuff I'll be doing at the workbench (reloading, general woodworking, etc.)

I saw these in another thread and they look like they meet my purposes: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/3XY86?Pid=search


They will be chain mounted approximately 36-40" above the top of the workbench. Is this fixture going to throw too much light at that distance? I'm worried it might be overkill.

I've done some general household wiring, but haven't wired up fluorescents before. How hard would it be to wire a switch to the underside of the workbench? Any special considerations I need to take?

Thanks!
Boo

 

[Keep]

Did not know there was a thing called "overkill" for lights

If the light is that close to the bench, why not just use the old pull string instead of wiring in a switch?

 

[z28toz06]

you can always raise them up if theres "too much" light, but I can't remember where I had too much. Most of my memories are from not having enough! I am putting an 8 footer over my 9 foot bench

 

[djjsr]

I've got an 8 footer over my bench and I played around with the position of it to get adequate lighting without getting shadows or glare. I ended up with the fixture at 7 1/2 ft height and 1 foot back towards the wall from the front edge of the bench. I have the chains hanging from hooks in unistrut so I can easily move it if necessary but I haven't changed it in about 4 years.