The poncharosa Needs Help with Shop Lighting

[PonchoL]

[/ATTACH]

ITS TIME TO ROUGH IN THE ELECTRICAL IN THE SHOP PORTION OF THE PONCHAROSA. The shop area is 40' X 48' with 16' walls and inside peek of roof is about 20' from T.O.C. to Ceiling . I'M OUT OF MY LEAGUE WHEN IT COMES TO THIS.
My plans call for 9- 4' florescent fixtures for this area . I would like to get the brightes lights i can with out breaking the bank. Some say go with T8s, some say T5s, some say bite the bullet and go with LED. There is supposed to be a chart or a formula to tell how mwny bulbs or LEDs to go with. If someone cane give a little advice + cost I would appriciate that.

 

[JoeFin]

Will here is the good news - To get the most bang for your buck you'll want to go with T-8s fixtures

Now for the bad news - ain't no way 9 4ft fluorescents going to get it done with that much square footage and ceiling height. You would be down around 30 fc and basically struggling to see any thing of detail

20 each 4 foot 4 lamp fluorescents will put you in the 80 fc range with a descent distribution of lighting.

You can then add a couple of down lights over work benches and detail work areas to bump those areas up to +100 fc and have a pretty good lighting scheme

 

[Charles (in GA)]

It appears that about 1/3 of the floor space is not going to need the illumination of the rest, as it will be loft for the build in area.

Are you going to be doing the installation, conduit/wiring yourself? do you have scaffolding or a manlift/scissor lift to do the work? Don't forget to factor in that cost, either purchase, or rental.

Charles

 

[PonchoL]

I have an electrician that is doing the work, with all the tools and equipment. He just wanted my input on what I need and the type of fixtures. After talking with a friend of mine who owns a local electrical whare house,looks like if the price is right we go with 6 of these!!!!
I've been so busy with everthing i forgot about Kenny.

 

[sands35]

OP - what are you going to do in the garage? Storage? Very basic work? Or detailed work like wood/metal work or involved car maintenance?

Questions like that should drive lighting decisions.

OR

Pay the electrician to put in more junction boxes and oversize the electrical feed if you need to add more lights later. (i.e, more switched zones on separate breakers so you can double the number of lights later).

 

[JoeFin]

After talking with a friend of mine who owns a local electrical whare house,looks like if the price is right we go with 6 of these!!!!

Might want to ask your friend what amount of fc you'll end up with

 

[Charles (in GA)]

http://www.atlaslightingproducts.com/p-14-ifs4-series.aspx

Follow the link above. Select "indoor tool" in the lower right. This is a program similar to Visual. For a 40x40 area, lights suspended at 16 ft, reflectance of 80 ceiling and 50 walls and 20 floor, using the fixtures referenced, it gives a need for 20 of them to illuminate the area to 105 fc. dropping to 12 fixtures will give you 78 fc which is probably the bottom end or below of what you will want. Any less than that and you will feel light you are using a dim flashlight.

Forgot to mention, I went back and plugged in 6 fixtures and it gives 39 fc, not very useful.

The fixture is a IFS4454UEP5 which is a 4 ft, 4 bulb, T5HO (54 watt each) no uplighting, 120-277v ballast, with the micro mirror finish reflector and no lens (optional and reduces fc output). This is a high bay fixture.

Uplighting will make good use of the white insulation to eliminate "cave effect" and also to give even lighting with fewer shadows.

I would put in wiring, boxes and switches for at least 20 fixtures, and hang whatever you want. Then when you are pissed off at the number of them that your friend recommended, you can easily go back and add more. Evidently your friend does't know how to use (or isn't aware of) the Atlas lighting calculation tool available to him.

Curious to see what these cost, I'll bet it ain't cheap.

Charles

 

[bczygan]

You have such a large volume of space, that lights near the ceiling will waste much of their energy. You can still do some low level general illumination up there, but it will need to be supplemented with lower hanging light sources, to more adequately light work areas to a better general level.

The T5's are good for the high level lights. There will be darker areas between them. They do not provide an even level of illumination. T8's will work better for the lower level hanging lights. There will be more of them, and if properly spaced and hung at the right height,they will provide even illumination. You will still need task lighting.

 

[PonchoL]

Thanks for all of your input. I e-mailed a pdf. dwg. of my lay out and Kenny said he would send it to Atlas Lighting Products for their lighting engineer to spec. the lighting out. I do intend to install lighting around the work area's also.
As for what I intend to use the area for is wood working, metal fab. and auto /motorcycle / utv work. I have a 10,000lb 2post ROTARY LIFT in the back east corner of the shop,and plan on lights on wall to take care of work bench and hopefully the shadows when I put a car on the lift. and will take the advice of extra wired boxes for added lighting. I am installing caster wheels on all my power tools so i can make the most of my space for what ever job i have at the time. I will be able to roll evry thing out under the 95' x 20' awning to keep dust and sparks down if need be. and store them under the work benches as much as possible. It will take a while to get it right but thats what I'm planing my evenings will be Listening to some good music and sippin a cold brew!!!!!
Thanks again

 

[PonchoL]

Poncharosa Shop Lighting plan. 40' X 48' X 16' EVE
3 ON 12 PITCH ROOF 21' +- AT PEEK. This is about as good as a picture I can send of plot plan. It would not load the pdf in my Post.

 

[PonchoL]

I recieved the updated quote on my shop lighting that will go on the ceiling.
There should be somewhere's between 40 and 50 foot candles. Using the same layout as the dwg. hanging at around 16' above concrete or high9

# IFS4454UEP5 HIGHBAY FIXTURE
119.95
1079.55
4 LAMP 54W T5
LAMPS INCLUDED
0
# ISF4654UEPS HIGHBAY FIXTURE
158.95
0
6 LAMP 54W T5
LAMPS INCLUDED
TOTAL
1079.55
PLUS TAXer.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

You are putting the lighting right over the middle of the bays. Illuminating the top of the cars won't do a lot of good when you are working on something.

Their FC estimate came close to mine, I said 39 they said 40 to 50.

Charles

 

[waggie]

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia...ture-TZR-2-54T5HO-MVOLT-1-4-GEB10PS/202516724

$70 each

54watt Philips bulbs from Amazon (seller 1000bulbs) 40 pack for 200, $5 each

so each fixture would be $90.

Mine are hooked up via 220v, and are 19' off the ground.

 

[Garageguy65]

x2 on the T5..

For the bulbs check out www.1000bulbs.com. Looks like the save seller as Amazon in the previous post, but direct from the seller.

t5 54W Two different light colors. 3000k and 4100k $2.74 each or $68.48 a case.

I bought a case of t5.. No problems. Great lights.

http://www.1000bulbs.com/search/?filter[category]=1997&filter[attribute_brand]=Halco

 

[southalabama]

Take Charles in GA advise.

There are a handful of opinions I value on this board. On electrical and wiring I value his opinion highly.

 

[PonchoL]

I seem to be having some diffacultiy Posting Pictures to GJ . Some time last month I updated my I-Phone 5 and at work they installed a new server. Now My Phone does not "TRUST" MY Computer or vice versa. anyway i have pictures on my Phone to-update The Ponchorosa I will try to get that fixed.
I'm Pretty muched 90% complete, and maybe can move in to living quaters in a week or two.

 

[PonchoL]

LIGHTS CAMERA "ACTION"

I BORROWED THE CAMERA FROM WORK

 

[PonchoL]

LIGHTS CAMERA "ACTION"

I BORROWED THE CAMERA FROM WORK

9 of these Little Babbies and you need "Sun Glasses at Nite