Wiring for shop lights?

[cowanrg]

I'm going through the process of getting good lighting out in my shop and had a question. I have a 3 car garage and it's only used for a workshop. It's roughly 800 square feet, so I'm aiming for around 80k lumens total. I do youtube videos, so I want even light, and lots of it, so I don't need extra light for filming. I've of course read the lighting sticky thread and was planning on doing something along those lines, probably 18 total fixtures, roughly 6 per 'bay', in 3 rows of 6, longways down the space (if that makes sense).

My question is, how do you wire these up? I currently have a circuit just for the lights, and there are 3 bulb bases in the ceiling (which can of course be covered or removed. Would I just run them all in series, or run the 3 sets of 6 lights in parallel? I have attic access above. Should I just run romex up into the ceiling/attic or do conduit, etc? I've read a lot of threads here but rarely does someone talk about actually wiring everything up... Thanks!

 

[Falcon67]

Depends on how you lay it out, really. What I did - for better or worse LOL - was to pull power to a larger junction box. Out of that runs three switch legs to control the groups of lights, then from the box one switched run of "romex" to the first light in each group. That's 7 romex runs out of one box, quite a bit. Light to light connections are made with MC cable run along the ceiling. If I need to move things around later - like now for ceiling changes forced by the new lift - there is just one hole into the attic to patch if needed. I can also add more lights in any position working from the floor below the ceiling, just tapping into any light on any particular group.

You can make out some of the MC cable runs in this picture:

 

[cowanrg]

ah OK, that makes sense. I'm trying to stick with 3 rows of 6 lights, so in theory I'd only need to wire up each of the 3 rows.

 

[matt_i]

I would either keep your bulb base circuit separate if you need some "house lights" at times just to go out and find something in the shop, or else eliminate them and repurpose that same circuit.

Some analysis of tthe circuit is needed, breaker size, is it feeding outlets as well, etc. Have to understand wattage and then amperage requirement for the lights and determine if the circuit is adequate. I'd just run romex if its not already drywalled and the framing is still visible. If it is already drywalled or interior-sided then I'd look at EMT conduit.

If you buy fixtures with a short male plug + cord, then you can potentially do less wiring. Put a duplex outlet between fixtures and 2 should be able to share that outlet.

 

[Falcon67]

Good point, I forgot to mention - In the above pic, the far left hand light at the back of the photo is on switch #1 at the wall. For quick in and out lighting. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd have put a double switched ballast - or two ballasts - in that light so I'd only have two bulbs on for lighting the way out.

 

[James-W]

I am using 12 of the 100watt CFL lights. I have 4 switches with 3 lights on each switch. That way I can turn on the lights where I need them and the ones I don't really need on, I don't turn on. I like the CFL's because they are relatively inexpensive to buy and although they cost more to run than LED lights that really isn't an issue because I am not out there working all day every day.