Shop lighting with a difference

Rob Keeble

Member
Messages
12,633
Location
GTA Ontario Canada
So came across this build thread for a shop and the guy got to the point of lighting.
Well he calculated the cost of T8 fittings to achieve desired lumens for the area and both running cost and equipment cost came out too high for his outlook.

So this is what he did. I think it's rather novel idea but I wonder what the light is like.

uploadfromtaptalk1460552425982.jpguploadfromtaptalk1460552433449.jpguploadfromtaptalk1460552445836.jpguploadfromtaptalk1460552452580.jpguploadfromtaptalk1460552462779.jpg


BTW this is the thread and he shows the basic bracket and router setup that he uses
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=307468&page=2
 
That is pretty cool. I've got a strip of that for lighting on my desk and for my music workstation. It's actually quite a nice light. I bet that works out pretty well.
 
Thanks for the link, Rob.

I also played around with LED lights in my shop. I tried some 5050 and 5630 LEDs and to me they were pretty much equivalent. (I did not buy the ones he is linking to... the 5630s are harder to get here in Canada)

I really like how LEDs allow you to spread out the light, so it is less concentrated. I like how he recessed them into the joists, as I found that the adhesive on the back did not last. And then I tried hot-glue, but the lights got hot enough to remelt the hot glue.

My LED lighting experiment:
http://wordsnwood.com/2016/LED-lighting/
 
Art I don't let "what we can get in Canada" govern any part of my life. It's just a matter of how determined one is.

My thoughts have always been that given the need in retirement to carefully manage ones monthly expenses, one has to evaluate these kinds of strategies to keep your running cost for things like your shop as low as possible. We in NE are faced with winter being our best time in shop which means heating and lighting given daylight issues.
That to me says one needs to evaluate and then invest in strategies which offset this cost.
Why I really think that lighting is an issue is also connected to age and sight. Better lighting ends up impacting quality of work and even more important safety when you give these subjects serious thought.
Our hydro is set to go up given our government just sold the family farm to pay for debt, that's going to mean we look very carefully at every kilowatt in time to come. What our hydro bills show is every kw doubles when one takes the additional charges for debt contribution, administration, delivery. That's a huge incentive to save every kw.
Leaves more for tools and wood. Lol
 
That is an interesting solution. I think I'd still want them in an aluminum track/channel, which would help with heat dissipation, those LEDs still put off quite a bit of heat which will shorten the life. However, being low enough voltage they should be OK, no fire hazard issues really.

Like Art mentioned in his article, I found that they do still consume quite a few watts for creating the same amount of light as CFL/Florescent bulbs. I would consider doing some myself, but may mount a bunch in an existing fixture. Seems like I deal with lights taking forever to kick on (if at all) in my shop in the cold and LEDs would be a good solution.
 
Hmmmm. Interesting. Not to dump cold water on this but I saw engineered joists that he routed into. Big no-no with those things. They have knock out holes to provide wire and pipe paths across them. And the code demands you use them and not alter the joists in any other way. The reason I bring this up is that it may materially affect the structural integrity of the building, especially if high wind storms or earthquake are part of the local scenery.

That said, and along with Darren's remark, I remember seeing an interesting LED lighting solution at a builder's show. The product was a Solartube. A ring of LED's was inserted in the end of the tube and used on cloudy days and nights. When he turned that thing on, I was amazed. The LED's took advantage of all that reflective power. Talk about bang for the buck!
 
The last time I was looking hard at shop lighting was about 3 years ago when they stopped stocking T12 replacement bulbs locally. I spent about 2 days trying to figure out the delivered lux math. The varying beam widths of leds vs other types of lighting make it really quite challenging but the end result I came up with was that T8 and LED deliver really really close to the same delivered light per watt and the T8s where a whole lot cheaper at the time. The T8's were a HUGE improvement over the old T12's because that also moved me to electronic ballasts and I sprang for the fancy 5200k bulbs which are a lot more daylight like.

Since then some of the pre-packaged LED stuff has really dropped in price and its looking a lot more compelling. I recently put a 4' tube of "bright white" led (prepackaged as a that only cost $20 over the lathe for extra light there and man its been really nice. As Art noted the ability to spread the light around more in little bits here and there as needed is a huge win.
 
Art, I enjoyed the video. Thanks for posting it. Love the way you say "out". I always make fun of my wife when she says it the canadian way. :)

I say "eh" also... ;-) And you're welcome. I was really kind of surprised to do the math and discover that the watts were not really different from 4ft Fluorescent. But I do think I like the "spread-out" light better.
 
I'm gonna play devil's advocate and put in a good word for raking light, from a mobile source. The shadows and variation rather than even bright overhead light sometimes allows you to see surfaces and imperfections much better. Just sayin.
 
I'm gonna play devil's advocate and put in a good word for raking light, from a mobile source. The shadows and variation rather than even bright overhead light sometimes allows you to see surfaces and imperfections much better. Just sayin.

Ken,
The overhead lighting is General Lighting (It has been years since I belonged to the Illumination Engineering Society of America so I am not sure that is exact terminology). To General Lighting you want to add Task Lighting. In many shops the Task Lighting is a goose neck lamp of some kind. These are easily found in the USA for $10 or less. $2 at a garage sale. Then you set the Task Light down to a grazing angle to show up the fine scratches in the finish. You place your body on the side of the, let us say, "table" so that the lamp is shining towards you. Yes that sounds backwards. Just use a baseball cap or something else to keep the direct light source out of your eyes and look at the surface of the wood.

General Lighting is for getting around in the shop, talking with woodworking buddies, etc. Task Lighting is what you really need to see detail. I'll bet you could learn a lot by Googling the IES.

Good illumination is a thing of joy, a comfort for seeing, keeping fingers out of blades, avoiding certain kinds of headaches, etc., etc.

Enjoy,
JimB
 
Top