Shop Lighting

[JohnnyNoName]

Nice shop, Jonathan. I didn't take quite as many pics of my build. One of these days, I'll post those.

Thanks Vic. I guess I need to update the shots. 2008 was a long time ago. :-)

Jonathan

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[wilburpan]

My first post but also the only thing I'm qualified to comment on so far I do human factors work and the recommended amount of light used to be 100 foot candles for an office environment. They've actually dropped that dramatically to 30-50 fc now.

Do you think that the change in the light recommendation might have come about because most people in offices are looking at computer monitors a lot more than paper these days?

[Lawrence Brown]

That was my thinking. Every place I've been keeps it pretty dark to reduce glare on the screens and then just have desk lamps for local illumination for reading papers and such.

[Vic]

The best office lighting is a 60/40 fixture with white or off-white ceiling and task lighting. There a lot of science that goes into proper lighting schemes. If you REALLY want to learn about lighting, there is a place called the Seattle Lighting Design Lab that has a lot of great papers on lighting as well as the "lab" work they do. http://www.lightingdesignlab.com/

[BenBreeg]

Do you think that the change in the light recommendation might have come about because most people in offices are looking at computer monitors a lot more than paper these days?

Good chance of that. I haven't read the evolution of the recommendations, but all things computer related recommend far lower levels (18-~45 with a dark background on the computer screen and somewhat higher with a white background) for computer workstations. Glare and high contrast ratios are what tend to cause problems. These principles would apply to a workshop as well.

[Chester]

Well, I am finished with the new lighting. The shop is 12 x 32 (384 sqft) and I installed 12 - 32 watt T8 bulbs in 6-fixtures. I have a perfect 1-watt per sqft. Some would say that this just barely meets the minimum but, compared to the light that I have had for years, this seems like stadium lighting (especially when using the 6500K daylight bulbs). I had thought at the beginning that maybe the 6500K would be too bright. But as I installed more fixtures, I realized that the all-wood composition of my floor, ceiling and walls would suck-up that brightness quickly.

I really did not have a master plan for the lighting. My dual table saws have a melamine topped connector table between them and I thought that mounting the first fixture over that table would be a good and logical start. It was but I was blown-away by the amount of light that I got from just this first 2-bulb fixture. This was a perfect placement for the first fixture and it helped me see that I could use properly placed light rather than total flooded light (I know that some would say that 2-watts/sqft are needed). Over the middle of the dual table saws, I could see that as long as I kept the light in front of me at any work surface, I would receive good brightness and any shadowing would be reflected back from my hands.

After this first installation, I proceeded to align fixtures so that they would provide good brightness and reflect any shadowing back from my hands. I did this with a fixture over my maple workbench, a fixture over my chopsaw station, a fixture over my drum sander, a fixture over my tool-bench and a final fixture in the front "dark corner" where I have a full wall of peg board, adjacent to side-wall storage shelve.

After seeing all of the new light I wonder how did I work up there with only those four bare-bulb incandescents? I am happy, however, that all of this brightness did not take away the warmth of the shop that I have always had from all of the wood surround.

Who knows, maybe I will still add a little more ... but I do have a couple of portable halogen lights that can provide very specific light to almost any place in the shop.

Chester

[Bobby Slack]

I just got a new fixture that has a couple of T8's and it brings my garage to a total of 3 fixtures (6 bulbs) I think one more of these babies would be perfect. The issue is that I use the rafters in my ceiling to store strips of wood that could be used for another project. Having the lights stuck against the rafters gets in the way, I will have to place these lights more in the middle. No pictures of my garage it is too messy and there are too many nice shops in this forum like Chester and I am not secure enough to show my mess.

[Chester]

I just got a new fixture that has a couple of T8's and it brings my garage to a total of 3 fixtures (6 bulbs) I think one more of these babies would be perfect. The issue is that I use the rafters in my ceiling to store strips of wood that could be used for another project. Having the lights stuck against the rafters gets in the way, I will have to place these lights more in the middle. No pictures of my garage it is too messy and there are too many nice shops in this forum like Chester and I am not secure enough to show my mess.

Bobby -

Many shop lights are hung from chains ... would that work better with your open rafters?

[Bobby Slack]

Hey Chester, that is what I use. I will have to shoot some pics today and you will see, time to grow up some cojones and show my mess.

Bobby -

Many shop lights are hung from chains ... would that work better with your open rafters?

[Bobby Slack]

Chester. I installed my third T8 fixture - total of 6 tubes. The lighting is a lot better than before and tolerable. Some of my fixtures give me more of a yellow light and the new one is more of a blue light. I wonder if mixing them out will give a warm/cool light that works best. I have no idea. What I know is that I don't have to use my head lamp anymore lol..

Bobby -

For me, this is all new. But it is amazing to learn about all of the choices there are. I just thought that a 4-foot fluorescent bulb was a ... 4-foot fluorescent bulb. I didn't know a T12 from a T8 ... or even that some work in the cold and some don't. Then you add the greatly different affects of the various Kelvin ratings and it gets very interesting. If you don't have any high Kelvin bulbs in your shop (5000K and above), you should take a look at some display samples if they are available to you.

I hear some guys talk about painting everything in their shop(s) white ... or some bright color for better light reflection. That is never going to happen in my all-wood shop. But, I think that if I did have all of this whiteness in my shop, 6500K might be too much.

[Vic]

Chester. I installed my third T8 fixture - total of 6 tubes. The lighting is a lot better than before and tolerable. Some of my fixtures give me more of a yellow light and the new one is more of a blue light. I wonder if mixing them out will give a warm/cool light that works best. I have no idea. What I know is that I don't have to use my head lamp anymore lol..

Bobby, the difference in color is simply because the lamps have different Kelvin values. I hate it, but if it doesn't bug you, what the heck. I'm guessing the yellowish fixtures are 3500.

[Bobby Slack]

Thanks Vic, for the moment if I can see, I am happy. Later I will get more sophisticated about cool, warm, etc. I appreciate your support.

[Chester]

For me, it is not just the color. In the shop, I am measuring, marking and cutting. I need brightness and the higher numbers just seem brighter ... almost like I have more tubes lit.

Chester

[DeanJackson]

I recently read an article that said that a workshop should have 2-watts per square foot. Maybe there is something in this formula that considers ceiling height? I am not sure but my ceiling height is rather low. This brings the lights closer to the work surfaces. I think If I were to approach 2-watts/sq. ft. ... I would need to wear sunglasses.

when they say "2 watts per square foot", do they mean incandescent, LED, fluorescent, halogen, etc? A 100 watt LED can probably do light welding, while a 100 watt incandescent can *maybe* cook an egg on a good day.

[Vic]

When they say watts/ sq ft, they're referring to efficacy of lumens/watts/sq ft. Building Code has defined parameters of how much light is required for any given space. For instance, an office requires more lumens than a warehouse. In addition to safety building codes, states have energy codes. This is where the efficacy comes into the equation. We are required to use higher efficiency fixtures (lamp/ballast combinations). For the lighting programs I run at work, a lamp/ballast combination must deliver at least 94 lumens/watt.

[Chester]

When they say watts/ sq ft, they're referring to efficacy of lumens/watts/sq ft. Building Code has defined parameters of how much light is required for any given space. For instance, an office requires more lumens than a warehouse. In addition to safety building codes, states have energy codes. This is where the efficacy comes into the equation. We are required to use higher efficiency fixtures (lamp/ballast combinations). For the lighting programs I run at work, a lamp/ballast combination must deliver at least 94 lumens/watt.

Thanks for taking that one ...

[MikeMc]

If it doesnt look like the end scene in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind then it is not enough!!

[NotAShakerMaker]

Compact florescent lights have caught my fancy. Prior to my move, my old shop was 2,000 sq. ft. with 10 ft. ceilings. I was experimenting with using a combination of 105 watt CFL's with 5,000k and 42 watt CFL's with 6500k day light bulbs as fill lighting. I bought the bulbs by the case at www.1000bulbs.com.

Why did I try the huge CFL's? Cheap! The large CFL's have a regular base and some have mogul bases, but you can buy adapters. A porcelain socket costs around $5.00. If I needed a shield for the bulbs, I just bought the cheapest wire or clear waste paper cans I could find at Target, the Container store or Goodwill. These bulbs put out amazing light and just flooded the area. My shop was unheated in the winter, which in San Francisco wasn't much different than the summer, but these bulbs worked well, as the temps never got below 38-40*. Humidity and dampness didn't seem to bother the performance of the bulbs.

The Phil Bumbalough has a very good website on his journey to build the best workshop he could, and he used the same bulbs and ideas. See his website at http://benchmark.20m.com/workshop/NewShopBuild/NewShop_Index.html

Mark

[lighthearted]

I dare say that I am probably the only lighting designer in the guild (thus the name lighthearted). That said I'd like to point out a few more essential and emotional points of lighting.

Agreed--you guys really are well informed when it comes to the technical end of lighting. So I won't go on about the lumens & color temperature,etc. that has already been very well explained.

The first thing I would say is that safety is the most important concern, especially with power tools. You need sufficient light in order to see your cuts, and this becomes even more of a concern for the mature woodworkers.

Our eyes are the most amazing tool available, and they adjust for so many conditions. Our iris opens up when we need more light and it closes up when the light is too bright. In either of these cases, our eyes can become tired and strained--both by too much or too little light. They're just working too hard to keep send just the right amount of info to our brain. The other amazing thing our eyes & brain can do is adjust the color temperature. Our brain needs to find a "Reference White". Stand in green room for a few minutes and your brain will eventually think the room is "white". It's called "Perceived Color". A fun game is to stand in a room lit with all green light for 5 minutes, then walk out into 'regular' light, your brain perceives the 'regular' light as pink, until it can adjust it's reference white. Pink is on the opposite end of the color wheel from green, BTW. And then there is the argument about what is white light and do we all see the same colors, but I digress!

For me, I have lit my shop with all incandescent bulbs. I cannot stand fluorescents, they have they're place, but for someone who analyzes light all day, I find the pulsing wavelengths and even the color options commonly available to be obnoxious. But to each his own--Really it's all perception! To me woodworking is a fine art. I much prefer the romantic warm glow of my incandescents over a blanket of cool light in my shop. Over my bench i built a fixture that contains six 60 watt lamps on a dimmer--that way I have the option for more light when I need it (and before someone says it--as a lighting designer it is a constant struggle between being energy efficient and using the right light for the job).

I guess the point I am trying to make is to make is to worry less about the lumens, Kelvin Temp and the technical stuff. Absolutely educate yourself so you know what you are buying, but every shop is different--some are basement shops with 6' ceilings and some are warehouses with 20' ceilings--each one is going to have different needs. And the point about the customers lighting cannot be overstated.

Consider your needs both essentially and emotionally.

-lighthearted

[Chester]

Lighthearted ...

Great posting! Of course, you must realize that your credentials give you immediate credibility.

I like the balance that your comments give to all of the science. Much of the science I am still trying to understand. I do understand Kelvin because its variations are so easily seen with the naked-eye. CRI is still a little nebulous to me. I guess I need a little hands on "show and tell" to understand CRI (I am "from Missouri" ... I really am).

But your counter-point to the numbers and the science is refreshing. I think that you are saying, "do what you like in your own shop." After so many years with four bare-bulb incandescents, I really like the 6500K T8 tubes that I recently installed. But I have an unpainted, all-wood shop ... floors, walls and ceiling.

I am a little freaked out today. Our county woodworkers Guild is meeting tonight and I am in charge of getting topics and speakers. I had a commitment from our Home Depot to send the head of their Lighting Dept. to speak to us about ... Lighting. Last night I got a call from the Asst. Mgr. at HD and they had to cancel because of a family situation. Yikes! Now I am going to have to try and put on a presentation on lighting ... like I really know something. Lighthearted ... I wish that you and Vic would be there tonight to back me up. Hopefully, I can just start it out and let the guys in the Guild take over with stories of their shops and their experiences.

Chester

[bywc]

Kinda wild really all the technical side of lighting I guess i am just old school the way I judge lighting is can I see what I am doing? if the answer is no then add more lights if the answer is yes then move on to more important things,Its a work shop not a photo studio my shop has one 2 bulb fluorescent light and the rest of the light just comes in threw the open doors.

I understand the need to have enough lighting to safely see what you are doing but really do I need my workshop to look like some professional movie set?

I have heard about the staining aspect/color matching associated with the correct amount of lighting and special "natural light" bulbs and all this jive,honestly how many living rooms do you see where people have eight 4 tube strip lights?

every home i have ever been in use regular bulbs one on the ceiling and maybe a lamp and some natural light coming in from outside.

The things I build are not going to live in a photo studio or a movie set where you can get a sun tan from all the light bulbs.

While I respect the fact that people seem to get caught up in making their shop as bright as a nuke flash I have to wonder if it is just another case of the moon isnt in alignment so my dovetails wont fit.

Some of the greatest pieces of furniture ever built were built by candle light and sun light coming threw windows when you look back at these workshops and the amazing pieces of work that come out of them I am left wondering why in today's idea of a workshop people feel a need to turn a workshop into this gallery photo of what a workshop should be when the roots of this craft is simple function over form.

I remember hearing a podcast that talked about a topic like this and I will remember a quote that hit it on the head.

"The person using the tools builds a piece not the workshop the tools are sitting in,It seems today people have two hobbies at the same time one is being a woodworker and the other is building this picture perfect workshop that really does nothing to improve the first."

So for me K.I.S.S rings true Does it work? Yes. Then lets make some saw dust now im sure im going to get slammed left and right for my opinion but ah well its just my two cents and in today's economy it wont buy nothing lol so keep it simple and just enjoy the craft anyway you can.

[Chester]

Paul -

I agree with you ... whatever works for you in your shop! My only real excitement about lighting is that 6-weeks ago, I didn't know anything about the current choices or how many there were. I didn't even know what T8 or T12 meant. When I mounted my first 2-tube T8 fixture and installed the 6500K tubes, I was blown-away by how much light it was (compared to my previous "prison-cell" bare-bulb incandescent). Then I stood to the end of my shop, where I could see the new lighting in the same line of sight as a ceiling fixture with a CFL (compact fluorescent light) screwed into it. I used these because they were supposed to be better with the energy consumption. But there was always something about them that I found repressive ... or even de-pressive.

When I saw my new T8's in the same line of sight with one of these 2700K CFL's, I realized the problem. For me, the very yellow color of the 2700K CFL was unpleasant (to say the least). I really like my really-white 6500K T8's ... for me in my shop. Again, for me, the excitement is in finally starting to understand the choices that are currently available.

Chester

PS - I also got to learn how to bend conduit!

[bywc]

man last time I bent conduit I had to redo almost the whole thing cause I couldn't feed nothing threw lol I tell ya tho it got me to thinking after I headed out to the shop today I have astigmatism in both eyes and am suppose to wear glasses but they drive me nuts so I just deal with and I got to thinking maybe the reason it doesn't bother me is I walk around in a blurry world anyway because when I put my glasses on for the first time in years it was amazing how clear things were so i am starting to think maybe its the same with lighting as you said you notice the difference it may just be a case of I cant miss good lighting because I have never had it lol

[lighthearted]

Chester-best of luck tonight! That's no easy task no matter what the subject. Let us know how you make out.

I do enjoy listening to everyone talk about light. You have no idea how few people actually understand lighting or are able to articulate what they see.

Again I say--what ever makes you comfortable--go for it.

[Vic]

Chester-best of luck tonight! That's no easy task no matter what the subject. Let us know how you make out.

I do enjoy listening to everyone talk about light. You have no idea how few people actually understand lighting or are able to articulate what they see.

Again I say--what ever makes you comfortable--go for it.

Hoard those incandescents. They wont be available in a couple years. I've been stocking up on them for the finishing area, as nothing compares in CRI. I hate being told what I HAVE to buy.