Shop lighting Options

[LCHIEN]

Says something about labor rates, too, when it's cheaper to hand stuff a through-hole board that machine assemble a surface mount board. I can't remember the last time I saw a board like the ones in your photo.

Cookie sheet PCBs. They are perforated by drilling a series of holes, then just snapped apart by hand, like a saltine cracker. Note the holes in the PCB are all the same size. Some of the components have leads more than twice as big as others - compare the black diode to the capacitor and three-legged transistor. On commercial/industrial quality stuff, you make holes about 5 thousands to 10 thousandsths oversize of the lead for proper fit and soldering quality (don't have to bridge large gaps and risk cold solder joints). Not here, one size fits all so no drill change (saves a couple of cents but reduces reliability).

Finally you have to realize these are probably 10 years old... back then the chinese frequently did take home work - they'd give a worker a bucket of parts and empty boards they worked at home by candlelight and brought back the parts the next day, paid by the piece. Needless to say supervision and quality control in such a situation is non-existent and the work is done as fast as possible w/o regard for quality. OTOH, the work is done dirt cheap because of the super-low overhead, you don't even have to have a factory or pay utilities.

I just bought some lights from Lowes - Utilitech. I don't want to open them up and see whats inside. But I'll bet its now surface mount - no more hand placed individually soldered components. Move the labor from soldering to feeding the machines and assembling the housings. THat should increase quality a little and at least have the stuff done in a controllable area.

I guess i'm going to roll the dice with Utilitech. The next option is three times as much and I really don't know if its better or not. I''m looking at 5 fixtures so 30 dollars more per fixture is a lot.

[LCHIEN]

So I couldn't stand it, I took the new one apart.
THis one has a ballast that's wired in (first picture). Mostly push-in connectors in the main fixture. The workmanship of the electronics is hidden in the ballast but the end of the PC board where the AC power connects is showing (5th picture) and it doesn't look all that great. There's a blob of solder at J1 which is supposed to be a connection and then a big blob of accidental solder splash next to it (bad quality control- could break loose and short something out, I popped it off). Cheap substrate material and not cleaned up too well but at least its not cookie cuttered.

[Tom Slick]

I wouldn't bother converting those fixtures, neither is worth keeping. I was basing my advice on fixtures that are good enough to keep.

[cwsmith]

Thanks Loring,

No doubt you are correct. These particular fixtures are sort of snap-together components it appears. I've not taken one of them apart as you have. The ballasts are FCC and SA approved and I get no buzzing whatsoever. That's important to me as I have my shortwave equipment right here in the shop. The old fixtures were extremely noisey, both audible and RF.

The one light that did fail was on an old circuit in the laundry room, which I replaced. (All old armoured cable from the 30's.) Here in the shop, the lights are one two different circuits, and the laundry room is on a third.

While this house was built in 1887, almost all of the circuits are new. One exception being the stair lighting from the foyer to the second floor. I'd like to get that replaced later this year.

We put three new 4-bulb fixtures (all T-8) in the kitchen when I remodeled it seven years ago. All were expensive fixtures at about $75 a piece. Every single one of them have had to have their ballasts replaced last year. Each one failing individually about a month apart from each other... two on one circuit and the other on its own. All were consumer grade and I replaced them with commercial grade.

I'm of the impression that bad lighting can be had at every price.

Thanks,

CWS

[LCHIEN]

Final report
I replaced the half bad T12 fixture with a $18 T12 fixture and $9 in new lamps.
I got daylight because of all the recommendations here instead of cool white, my other lamps are cool white and I will have to change them over time.

I have a light meter I got from eBay awhile back, for these kinds of things. I've evaluated new bulb types in the house as well as tennis court lighting.

Lamps are rated in Lumens, light meters measure in Lux, that's because lumes measure output whereas Lux defines the amount of light hitting an area. The lamp always emits say 1000 lumens but at a distance the meter reads 500 lux and at twice the distance it should measure 125 lux.

Lumens is the total light output and it may have a distribution that varies by angle. If you double the lumens and the distribution is the same, the lux will always double.

My lights are all suspended on chains about 6 inches below the ceiling joists.

So, at my table saw surface about 38 inches high the light measures 550 lux. I installed a fixture over my router table where previously it had been lit from fixtures to either side. The light increased from 250 to 540 lux at the router table (also 38 inches high).

My miter station measured about 280 at the miter saw tabletop - but at 38 inches off the floor it measured 550 lux... the lower light reading was because the surface is so low.

My Jointer measured 400 lux, its worksurface sitting a little lower than the TS but higher than the MS.

I have two tools with task lighting.
My DP has a builtin light, with it off, 186 lux, with it on 1200-1600 depending upon where I set the height of the table.

Similar for the Bandsaw, 286 at the saw, but 1370 with the task light on.

For comparison, outside this afternoon, overcast skies, no sun was about 3000 lux.

In the kitchen I have 9 foot ceilings and recessed canister lights. With the Sylvania double life BR40 65 W floodlight bulbs they throw about 150-170 lux.

Reasonably good recreational tennis courts got about 300-500 lux from new bulbs. When the quartz halogens get old, they drop to about half that. After that they begin to cycle on and off, if you've ever noticed street lamps doing that.

[lrr]

Loring -- I experienced the same problems with my Home Depot $7.99 2-tube fixtures -- one of the tubes flickers. If I swapped the two tubes, the same position flickers. They look identical to your fixtures. I've thrown out two in the past week. But I must admit, your shop sounded very "underlit". In my ~400 square foot shop I have 3 ea. 3-tube T8 fixtures (troffers), and 6 ea. 2-tube T12 fixtures (was 8 before I tossed the 2 bad units). I also have 4 clamp-on reflector style task lights with LED A19 bulbs. My shop has the basement escape window, so I do get a little natural light during the day, but not a huge amount. I agree with the previous poster that said you get used to having more light. I also have pretty even lighting, and no real dim or dark places anywhere.

I got about 6 of the 3 tube T8 fluorescent troffers free about a year ago, and slowly putting them in my shop. My shop ceiling is not sheet-rocked, so I mounted them directly to the exposed joists. These make really nice shop lights. I will install the rest of them pretty soon as replacements for the older T8 fixtures.

I worked for an LED lighting company a few years ago, and I immediately gravitated to the Daylight (~5000K) color temperature LED bulbs for home use. But the USA has a lot of soft white lamps and many people are slow to change. Our local Walmart was carrying both soft white and daylight LED lamps and now only carries soft white. I'm guessing some people bought both types since they were not very well marked, and then got irritated when they used them and had several different looking light sources. Home Depot is one of the few places where I've seen a choice, and actual displays showing the difference in color temps for LED lamps, as well as fluorescent tubes.

I am slowly replacing my warm or cool white tubes with daylight tubes as they start to go out. I hate having a mix but it is tough to justify replacing them all at once.

[LCHIEN]

OK all you light experts:


According to the Cool white new T12 I have unused, their output is around 3000 lumens.
THe Daylight T8 I got were marked as 2600 lumens.

First Question: Are daylight bulbs less efficient in terms of lumens for the same power?

I would think that the light directly under each would be about the same or the T8 Daylights a little worse. (3000 vs 2600)
but the actual light directly under the old T12s is about 20-25% less than the output directly under the T8s - actually the reverse of what I was expecting.
Second question: Do Fluorescent tubes lose light output when they get older?

if that's the case maybe I should relamp or replace the T12s.

[capncarl]

I believe that t12 bulbs do loose light when old. I look at it a different way, these bulbs are 40w each x 2 bulbs per fixture, that is 80w, just how much light do you expect to get out of 80w? You can dance around all day talking about efficency, but you still have just 80 w working for you. And your eyes are not the same age as they use to be. It takes a lot of light to operate a safe woodworking shop. I try to make up for the shortcomings of my t12 fuxtures by keeping clean fixtures and bulbs and adding more fixtures.
capncarl

[LCHIEN]

Some suggestions for light levels in various areas. The first one says 300-750 lux for woodworking shop
http://www.leoindustries.com/light_l...mendations.php

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/li...oms-d_708.html

http://www.pilux-danpex.gr/downloads...t_LevelsEN.pdf

http://www.ultraluxlight.com/suggest...ht_levels.html (in FC, lux = 10.7 x FC)

this article has good information about light measurements in general and comfortable levels for working
http://sustainabilityworkshop.autode...g-light-levels


In general I see about suggestions for 300-750 lumens for workshops with moderate acuity levels and 750-1000 lumens for detailed work.

I think I currently meet that with overhead lighting (large area) 500-600 lumens at the table saw and router, and task lighting providing 1000+ at the drill press and band saw where you want to focus on a small area around the bit or blade.
I 'm thinking about if I need more for the miter saw and jointer areas. It may be enough to just relamp the old fixture there.

P.S. New lamps helped by about 10-20%. I replace one (T12) tube first and it was dimmer (but it was 43 degrees in the shop) but visibly brighter than the old tube after warming up...

[dbhost]

Just for a frame of reference Loring, my shop is somewhat, but not a lot smaller than yours. I have 7 2 tube T12 fixtures with daylight white bulbs. All but one of the fixtures is close to the ceiling, and evenly spaced, 2' in from the sidewalls, then 4' in from the end walls, and then 2 in the middle. The remaining fixture isn't presently in use, but is ready to be reinstalled / used over the table saw hanging on a chain. That one is there to put as much light as possible on the blade...

With the lighting I have, I occasionally wish I had more light in there. Not general area lighting, but more task specific lighting to overcome shadows created usually by me being between the light source and my work piece. Particularly on the band saw.

I am thinking about picking up a couple of the magnetic base goose neck lamps like the one Rockler sells http://www.rockler.com/magtite-base-work-light one for the band saw, one for the lathe. Everything else has excellent light on it...

[LCHIEN]

well, I now have 6, 2-tube 48" fixtures. About the same as yours.

Consider, If you can spare the headroom, lowering the fixtures 12 more inches can increase the light about 50% at your worksurface...

[lrr]

OK all you light experts:


According to the Cool white new T12 I have unused, their output is around 3000 lumens.
THe Daylight T8 I got were marked as 2600 lumens.

First Question: Are daylight bulbs less efficient in terms of lumens for the same power?

Check the power rating of your T8s. Mine are rated 32W, and my T12s are 40W. There is your difference in lumens, most likely. I have not done a lot od research (OK, I've done none), but I just feel that investing in T12s is not money well spent. I think T12s will go the way of incandescents, so I see no reason to invest any further in T12 fixtures. However, I am viewing T8s as temporary lighting for my shop, since it still is relatively inexpensive.

I am removing an old track light fixture when we remodel our family room, and that track light with 6 big heads (PAR30) is going to my shop, retrofitted with LED lamps. I see a mixture of T8 and LED until LED is cheap enough to completely replace the fluorescents. But I may be too old to see that pricing reality in my lifetime.

[LCHIEN]

T8s use less power, they are a more efficient design, presumably they output about the same amount of light or more to be more efficient.

I was asking if, in a given technology, e.g. T8, whether you get more or less light comparing Daylight to cool white flavors (color temperature).

[lrr]

http://www.luxadd.com/index.php/ener...-lighting.html

The above link shows the following:
T5 produce about 100lm/W
T8 produce about 80 lm/W
T12 produce about 70lm/W

No info was given for type of lamp (color temp), but assuming they refer to one type across the board, or an "average" phosphor composition, a T8 will produce less light than a T12. (Nominal T8 output would be 2460lm for 32W, and a T12 would be 2800lm for 40W. This is not to far off the values I see on packages of T8s and T12s I have.)

An old report from 1998:
http://www.electrochem.org/dl/interf...-Page28-31.pdf

On page 28, the report says T12 cool whites produce 3050 lumens, for an efficacy of 76 lm/W. A little different from the above report, but not dramatic. The interesting piece of data is the statement that "deluxe" lamps have a lower efficacy of around 50lm/W. Hard to know if this translates to "daylight", but might be indicative that daylight lamps are less efficient than cool white.

Frankly, I started dozing off trying to read any more of this report. I figure, why worry about efficiency -- I am going to buy the lighting I like and not worry about all the CRIs, efficacies, and ballast designs. And hopefully transition from fluorescents to LEDs and be done with it. At least until some new lighting technology comes along that promises better light, lower power consumption, and lifespans meaning you put the lamps in your will, to be distributed to family upon your passing.

I wonder what color temperature that bright light I'll see at my passing will be? I hope it is at least 5000K, but I'd be happy with anything over 4100K...

[dbhost]

well, I now have 6, 2-tube 48" fixtures. About the same as yours.

Consider, If you can spare the headroom, lowering the fixtures 12 more inches can increase the light about 50% at your worksurface...

I seriously doubt I can get a full 12" of clearance, but I might be able to squeeze 6" before the overhead doors become a problem.

I will probably be lazy on this for a little, but VERY little while I need to do some work to the framing around the attic stairs (The idiot contractor that built my house REALLY screwed that up...) and patch that area of sheet rock. I can then finish painting the ceiling in the shop which is about the time I was planning on changing light fixtures out, or at least ballasts / bulb holders as my Leviton fixtures are pretty standard. I think financially though, new fixtures would put me money ahead...

T5 looks interesting, however I have yet to see T5 fixtures, or bulbs available anywhere, perhaps that will change before I am ready to change fixtures, who knows?