My Turn - The Mega Dream Garage

[Hugh Heifer]

Garage Plan Ideas

Your garage looks awesome. If you have lots of stuff, overhead storage is handy. As you can see from light placement storage was an afterthought for me.:slap: Big drains were a must. 40 hubcap for size reference:beer: Plastic cover lasted 10 years. Recently sliced up an improved...

forum.ih8mud.com

I still use a headlamp at times to get enough light. You cannot have too much

I see how that is a problem there. I built that mez so obviously will be hanging lights under there. I have a bunch of those drop ceiling florescent fixtures I removed from my basement. (5 or 6 4 footers) Was considering changing them to LED for under the mez.

 

[BMThiker]

ACC converted all the old 4' fluor fixtures to LED tubes - all suspended from the truss system. More recently they added some smaller LED rectangular fixtures (15"x20"?) much lower, kind of between the fixed bays in the shop. These throw some great light, but one complaint is when under the vehicles it's easy to get blinded because of how low they are suspended.

If it were me, I'd start with the fixtures just below the trusses and supplement after you have worked in there for some time.

 

[Hugh Heifer]

I got home late but the HF jackhammer made quick work of the obstacle. It is about 8x10 inches deep.

Have to finish the trench. Electrician is coming monday afternoon to run the main.

 

[PIP]

About a decade ago I was at this big machine shop auction and they get to a lot that didn't really belong there- a big jackhammer. Nobody bids on this thing so I raise my hand and yell "Five Dollars". And that's how I come to have this huge Komatsu jackhammer and a pile of bits sitting under a shelf. It may only come out once every couple years, but when it does, it sure is handy!

 

[Hugh Heifer]

About a decade ago I was at this big machine shop auction and they get to a lot that didn't really belong there- a big jackhammer. Nobody bids on this thing so I raise my hand and yell "Five Dollars". And that's how I come to have this huge Komatsu jackhammer and a pile of bits sitting under a shelf. It may only come out once every couple years, but when it does, it sure is handy!

I paid a few more buck than you but it has been handy.

 

[jynx]

With as much rock as we have around the house, I feel like I need to look into one of those jewels

 

[Hugh Heifer]

With as much rock as we have around the house, I feel like I need to look into one of those jewels

You know it has been a great investment

 

[1911]

How much was that Horrible Fright one if you don't mind me asking? I've rented one twice from Home Depot, to break holes in limestone for an antenna tower base, planting trees, etc. When you need one, you really need one.

Edited: Never mind, I looked it up on their web site. It only cost me ~ $100 to rent one from HD. I'm sure it would eventually pay for itself; maybe next time.

 

[davegonz]

The ones that you can rent from HD are Hilti and are really nice.

 

[Hugh Heifer]

How much was that Horrible Fright one if you don't mind me asking? I've rented one twice from Home Depot, to break holes in limestone for an antenna tower base, planting trees, etc. When you need one, you really need one.

Edited: Never mind, I looked it up on their web site. It only cost me ~ $100 to rent one from HD. I'm sure it would eventually pay for itself; maybe next time.

I have used mine a lot. Look at the beginning of the thread. I started demoing a lot of the concrete that was in the way with this little thing until I had a window to get something bigger.

 

[Hugh Heifer]

I have power!
I forgot to take a pic of the wire in the ditch before I filled it but that's just too bad.
I spent the evening on the Kubota filling the ditch so no pics yet.
Electrician (whom I trust and does side jobs) that works at a large local manufacturer ran the cabling from the exhisting power source/meter in my little one car garage to the building and put 3 20 am circuits in to get me going.
This is the guy who says he has these bad azz lights he think I should use.
Regarding that, he told me he would send me over the specs tomorrow when he is at work where he has access to the lights.

 

[Michael B]

Congratulations!

 

[jynx]

Congregations, what size wire did you go with and did you do direct bury or in conduit? Also, I may have missed it, but you doing a 100A panel or less?

 

[Hugh Heifer]

Congregations, what size wire did you go with and did you do direct bury or in conduit? Also, I may have missed it, but you doing a 100A panel or less?

125 amp to keep in the realm of code for the ag building.
Direct bury.
I actually did not think to ask him about the wire size. (It was bigger than my thumb ) I will do so. You will need larger if you go off your house as your run is probably 10 times mine or more. Edit: 2/0

 

[Hugh Heifer]

Here are the lights my guys is suggesting.
Based on achieving 50 fc (which based on my reading/research is an acceptable level and recommended standard for a commercial manufacturing/chemical or assembly facility [I may want 60 though since I may do some painting]) I will need to do further research to determine the number of lights I actually will need.
The calculator linked earlier does not have Topaz as an option so I will need to try to either find a calculator that does or find a similar light that officer 20,000 lumen to determine the number and placement. These lights are about $125 each I am told so even if I needed 10 it would not break the bank.

It looks like theirs are at nearly 20 feet maybe. I would think that you really need to have your work plane match the diffusion of the light otherwise you may be wasting energy because extra light is cast lower than necessary or the "bubble" does not fully expand before hitting your work plane - or even your floor.

Who knew this would be so complicated. Residential is easy compared to this since most ceilings are 8 feet or just a little more and we generally make up lack of light by a bigger bulb in a fixture or adding a lamp somewhere.

 

[PAToyota]

They put up similar at the shop I work at part time. They do put out a lot of light, but the downside of that is that you space them further apart and then get shadows everywhere.

In my own shop I upgraded the 8' F96T12HO fluorescent fixtures I put in nearly 25 years ago with 8' LED ballast bypass bulbs. You can see my update about them here: Workshop Extension and Updates - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/workshop-extension-and-updates.645983/page-9#post-13267021

They don't put out nearly as much light as the "UFO" fixtures (as the ones above are called), but with less light and spaced more closely they give an even, bright light.

 

[Hugh Heifer]

Bingo. Found it on their website. (Had to give them my spam email.)

Luxiflux Zonal

Luxiflux Zonal Cavity Calculator

v1-zonal-tools.luxiflux.com

Accordingly, 6 lights will give me 61 FC hung at 1.5 feet. (I am not sure how to figure out reflectance of walls and ceiling without a meter.)
So I am likely going to go with 5 lights with some 4 foot fixtures under the mez above my work benches. Next issue to consider is the interference with the future lift. Raising a vehicle will certainly not hit the light regardless of the type of vehicle because a lift prevents something like an SUV from going up too far but it would definitely block the light.

 

[Hugh Heifer]

@PAToyota - Thanks for the link. As I look at the various configurations I am seeing how there could be issues with shadows.

 

[PAToyota]

It also helps to have the ceiling and (at least) upper walls be a light color to reflect light and spread it around more.

 

[PIP]

They put up similar at the shop I work at part time. They do put out a lot of light, but the downside of that is that you space them further apart and then get shadows everywhere.

In my own shop I upgraded the 8' F96T12HO fluorescent fixtures I put in nearly 25 years ago with 8' LED ballast bypass bulbs. You can see my update about them here: Workshop Extension and Updates - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/workshop-extension-and-updates.645983/page-9#post-13267021

They don't put out nearly as much light as the "UFO" fixtures (as the ones above are called), but with less light and spaced more closely they give an even, bright light.

I went a similar route in my shop. I used 40 4 bulb T5 industrial fixtures and stuffed them with ballast delete LED tubes. They work super in most of the building with 20' celing height, but I did use 8 in an area with 12' ceilings and they are very bright when spaced close enough together to eliminate shadows.