workshop lighting

[rusty69bus]

what lighting to have in a workshop, i have a approx 20' hight workshop which has no lighting at the minute.
an electrician has said to fit a 250w low bay light, i was thinking say four fluoro's at 58w each thats 232w but apparently the low bay light would give better light is the power cosumption rate the same??

which would be cheaper to run

 

[rtbcomp]

The power consumption is the wattage, so the figures speak for themselves. If you pay 12p per Kw/hr the 250 watt light will cost 3p per hour, the 232 watt setup 2.78 p/hr.

I'm not familiar with low bay lighting, but I'd prefer multiple lights to reduce shadowing, and if one blows you've still got some lights left!

 

[Damaged]

If you go for low bay lighting, specify metal halide not sodium.

Most sodium lamps give off a god awful yellow light, not good to work under.

HTH's

Mick.

 

[Sparkey]

Don't bother, i'd go for the fluoro! that's already easier (and cheaper) to install!
Low bay uses a lot of power when starting up.....oh yeah, those yellow sodium are the worst!! gives very weird yellowish light, horrible!!
We have the fluoro tubes all over our factory (including the welding booths) works a treat!
One thing i have to say is: keep the tubes and the shield thinghy behind it clean!! that really improves the light!

 

[rusty69bus]

aparently it will be a white light so i'm guessing it's HTH i'll to find out about the start up power consumption. if needed i will have seperate fluoro lights on stands (two 5ft) so i can direct light underneath.

 

[Hitch]

We have low bay lights (the white ones) for the majority of the workshop, then flouros around the edges where a bit extra is normally needed.

The low bay lights take 5 mins+ to warm up before they give a decent light. Ideal if you fire them up at 7 and keep them on till 6. Not ideal if you turn them on and off every 5 mins.

 

[rusty69bus]

yes been told 'don't switch them off if you need on again straight away as theres a cooling down,fire up period'

 

[SC_BK]

What about the light fittings that take this type of "bulb"

You probably get different types but most seem to give off a nice white light. I know they do them for industrial/outdoor use in a tough casing

 

[shenion]

If you are going with fluorescent lights, get theones with electronic ballasts. They start quick, don't buzz and have far less flicker.

Add to that they are more efficient. Wort the added cost in the long run.

 

[jugs]

what lighting to have in a workshop, i have a approx 20' hight workshop which has no lighting at the minute.
an electrician has said to fit a 250w low bay light, i was thinking say four fluoro's at 58w each thats 232w but apparently the low bay light would give better light is the power cosumption rate the same??

which would be cheaper to run

NB this is confirming some info already given in this thread.
Just to confuse things, with lowbays you get 2 different lighting effects for the same energy, but with fluorescent, 2 different energy consumptions for similar lighting effects.

NEVER USE A SINGLE LOW-BAY UNIT IN A WORKSHOP without other lighting
- if a lamp fails you're in darkness
- you can't restart this type of lamp for about 5 mins
- you'll get shadows, dark corners and glare.

[On a general note, for workshops as has been said, NO to SON (=yellow light), BETTER metal halide (=white light)]


Energy consumption for lowbays - = 250w for lamp + 35w for gear = 285w / fitting.


USE FLUORESCENTS - to avoid all above problems.

Advantages of fluorescent:-
Cheap to buy & maintain,
Good light distrubution,
No single point fail,

Fluorescents come in 2 types
1. Standard switch-start, with a removeable starter (which goes in the side of the fitting)
2. HF (=high frequency) sometimes called electronic (not to be confused with electronic switchstart) They use the same tubes, but do it more efficiently (hence the weird energy figures shown below)

Energy consumption for fluorescent -
1- 5' Std Switchstart 58w for lamp + 15w for gear = 73w / tube
2- 5' HF 50w (58v tube)for lamp + 3w for gear = 53w / tube.

Extra advantages of HF
No flicker (important if you have rotating machines, lathes,mills etc)
Cheaper to run, although more expensive to buy.

So to answer your Q - 4 x 5' HF is cheaper to run cos...

5' Std Switchstart 58w is 4x 73 = 292w
5' HF 50w is 4x 53 = 212w
Lowbay = 285w

When buying fluorescent fittings:-
-get singles NOT twins (you get more available light / watt)
-Always fit reflectors, & get (40 % with white, or 70 % with Specular (silver)) extra useable light FREE !

The best & most cost efective way of lighting any area is to give low level general (waking around) light, suplimented by local switched task lighting, with fittings using low energy lamps like the one (2D) shown by SCBK.

Hope this helps. What size is your Workshop? Is it as big as this post ? (it just grow'd)
Regards jugs

 

[madkayaker]

I know this in a old topic but if you use rotary machinery you cannot use only low frequency floros as they flicker at the same rate as rotor machinery and cause stroba tropic effect (its in the wiring regs BS7871). Low bays very good for general lighting then high freqancy lighting for task lighting. A couple of flood emergancvy lights a good idea as well on the same circuit/s as the low bays

 

[hareng]

Learn something new every day
So if a business was using a fluro to operate two millers, lumsden grinder and a lathe, what would the out come be?
Different to home users.

 

[madkayaker]

If low frequency fluro's it should fail a periodic on the wiring and could cause liability issues in case of claim etc. The easiest way to tell if they are low Hz is if they have a starter they are and if there isn't there high Hz. High Hz might cause issues if inverter drives used that's been an topic of much discussed in staff room at work this week but we think that the Hz on the light is much higher than the Hz you could obtain from inverter drive. On 3PH the issue is made worse by the lighting all being on the same phase.

 

[Luke]

High Hz might cause issues if inverter drives used that's been an topic of much discussed in staff room at work this week but we think that the Hz on the light is much higher than the Hz you could obtain from inverter drive.

If it's any use, the maximum output frequency our inverters kick out is 650 Hz

 

[madkayaker]

We looked on RS and the most we could find is about that mark. From reading some info from a couple of light manufacturers we recon high Hz lights are about 10,000Hz! so plenty of difference. It might be possible for them to get sufficiently in sinc e.g. multiples of 650Hz etc but that's unlikely and i don't know if the eye would pick that up (Probably not)

 

[mileshc]

Jugs that was brilliant.

Another advantage of HF is usually greater tube life, & if seeing colours correctly is important, "colour rendering" or RA then look at Tri-Phosphor tubes.

They are readily available in a variety of colour temperatures (Kelvin), i.e. bluish White (4000K), warm white(2300K), North light (for artists), there are even ones optimised for selling meat, yes Meat, hmm..

Cheers.

 

[madkayaker]

The T5 tubes last 33% longer than a standard