Lighting for a workshop

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Richard65

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Either will work, the led panels have gained quite a following here and elsewhere.

I'm a tight pipper and I like to experiment so I made my own boxes 800x400x80mm, painted them white then installed 5m of sticky LED strip inside each one. The diffuser material is low profile wriggly opaque plastic roofing from Wickes.

I made four units for less than £60, probably not a lot cheaper then bought units but like I said, I like to experiment.

Rough comparison photo with and without. More photos/details/videos on my Instagram feed.
lights.JPG
 

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Only had a quick look, but those tubes look a touch pricey.
I kitted my garage workshop out from this place - https://www.ledhut.co.uk/commercial-led ... tings.html

They're a little on the cheap side, but work really well. I have a single-car garage and only fitted two little 2' tubes above the bench, with a third above the table opposite, but already they're bright enough for me to do most things. Bigger ones, or full-on panels (I'd guess 6-8 of those), will do great.

They're easy to wire up, so if you leave space for expansion you can always add more in afterward!
 
When we had the house built a couple years ago I had the shop placed above the 2 car garage. It is equal to 59 square meters and I have 64,000 lumens of light in it from 16 fixtures in 4 rows of 4 . Your shop would have to have 45,560 to have the same level of illumination or 11 or 12 of the same fixtures. I went by a recommendation in an article that said 100 foot candles per square foot. I think that converts to about 1,100 ish lumens per square meter maybe a little more. The lights I bought were through Alibaba and ended up costing about half to a third of what I could find here at the time. I selected a company that had the proper electrical certification for Canada/US (not all have certs for the county you live in) and it was an easy transaction taking about 2 weeks to arrive at my door after paying. It is something you can consider when you're shopping around.

Pete
 

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Richard65":37d1na0f said:
I have a workshop 7m by 6m in size and I want to put in decent lighting. I am thinking of putting in LED panels, something like this (https://www.lightrabbit.co.uk/catalog/p ... -x-595-mm/ ) or is it better to go for a LED strip light, something like this ( https://www.simplyled.co.uk/product/pho ... gency-kit/).

Whichever system you recommend can you say how many you would fit in the size I have.

Thanks

My experience, I first installed a 4ft led florescent over my workbench which cost about €100 (OK but not overly impressed, especially the price!). I since got a 600x600 led panel for directly over my lathe which only cost €45, much better light, only 18w but 5000K. I was idealy looking for 6000K for more light but the one I have is great. Very slim, about 10mm thick. Made a frame to fix to the roof, they are designed for shop fitting ceilings.
 
Be prepared to make your own frames for fitting to the ceiling and also to include the driver/power unit. I got caught out by that for a few minutes. The odd thing is that the seller of mine sold the frames for fitting at 1.5 times the price of the light units.
 

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