Thread: The Shed Extension

I can vouch for that statement!!!

Also just found this....Kryn this is excellent, enjoy the additional space

Coming along nicely Kryn. Let`s see how long it takes you to not overstock the space!

When my workshop was a garage and had nothing in it I drove a car in turned it around and drove out. Now it is too small and I would love to extend it but can't justify the thick end of $100,000 to do it. Kryn, you will get many hours of work done in there and enjoy all of of them, good things come to those who wait.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

When my workshop was a garage and had nothing in it I drove a car in turned it around and drove out.

Thanks for the comments everyone. Been nearly a year since the start of it all.
I used to know someone that could do that in a double garage, a Mini with handbrake U turns.
Hopefully tomorrow night I'll be able to start moving stuff around/in and get my carport back.
A Black vehicle gets HOT left in the sun.
Then the fun will begin, what GPO's and where?? They'll all be 4 sockets as I had double GPO's previously and kept running out of PPs. Only 2-3 at a time will be used though, Radio, that's on constantly, Lathe with a light and DE, or another power tool, all the power machinery will have a light installed, can't have enough lights, can we!!!! The grinder is fitted to the lathe as it's a Symtec.
For lighting, I'm planning on a single 1200mm LED on each side, 2 in each bay, making a total of 14 lights. Any thoughts on that, please?
Kryn

Run all power and light supplies in cable trays and put all lights on three pin outlets for convenient changes. Those LED troffers that Fletty linked to in his shed thread are the bees thingos and really good value. I bought four the other day for $185 dollars delivered. Putting the wire in trays means it is totally protected and can be accessed easily by pulling the front cover off, wires added or removed etc very easily. It also saves a heap of installation time for the sparky.

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

For lighting, I'm planning on a single 1200mm LED on each side, 2 in each bay, making a total of 14 lights. Any thoughts on that, please?
Kryn

If each tube outputs ~1200 lumens then 14 tube in 56 m^2 is approximately 300 lumens/m^2 which is unlikely to be enough especially for older people.
Engineering tool box recommends 750 lumens/m^2 for mechanical workshops, and from 1000 to 2000 lumens/m^2 for detailed work.

FWIW in my shed, for general lighting I have 19 tubes in 42 m^2 which is about 550 lumens/m^2 but find that is still not enough in some areas.

Placement of lighting is also important so I moved 3 of the pairs of the LED tubes used for general lighting directly above specific the MW and WW lathes and the main workbench.
I also have extra lighting (mostly LED spots) in selected places, eg in the welding bay, above the mill, above another bench etc.

Above my electronics workbench inside the house I have about 6000 lumens/m^2

I have more than 20, 2 socketed GPOs and started replacing those with 4 socketed GPOs but found even that not enough in some places so I've added 4, 6 or 8 way expander boards alongside 4 of the GPOs. You might as well just do this straight up.

Placement of the GPOs on walls is worth noting. If you lean any 1.2 x 2.4m sheet goods up against a wall then you don't want to be leaning them on a GPO. Unfortunately I put all mine at 1200 mm above the floor and have had to move 2 of them due to this problem.

Originally Posted by BobL

If each tube outputs ~1200 lumens then 14 tube in 56 m^2 is approximately 300 lumens/m^2 which is unlikely to be enough especially for older people.
Engineering tool box recommends 750 lumens/m^2 for mechanical workshops, and from 1000 to 2000 lumens/m^2 for detailed work.

FWIW in my shed, for general lighting I have 19 tubes in 42 m^2 which is about 550 lumens/m^2 but find that is still not enough in some areas........

Good Morning BobL

I have re-read your post and the Engineering ToolBox reference several times and I am still confused. Could you try to enlighten me, please?

In your above post you seem to quote the first paragraph of Reference:

Originally Posted by Engineering Tool Box

Recommended light levels - illuminance - for some types of working activities

Originally Posted by Engineering Tool Box

Light Level or Illuminance is the total luminous flux incident on a surface per unit area. The area - the work plane - is where the most important tasks in the room or space are performed.

Originally Posted by Engineering Tool Box

Illuminance can be expressed as

E = Φ / A (1)
where
E = illuminance (lm/m², lux)
Φ = luminous flux - the quantity of light emitted by a light source (lumen, lm)
A = area (m²)

If we apply this formular to my shed as presently configured we get the following:
Osram Lumilux 1200 mm T8 flouro rated at 3350 lumens per tube.
Six twin light panels = 12 tubes.
Total luminescence = 3350 x 12 = 40,200 lumens
Area of workshop = 7.6 x 4.1 metres = 31.16 m2
Average illuminance = 40,200 / 31.16 = 1,290.1 lumens/m2

But the actual lighting is dull and I do not think it is anything like 1,290 lm/m2; more like 200 or 300 maybe.

Intuition 1, this formular seems strange. My shed floor area is 31 m2, so is the area of a plane at bench height. The formular gives the same illuminance to both areas but, surely, the bench height plane which is closer to the light source is brighter??? Surely light attenuates with distance.

Intuition 2, this formular seems strange. The light from the fluoro tubes radiates 360 degrees whereas the formular seems to assume that it all radiates solely onto our measurement plane. It seems to me that:

• roughly one quarter of the luminance radiates downward as primary illumination on our work plane,
• roughly one quarter radiates towards the left and to the right walls (50% total) and only a very small percentage of that would be reflected as secondary lighting towards the work plane, and
• the remaining quarter would radiate upwards, some being absorbed and some being reflected back towards our work plane.

The other formular in the Engineering Tool Box reference seems to be of very limited value unless we have a simple and easy means of calculating C_u and L_LF:

Originally Posted by Engineering Tool Box

Illumination can be calculated as
I = L_l C_u L_LF / A_l

None is given in the reference.

Please be gentle Bob; remember that I am an economist and not an engineer.



Fair Winds

Graeme

Those numbers and calc are just BOTE (Back of the envelope) stuff since reflected light or lack of it can make a big difference

Your maths looks OK but what sort and how efficient are your reflectors on top of the tubes - this is less of problem for LEDs which emits light nearly all downwards in a restricted arc.

Also what sort of walls/ceiling do you have?
My walls are1/3rd silver (Miniorb) and 2/3rd white plaster board, and aluminized insulation on all of the ceiling.
My ceiling is also quite low, 2.7m max to 2.4 in one half of the shed and down to 2.2m in the other.
I have a lot of crap at ceiling height that also par blocked some of that reflected light.
The pairs of tubes above the MW and WW lathe and bench are at ~2.4m above the floor.
This makes a big difference to apparent illumination and calculating this all out gets difficult pretty quickly..

Thanks, Bob

My existing fluoros have the usual white powder coated "reflectors" which I assume are built for price, not effectiveness and walls are pink primer painted brick and estapolled VJ pine. All are good light absorbers. Really should re-paint but its such a big job.

Will just have to add more lights until it seems right, then do it again as my eyesight ages !

Point taken about those flat LED panels vs fluoros. But fluoros are free and enough panels to do shed would cost $780. And fluoro prices are still falling.

Incidentally, my sparky likes the flat panel LED's, but not the ones that look like fluoro tubes - says he has had a lot of customer complaints.


Cheers

Graeme

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Thanks, Bob
My existing fluoros have the usual white powder coated "reflectors" which I assume are built for price, not effectiveness and walls are pink primer painted brick and estapolled VJ pine. All are good light absorbers. Really should re-paint but its such a big job.

Yeah that's not going help and I agree its a big job.

Will just have to add more lights until it seems right, then do it again as my eyesight ages !

yep - that's basically what I did.

Point taken about those flat LED panels vs fluoros. But fluoros are free and enough panels to do shed would cost $780. And fluoro prices are still falling.

I originally had 3 single fluoro light fittings with 20 year old tubes in my old shed (18 m^2). When I did the extension (24 m^2) I added 5 twin tube fluoro lights that I got from a skip at work - I actually got 14 lights and gave 9 away. After two years I replaced the fluoro tubes with LEDs. Then I bought 3 near new twin fluoro fittings from gum tree for $6 each and put LEDs tubes in those.

Incidentally, my sparky likes the flat panel LED's, but not the ones that look like fluoro tubes - says he has had a lot of customer complaints.

My 25 LED (19 in the shed and 6 in the house) tubes are 4 years old and all are fine. One of them developed a flicker and then half the tube . stopped working but that turned out to be the fitting. Time will tell.

Originally Posted by Graeme

Incidentally, my sparky likes the flat panel LED's, but not the ones that look like fluoro tubes - says he has had a lot of customer complaints.

Originally Posted by BobL

My 25 LED (19 in the shed and 6 in the house) tubes are 4 years old and all are fine. One of them developed a flicker and then half the tube . stopped working but that turned out to be the fitting. Time will tell.

Oops.

I didn't follow up this point with him. He sort of mentioned problems with LED's being put in upside down, unexpected light patterns and some customers being a PIA. But I did not explore issue.

I respect his opinion and when he said that he preferred not to install them, I just accepted his view.

But you seem to have had quite a different experience.

Nevertheless, I don't have to go dumpster diving to get free fluoro fittings complete with tubes and he will deliver them. Basically, he does not like sending them to landfill but has no alternative.

Cheers

Graeme

I can understand where sparkies are coming from, they want to use the lowest trouble product available because every time they have to go back to a completed job to fix something that costs them money. With new products, do that a few times for all jobs and ty are going backwards. Fitting new LED tubes to a client's crappy old fittings is not the sort of thing I would expect a half decent sparky to do - the fittings are most likely to cause any problems but they sparky would be up for fixing the problem.

It was a bit of a risk getting LEDs tubes at the time as I only knew of a couple of people that had tried them out but the onus was only on me if they failed or not and they seem to have worked out. I do know the latest fluroro tubes are very bright, use little power and last a lot longer than they used to so if you get them for nothing I would keep using them - just add more. I would use them as well except I have a bit of an environmental thing against fluoro tubes because they use mercury and disposal is becoming an issue but that is another story.

The thing that motivated me into getting LED tubes was the high power consumption of the 20 year old fluoros that came out of the skip. They were really chewing the watts but it turned out to be as much a ballast problem as the fluoro tube. The ballasts were basically shot on all of them and needed replacing so I was up for the price of new fluoro tubes and ballasts. LED tubes don't need that ballast so for the price of just the replacement ballasts I bought new LED tubes.

When folks do an lighting energy consumption test they should make sure they are testing apples with apples. It's not really a fair test comparing new LEDs with old fluoro tubes and fittings - they test should be new for new.

Thanks everyone for the comments and tips re lights and power. Some useful info there.
Kryn