Girl cave

[lovetoride]

Any advice on electrical setup most welcome

Size of workshop is 4.7m x 3.5m with a 3.6m 4-panel glass door (2 opening in the middle) on one long side (lots of winter sun) and a 790mm x 1730mm window centred on a short side (over the workbench). So plenty of natural light. Maybe 3 double fluoros with one over bench, one middle and one near the end wall (over lathe)?

I am only installing single phase. So 2 @ 15 amp power points each on their own circuits? A number of scattered 10amp points. Lights on their own circuit.

I am having 12 ply panelling on the walls and ceiling which I will paint white. I want the wires/conduit run on the inside face of the panels – so no question in years to come on where exactly those wires go! I was considering having the wiring coming around the top of the walls and then run down to the power points which I thought would be mounted at 1400 above the floor.

It is certainly a small workshop in comparison to most mentioned on this forum so I attempt to get all machinery except lathe on castors.

Outside the back left corner (where the logs are in the photo) will be an external DC so I need a hole in the wall high up to get that set up. So power point out there too.

The Storage room on the plan is for bikes and skis but I will have a bench under the window there with a laser cutter set up on it. So once again a double fluoro over the bench and another one towards the back of the room.

Jane

20150708_093941.jpg20150708_093915.jpgworkshop.JPG

[Ilya]

Cannot advice re electricity, your description looks reasonable. I have seen some sheds that have all electrical wires going along the walls in grey conduits - they look neat and give a bit extra protection to cables.
That main concrete slab looks quite thick, is it 150mm or so?

[BobL]

Any advice on electrical setup most welcome

Size of workshop is 4.7m x 3.5m with a 3.6m 4-panel glass door (2 opening in the middle) on one long side (lots of winter sun) and a 790mm x 1730mm window centred on a short side (over the workbench). So plenty of natural light. Maybe 3 double fluoros with one over bench, one middle and one near the end wall (over lathe)?

I am only installing single phase. So 2 @ 15 amp power points each on their own circuits? A number of scattered 10amp points. Lights on their own circuit.

I am having 12 ply panelling on the walls and ceiling which I will paint white. I want the wires/conduit run on the inside face of the panels – so no question in years to come on where exactly those wires go! I was considering having the wiring coming around the top of the walls and then run down to the power points which I thought would be mounted at 1400 above the floor.

It is certainly a small workshop in comparison to most mentioned on this forum so I attempt to get all machinery except lathe on castors.

Outside the back left corner (where the logs are in the photo) will be an external DC so I need a hole in the wall high up to get that set up. So power point out there too.

The Storage room on the plan is for bikes and skis but I will have a bench under the window there with a laser cutter set up on it. So once again a double fluoro over the bench and another one towards the back of the room.

Jane

Lighting: Consider using LED fluoro tubes they use very little power and produce a good quality light.
Check out this thread for details https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/workshop-lighting-led-replacements-fluoroescent-tubes-193196
Natural lighting is great but make sure you have enough lighting to work in winter and at night.

Power: At the last minute I got my sparky to instal 3 overhead 10A power points which I subsequently increased to 5 and these are the main power points I use as it saves power cords laying on the floor.

DC: make sure the power point for the DC is a 15A - the other 15A I would suspend from the middle of the shed.

A lathe can easily have wheels but ones that cantilever up out of the way when not in use so the stand sits firmly on the floor.
An simple alternative to wheels where a machine is not going to be moved far or often are thick plastic (HDPW) feet and then screw down locking feet.

[rob streeper]

I've designed and built a number of work facilities, commercial and personal. My rule of thumb is now: Calculate the average number of circuits / amperage you anticipate using. Multiply those numbers by 3.

For bench space I place 2X quadruple outlets every 1.5 to 2m. For larger machines I double, at least, the capacity of the cables and circuit breakers I anticipate using. I have 12 large machines including two wood turning lathes, two bandsaws, a table saw, a jointer, a surfacer, a 25 lb power hammer, a 300A multi process welder, a 2 hp air compressor, a 1.5 hp belt grinder and a radial arm saw and a multitude of smaller or hand held electrically driven machines.

Formerly I applied a multiplication factor of 2 and I found that I rapidly ran out of capacity and or outlets.

We live in a 60m² house that is approximately 30 years old. The mains power as constructed was 120A, 2X 120V phases. I've increased the mains to 200A and run an additional 300m of secondary cables and installed another distribution panel. I completed most of the upgrades 5 years ago and have only installed or upgraded two circuits in the interim, one for a high powered microwave oven and the other for a European spec samovar.
Prior to these upgrades our house was seriously under-wired and tripped breakers were a constant problem. Go for more power and capacity, you'll grow rapidly into it.

[BobL]

For bench space I place 2X quadruple outlets every 1.5 to 2m.

Single or double 10A outlets can easily replaced by quad outlets or expander boards added as needed.
15A single outlets can be replaced by doubles as long as only one 15A device is running at one time.

[just john]

My advise would be to run 16mm mains from your house switch board to a small 8 or 12 poll sub board in your shed, that way you have maximum flexibility to add more circuits later, and if your surface mounting them in conduit it is easy for a sparky to do this at a later date as your needs change, the amount of power you can get from a 16 mm main depends on a few things, the size of the mains coming into your house switchboard from the street, what your using in the house, and how far your shed is from your houses switchboard.

My shed is about 15 meters from my house switchboard and my sparky said I can get between 50 an 60 amps, I also have 16 mm mains coming in from the street to my main switchboard, my sparky said I can't go any bigger than what I had coming in to the main switchboard, I also have gas for cooking and solar hot water they are two of the things that use the most power in a house so I use more power in the shed than I do in the house.

All the best with the build, I find the best ideas come when sitting in the shed sipping something cold.
jj

[pjt]

Like others have said, go for more than you think you need, where I think I want a power point it's more likely I want 4 power points, (2 doubles side x side is good) there always seems to be multiple things that need to stay plugged in at the same time, the radio, phone charger, cordless drill charger, the rechargeable battery charger that seems to take up a whole pp cos it's wide and won't allow anything to be plugged in next to it, kettle and then there's the tools that you are actually working with, various drills with different bits in for e.g., I also like everything plugged in ready to go, quite often my train of thought will just vanish if I have to stop and unplug and plug in, I start thinking about I need more power points and while at it I should get a light there and move that post, change that bit of ducting blah blah lah lah........oh I should cut that piece of timber up, I'm hungry.......time for lunch, might be I'm just a bit mad to!!
Led lighting, yep, even if they are just ordinary globe style, I have 2 in the kitchen 7w each and put out lots of light.



Pete

[FenceFurniture]

Led lighting absolutely, be it bulbs, tubes or strips. Just make sure there's plenty of it, and remember you need more light during the day than at night (skylights notwithstanding).

Power outlets - as many as you can get - I love looking at GPOs with nothing plugged into them - very satisfying. Double GPOs seem to be way less than half the cost of 4x.

[lovetoride]

That main concrete slab looks quite thick, is it 150mm or so?

300 around the perimeter was required. 100mm for the bulk of it.

[DaveTTC]

Power trenches planned from house to carport, conduit through slab and then another trench across to workshop.

I would to to make things bigger but there's a house in the way!

Yeah i hate that. Some one out a big house in the middle of my block. Tried using as a shed for a while but that did not go down well.

Hope youre in your new cave soon

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

[lovetoride]

Lighting: Consider using LED fluoro tubes they use very little power and produce a good quality light.
Check out this thread for details https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/workshop-lighting-led-replacements-fluoroescent-tubes-193196
Natural lighting is great but make sure you have enough lighting to work in winter and at night.

OK - LED fluoros are in

Power: At the last minute I got my sparky to instal 3 overhead 10A power points which I subsequently increased to 5 and these are the main power points I use as it saves power cords laying on the floor.

DC: make sure the power point for the DC is a 15A - the other 15A I would suspend from the middle of the shed.

I was wondering whether some power down from the ceiling into the middle of the room would be possible. I was going to have some hooks across the ceiling for power cords (if possible) rather than across floor. When they are suspended from ceiling is there some form of box for the GPO (real novice here)?

Yes was looking at 15A for dusty but forgot that in my post. One from the ceiling in the middle sounds a good idea.

A lathe can easily have wheels but ones that cantilever up out of the way when not in use so the stand sits firmly on the floor.
An simple alternative to wheels where a machine is not going to be moved far or often are thick plastic (HDPW) feet and then screw down locking feet.

Had to laugh (forgive me - I have the dreaded lurgy and feel low). When I googled HDPW feet it came back with "Happy feet"

thanks Bob

[lovetoride]

My advise would be to run 16mm mains from your house switch board to a small 8 or 12 poll sub board in your shed, that way you have maximum flexibility to add more circuits later, and if your surface mounting them in conduit it is easy for a sparky to do this at a later date as your needs change, the amount of power you can get from a 16 mm main depends on a few things, the size of the mains coming into your house switchboard from the street, what your using in the house, and how far your shed is from your houses switchboard.

My shed is about 15 meters from my house switchboard and my sparky said I can get between 50 an 60 amps, I also have 16 mm mains coming in from the street to my main switchboard, my sparky said I can't go any bigger than what I had coming in to the main switchboard, I also have gas for cooking and solar hot water they are two of the things that use the most power in a house so I use more power in the shed than I do in the house.

All the best with the build, I find the best ideas come when sitting in the shed sipping something cold.
jj

Ah, another JJ!

Yes, I was going with a sub board. Will speak to sparky about all this and his recommendations.

The metre wide apron outside the workshop, under an eave, is for the deck chairs for the afternoon beers/ciders.

JaneJ

[BobL]

My "middle of the shed from the ceiling power points" are mounted on the underside of a fairly serious (for a small shed anyway) joist that runs the full length (6m) of the shed.

If you don't have one of these and you have enough height, instead of power points suspended from ceiling you could consider leaving an extra powerpoint over on the side wall and a flying fox line the full length of the shed near the ceiling. Plug a long HD extension cord into the extra powerpoint and then hang the cord in loops from multiple double key rings on the flying fox.
That way you can move that power point to anywhere along the flying fox.

My shed isn't high enough to do this but we have done this at the mens shed and it works a treat so we are going to install several more.

Another tip is, don't hardwire the lights - get the scary to just install switched powe rpoints (thats a unswitched power point with the switch thats more conveniently located - up where the lights will be. That way you can change them around without rewiring.

[lovetoride]

Ah, yes, flying fox setup. I did see that on someone's thread a while ago. Makes a lot of sense and my ceiling is 2.7m so would work.

Also good tip on lighting as I won't really know where I need it until I work out the layout.

Thanks heaps

[DaveTTC]

And smart wired so you can operate lights from your phone.

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art