Thread: Shed Lighting

I have a square island bench in my work shop where I do mostly wood carving.
Miter saw, band saw, drill press and scroll saw. I drilled 5/8" holes in the bench top,
every where I needed to mount a couple of spring loaded swing-arm desk lamps (LED lights).

Over the main 8' bench where I do most things, I have a 48" swing arm (LED) so it doesn't clutter the work space.
There is an overhead room light, good enough to see the floor and the laden shelves on the walls.

Shining a light on the shop walls was not going to be any sort of a carving improvement.
The focus of the LED lights is satisfactory.

General workshop operations nominally require about 750 lux (Lumens per square meter) but this does not need to be evenly spread across the shed.
Storage areas can be as low as 350 lux whereas assembly.fine work area should be higher eg 1250 lux or more. Bear in mind that older persons need more (even double the amount of) light.

In your garage area you can get away with 350 Lux or even less, leaving you with 36 m^2 of workshop space to address.

To meet the 750 lux minimum in the workshop area the 36 m^2would thus nominally require 750x36 = 27,000 lumens of lighting.

When new, 1200mm Cheap LED tubes are about 2000 lumens so you would need 14 of these tubes.
Sounds like a lot but that's only when they are new as they all fade over time so I would install more than this.
In storage areas of your shed you can cut that back by a factor of 2 but then install extras above work benches or machines .

FWIW in my 42m2 shed I have 40,000 lumens which is about 900 lumens/m^2 but I don't have them evenly spread.

All this is of course theoretical in practice it works out a lot less due to a bunch of factors.
Some actual shed illuminance measurements.

I have gone through a few different light sources over the years...

Flourescant

CFL

LED downlights

LED light panels

I have recently installed three LED panels and I will be installing more as they are the best of the lot in my view. Age will determine how much light you need, my workshop has had more light added as I have gotten older and it must appear to someone who is young very bright indeed. I would not install anything other than panels from now on.

Chris, could you post a photo or link of the led panels you use please.

60x60cm 30x120cm Bright LED Ceiling Light Panel 3 Colors Adjustable Flat Lamp AU | eBay

I notice the linked lights now have selectable temperature colour but mine don't. They tend to start at $40'ish each but these are a bit more expensive and that could be for the temp control.

I've got these to use, 120cm (4ft) slimline LED battens
5x120CM LED Slim Ceiling Batten Tube Light 40W Fluorescent Bar Lamp Cool White for sale online | eBay

They list them at 4800lm per fixture though i take that with a grain of salt.

I've got one mounted ready to get connected to power and then I can take some light measurements. Sadly i didn't take any readings from the old dual 4ft flouro fittings that got replaced with 20w floods but even the floods are much brighter than the flouro's but the light spread is not as good obviously.

One thing i didn't see Bob mention is the height of your fixtures will play a major factor into the lumen reading measured on the bench.

The other thing to be careful of if your fixtures are low is shadowing effects that you yourself may cast if your between the light and the work space... they can be super annoying

Whatever you go with LED would be the first choice these days then it's just fixture style and light output/colour temp.

Some things that will effect your actual working illuminance
- height of lights above work area.
- structure of light fixture, does it reflect light heading upwards directly back down.
- colour/texture of shed ceiling and wall lining, and floors. - white/light is best
- objects directly blocking light ie shadows
- colour and texture of other surfaces in work space.
- dust and dirt on all surfaces, including the lights themselves.

I build my own shed a while ago just a little 6 X 4 X 2.7 box lined with ply and leds so plenty of light but only big windows on one of the walls

I'm finding myself looking at a skylight window and also a cedar window to allow more natural light. I love the natural warmth compared to the stark white light that leds provide.

I haven't been able to find many warm led globes that I can add to my shed to create the atmosphere I want so additional natural light should be ab improvement

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Thanks for all the replies.

@BobL - Certainly more factors to consider than I had initially thought of and clearly I need to consider installing far more lights than I had budgeted for.

shed1.jpg

shed2.jpg

For the garage section I think I will just install LED battens on the purlins but the workshop is going to require a more elegant solution.

It’s much easier to deal with lighting for specific machinery/benches if the machinery/benches ate in fxed locations then 4000 lumen battens can be suspended at lower heights than usual to get more lumens onto working surfaces. Spots on machines/benches can be used but they also cast more shadows. Multiple spots are better but $$$.

And, don't ask why I might mention it, but think about protection. As you angrily wrestle with a length of 2 by 4, a sheet of MDF, or something else, the loud crunch, plunge into darkness, and shower of hot glass down your neck is quite annoying. Those industrial cages are there for a reason in old workshops...

Originally Posted by BobL

Multiple spots are better but $$$.

I used to think that and did exactly that with a lot of LED down lights but the panels are way way better, such an even very bright light and I am going to rip out the rest of the LED down lights and replace them with panels.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

I used to think that and did exactly that with a lot of LED down lights but the panels are way way better, such an even very bright light and I am going to rip out the rest of the LED down lights and replace them with panels.

I agree I have never found any down/spot lights mounted up high to be of much use.
Anyway, I wasn't referring to these but spotlights mounted very close (<1m) to the work surface/object
The inverse square behaviour of light distribution means there no substitute for getting lighting closer to the work because sooner or later it becomes physically impossible to fit tubes or panels close enough to the work surface/object.
A couple of examples;
There simply is no other way to get 17000 lux under my TS blade guard than by fitting a spotlight.
FFence.jpg

And for my electronics work bench where I'm using 4 LED spots (total of >10000 lumens of illuminance) in an area of 0.4m^2 , just 650mm above the work surface.



Due to cameras making exposure adjustment adjustments they don't appear that bright but they are indeed very bright - its quite hard to look directly at any single spot.
These 4 lights are mounted on a bracket that enables them to move them even closer to the work area if needed.

Put one LED panel over the electronics bench and it will replace all those.