Advice or ideas needed for garage lighting

[e-dawg]

I've searched for and read just about every thread on lighting for detailing on these forums. I'm a bit more enlightened but still confused as to which kind of set-up I'll be needing lol.

Here's the deal. I will be working strictly from my garage, but I also live in Arizona and garages here in the summer become ovens, way too hot to work in, so I will be setting up a cooling system to keep things workable.

It looks like halogen lighting is the most popular lighting used for spotting defects in paint, but I'm not so sure I will want to use halogen because of the heat these things throw off. If I'm trying to keep my garage cool, I don't want to use lights that will create additional heat.

But on the other hand, don't think I'll need to have these on continuously while I'm working? Is setting up my lighting using mostly fluorescents a better option? How about LED's? They seem to be more expensive than the other alternatives though.

[rakkvet]

The shop I worked at had T-5 fluorescents with a really shiny reflector behind it. The lighting was great. One thing I can't recommend enough for spotting defects is my Brinkmans. This is a must have.

[e-dawg]

The shop I worked at had T-5 fluorescents with a really shiny reflector behind it. The lighting was great. One thing I can't recommend enough for spotting defects is my Brinkmans. This is a must have.

I think I'd like to get some T-8's. About how many fixtures would I need for a two car garage? Most defintitely will be buying a Brinkman's Dual Xenon.

[rockford33]

For a two car garage, I would probably guess a minimum of abour 11 fixtures. This would be 3 across the front of the cars, 2 each on each side of garage, 2 in between cars (might be difficult depending on your garage door opener), and one each at the rear of the cars (garage doors would need to be down).

That's just a rough estimate not knowing size and configuration of your particular garage.

-Neil

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

[alko]

Sorry for the hijack but hey Tim...is that car for real in your avatar?

[alko]

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/auto-detailing-101/44822-garage-lighting.html

Post #4....Charlie posted some really good links.

[crxman2010]

I went with 4 T8 Fixtures (8 Foot with 4 4' Lamps), so 16 lamps stagered to cover a 16 x 12 foot area and then a couple of T8 Fixtures (4 Foot with 2' Lamps) to pick up odd areas. This worked great for opti-coat and fair for swirls. But for correction, I still use a LED flashlight and/or halegon work lights depending on the color. I am flooding enough light into the area that I don't have much shadowing, but there is some.

If money and room wasn't a concern, I would definitely like to have more ceiling lighting and some additional fixtures drop at a 45 degree angle on the primeter of the working area would make it about perfect. But the 22 T8s in my double stall sure does beat the 2 incadescents that originally covered that area. Lights up my drive way quite nicely through my garage windows.

At some point I will borrow the 400 watt metal halid fixture out of the green house to see what that does for defects...but heat becomes a problem there.

And don't buy cheap fixtures from Home Depot.....go to an actual electrical supply/lighting supply shop and get some commerical fixtures, the cost will be more, sometimes not much, but the fixture and ballasts and generally a lot better. Known a couple people to have trouble with cheap home depot fixtures so I skipped them when I did mine and have zero issues.

[The Pad Man]

Industrial 6-Light High Bay Hanging Fixture-IB 632 MVH at The Home Depot (http://www.homedepot.com/Lighting-Fans-Indoor-Lighting-Industrial-Shop-Lighting/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbvnq/R-202193185/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051)

I would look at these. My garage is 23x22 and I have 4 of these in there. I am adding 2 more. This is pure white light.

[TornadoRed]

When choosing bulbs get the highest cri value you can find so it will show the true color of the paint. Lower cri values tend to change the color. T8 bulbs tend to have higher cri values. I use two different color temp bulbs in each fixture in order to prevent color changing effects.

[e-dawg]

Ok, so fluorescents are good for illuminating ur workspace a d seeing some swirls.What do you guys think about the light stands similar to the halogens, but they use LED bulbs?

[vans]

when buying t8 bulbs remember the color of bulb is important, I just relamped with 4' bubs in the 5000k color- wow! very bright light, I accidently mixed a couple 3500k bulbs in a couple fixtures- you can easily tell the difference

[crxman2010]

I lamped in at 6500K "Daylight" Bulbs, GE brand, want to say the CRI was about 78 on these. To get up into the 88+ CRI it would have been 3x-4x per lamp.

Happy with them so far, I may at some point get some higher CRI lamps and put them in my 3rd bank so I can rotate between my 2nd and 3rd banks to see if I can tell a difference in a 6500k at 78 CRI and 6500K at 86-88 CRI...