Hey guys I'm just finishing out my detached shop building and am about to finish the walls.  Ceiling is textured and all electrical is done.  I'm at the point of purchasing my lighting and have to get a total of 12 fixtures.  I'm going to do two bulb 4 ft fixtures and led bulbs.  I don't want to do fluorescent again and I think I want to do 5000k tubes because that looks the most natural I guess.  My question is what bulbs are you all using and what's the best place to shop for fixtures and bulbs online.  None of my local stores seem to have what I want.  I want to get the most lumens per fixture I can.  How does the energy use compare to fluorescents?  All my lights are ran with 12guage wire on a 20 amp circuit.  How many lights can I actually get away with?

Thanks,
Thomas

Got mine at Costco.  Sam's ussually has them too

IMHO I would just get dedicated LED fixtures instead of buying 4 foot fixtures and adding lights in. It will not only be cheaper but depending on the LED tubes you buy, they may be more reliable because a dedicated fixture has heat-sinking designed into the fixture which gives more surface area to get the heat out.

I bought my LED shop lights (20 of them) at Menards on Black Friday... They were $16.99 each for 4 foot, 3650 lumen, 4500K "cheapo" fixtures. I put "cheapo" in quotes because even though they are low-end they still came with a 5-year warranty.

I've started converting my 8' twin tube, high-output, cold-start fixtures to LED.
I bought the tubes on Amazon and the tombstones from McMaster-Carr.
They are much brighter and the light is much whiter than the flourescents.
I'll convert the next two fixtures at the end of this month.  You can't go wrong with LEDs.

I just put up 8 of these in my garage.  So far I'm impressed with the amount of light for the price.

If you have access to Sams or Costco, that'd be the easiest route.
As far as power, based on a 45 watt draw, your circuit could handle almost 50 units.   W= VxA

I did the same but I bought the bulbs with included tombstones. Best bang for the buck upgrade my garage has had in a good long awhile. 

Sometimes you can find places almost giving away old ballast 8' fixtures. Conversion to led is easy and doesn't cost anything but the bulbs. 

I'm gradually replacing the 2-tube, 8 ft. HO fluorescents in my shop with these.  I like 'em.  

There's an archived thread on the subject here.

Dedicated circuit to just the twelve led fixtures?    all on one would work but I would split them to at least two circuits/breakers.  Mine were about half an amp per fixture.   Got to love LED efficiency.   I think you are allowed 80% of designed load.    So 16 amps draw total.   My. 15 amp circuit has about 6-8 amp draw.   I kept my lights completely separate from my 20 amp outlet circuits.  No sense blowing the breaker with a grinder and being suddenly in the dark. In cannot recall if that is code or just logical design.  


I just did my 32x50 garage with 4 foot double led fixtures.   I did one circuit with two switched banks of six fixtures; rear six and middle six.   The front six and four outside fixtures on another breaker.   Both were 15amp 14 ga and one would barely do all I Wanted to.    Wiring all those with 12 ga would be a pain.   I would not want to smash 12 ga wiring in my four gang switch box.   F that.  14 was tight enough in the extra deep box.   Then again I had two
supply lines coming in.


I used LED ready ballast less fixtures.     It cost about $32 a complete fixture and bulb combo.   Better quality bulbs and a solid housing.

Read the garage journal website on the best light fixture ever.   Http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=278420


I bought from one of The recommended sources in that thread.  I cannot find the receipt at the moment.   It's not in my garage build folder.   I just powered up the Garage a week ago.   They work well.  Very good light without being blinded.   I'm over forty so I might need additional task lighting.   A buddy and I did the struts on his truck.  We got plenty of light deep in the wheel wells without auxiliary light.   I have white painted plywood walls and I used white metal roofing for the ceiling so I have good light bounce and diffusion.

I put in two sets of the Costco 4' LED fixtures in my garage last summer. Packaging states 4000k IIRC). So pretty close to white.
I have 16' of lighting in my detached wood shop, built 16 year ago so fluorescent. Went with a good brand and they run today like the day they were installed. Same bulbs too. Would replace with LED if necessary .

Good luck OP, the LED stuff is changing lighting. My house now has over 30 LED fixtures.

I got the Costco ones also . Couldn't be any happier for the price !

Damn electronic ballasts screw up radio reception.  Gonna have to convert.

I picked up some 4 ft LED bulbs. Love them. I have nearly all LED lighting in my house and shop and I love the LEDs.

I have those in Sam's Club/Honeywell LED shop lights my garage and in my reloading room.  Great lights!

I bought a couple value boxes of Sylvania Substube 4ft T8 LED's for my shop. A 10 pack is 60 bucks, and they have them in 3000k, 4100k, and 5000k. I went with the 4100 for a bright white. I don't really care for the blue day light bulb color. The bulbs are 2200 lumens each. I am putting them in Lithonia Lighting 4 bulb fixtures. I went with them because you can daisy chain them since they also have an outlet on the other end of the fixture.

They are like 50 bucks at Home Depot.
https://www.amazon.com/Lithonia-Lighting-1284GRD-RE-Shoplight/dp/B00FY2QD2S?tag=vglnk-c102-20

Here are the specs on the tubes.
https://assets.sylvania.com/assets/Documents/LED481.d4536750-c333-4659-bf4d-e0dc30fa3090.pdf

Here is the ballast compatibility chart. I guess some ballasts are not compatible.
https://assets.sylvania.com/assets/Documents/LED468.508841ff-cb54-4521-8752-d08ef8b62bde.pdf


The ballast in the above shop light is a Keystone KTEB-432RIS-1-TP. Its not on the list but the tubes seem to work with it. I don't have them hung up yet but I did load one up with a set of tubes and it illuminated. I left it on for a while and everything seemed to be fine.

Costco if you're a member. Wait for them to go on sale. They're usually $30, but last time they went on sale for $20 per fixture. Only issue is they are designed to be plugged in and can be strung up to four fixtures. All you'd need is three outlets, which wouldn't be such a problem IMO since you could switch each outlet so you don't have to use all the lights all the time if you don't need to. I'm sure you could hard wire them if you wanted, but that'd void any warranty. The Costco ones are 4000K and the bulbs are not removable, are 3,700 lumens IIRC, and the energy use is about 45% less than a fluorescent T8 fixture.

I'm going to have two fixtures on each long wall and 8 on the ceiling.  Those lights and the 8 on the ceiling are on the same 20 amp breaker but are controlled by their own switches.  I also wanted to save capacity if I decided to run 4 bulb fixtures.  so ceiling on one switch and walls on another.  the garage door opener is on the same circuit as the lights.  so i have to also account for that as I don't want to trip the breaker if I try and open the garage with the lights on.  I wired everything with 12 ga wire for 120v stuff and all the 220/240 or whatever is on 10 ga runs with each outlet/tool on their own breaker.  I just figured id overdo it all.  I also ran a dedicated circuit for my chop saw/miter saw station because I'm going to have chargers etc plugged in there and the chop saw was tripping the breaker in the winter time.  its a 12" Bosch gliding cms.  electric ceiling heater, air compressor, dust collector, router, welder all on their own circuits.  overall I'm really excited about this shop and I just want the lighting to be bad ass.  I have the garage already pre wired for 7.2 channel surround  sound.  including power for the front and rear subs.  its gonna be bitchin.  I think I did my due diligence in pre wiring and going bigger than i thought i would need to make sure I wont have problems power.

When I built my 50x50 I put 25 regular screw in type light fixtures evenly spaced on the ceiling. They currently have these big CFLs in there but I plan to switch them to LEDs. I hate the tube type bulbs. I figure with these I can easily switch to the latest and greatest technology.

Just curious... why the fixtures on the walls?

It's not a bad idea for a bit more side generated light when working on vehicles to fill normal shadow areas.   Another  common use would be some specific
Workstation lighting.  

My plan is when I get my workbenches in is to put kitchen wall cabinets with under cabinet lighting to more fully illuminate those work areas.   Lighting that works for a twenty five year old is likely insufficient for a guy over 45.  At least when you're talking about reading micrometers and fine rulers.  I am about at the
Old fart stage.   My ceiling lighting is overkill for general use but just marginal for
fine work.   Hell I got on the LED kick in my basement work area because I couldn't see well with CFL bulb light.   I pulled the cheap two bulb dome and put in a few LED lithonia four footers.  I used the ones with diffuser panels.  Not near as bright as the LED tube lights in the bare fixtures.  That improvement I thought wasn't quite good enough hence the bare four foot lights.   My garage ceilings are ten foot so that works there.

Well upping the wire size certainly won't hurt you.   My call was just the workability of the Lighter wire and that it was sufficient.   I also planned on not mixing my lights with other power needs.   Everything else like yours is in the overkill mode.  My brother used to do residential and commercial electrical installation.  He kind of chuckled at my overkill like the outlets every six to eight feet (every few feet over the Workbench).   He would not have pigtailed the outlets like I did as he deemed it unnecessary work.  In a way he is right.  

I'm kinda of Jealous on the sound Set up.   Mine is a rough looking Sony boom box.   I thought about some dedicated tool circuits but didnt go there for the saws and stufff.  Nothing I have is all that big.  Hell the only time I ever tripped a breaker is during the building phase when I was running the saw off of two lead cords from the house and Binding the blade on my warped plywood.  Actually it wasn't the Breaker but the GFCI outlet on the House.  A tad bit of line Loss there.


I have plans for two 50ampncircuits.  One for welding and one for a large compressor.    I opted to just run them in surface conduit when I put them in.   That way if I hate the location I can move it.   I plan on a welding outlet by the rear garage door and one in the middle of the side wall.  

Fun stuff

Yeah I was debating on exterior conduit for the 240 stuff but I planned out the location of everything according to my workflow like 6 months or so ago and strangely (not normally the case) I'm still okay with the position of everything so I figured I'll just bury everything.  The one thing I have been thinking of doing is putting an additional drop on the outlet for the ceiling electric heater down closer to the floor instead of up at the ceiling that way if I ever need to also plug in the plasma cutter or welder there while the heater is off I don't have to get a ladder to reach the ceiling level plug.  I dont think I'll need it but it never hurts to have the option.  I always like to do my welding as close to the garage door as possible with fumes and all.  I just turned 30 and although still young holy shit is there a difference in my eyesight since I was 20.  I'm doing the side wall mounted lights specifically for reasons as suggested above. It gives better light penetration to the sides for working on cars etc.  Im going to mount them on brackets so that I can turn them and get them at the angle I want and also to be able to turn them down onto the various work surfaces and or machines for task lighting.  For example my miter saw station, jointer, welding table and workbench will all be along the walls at these approximate locations.  Along the back wall I ran two 10 ga 240 volt circuits for the dust collector and the air compressor along with a 12 ga 110 circuit to supply the garden and tractor shed Ill be building along the back wall of the shop.  This is so that the compressor and the dust collector don't make a ton of noise in the shop and it also gives me a place to store all of my garden equipment including my lawn tractor and trailer.  on that back wall I ran two pigtails off the power supply for the shed to power two std light switches that are lit up with red led's when in the off position.  They will power the contactors for the dust collector and the compressor.  That way when I shut all the lights off in the shop to leave I can see the red and know that they are both off.

Id sure like to see your shop once its complete!!!

I put up (8) 400w metal Halides in my 40x40 garage. Its bright as hell but the power usage is crazy. 




I just ordered 4 of these to try.

check out superbrightleds.com

That's an nice idea on the lights on adjustable brackets.   Reminds me of focusing wall speakers.  


I visit my friends in their real commercial garages and I see some things that are modern despite the authentic garage grime.   I almost never see the old drop lights, they use LED sticks and squares on magnets.  Just as often they're using small electric drivers or impacts as air tools unless something really needs some Hammering.  It kind of makes me question wanting to put in a big Quincy compressor.   I have a ridgid portable for small stuff.

Baby steps!

Drop lights are nice and can be wedged in to tight places or under the dash. Use an led bulb so it doesn't get hot, or break when you drop it. They are also retractable extension cords.

You can get LED's that will fit your 400w Halide fixtures. We had them at the last place I worked and they saved a ton of money on electricity. The local utility gave them a rebate too.