Fluorescent lights installed!

[Jerome Hanby]

I rented a scissor lift from Sunbelt over last weekend. Renting that thing is the best $300 I've ever spent. Made mounting and wiring these 8 4-bulb fixtures in my garage shop with 26' ceilings possible! I also installed a 240 volt and a pair of 120 volt drop cords over the area I'll have my table saw, jointer, planer, and big dust collector. I can actually see in there now!

[Steven Wayne]

Congrats! I am taking a break to eat some dinner right now from a lighting upgrade in my shop. I have a ton of 4' fixtures in my shop. I am switching all of the bulbs to 6500K. It is crazy the difference the color of the light makes.

Anyway, what did you install?

[ian maybury]

Good going J, sounds like the lights worked out. I think good lighting job is one of the most satisfying jobs you can do - it changes the workshop from a gloomy cave to a a cheery and easy to work in space....

[Jerome Hanby]

T8 6500K daylight bulbs. Four per fixture, eight fixtures. I got the fixtures off local CL for $64, bought two contractor packs of t8 ballasts along with a 25 pack and a 10 pack of bulbs from the borg, Found a good deal on new sockets on the bay. Ordered hanger brackets off Amazon. Also bought 25 foot extension cords and a reel of chain from the borg. Cut the extension cords to provide short plugs for each light and used the long end with the receptacle as 1 of four drop cords to reach the lights (two of those set-ups for the 8 lights). The chains let me drop the lights down low enough to get better light and be able to reach them for future service. While I was rebuilding the fixtures, I also scrubbed them down, used a wire cup brush to deal with a few rusty spots, and went through a half dozen or so bonus sized cans of Rust-o-ileum white enamel (from Walmart). All the wiring is inside 1/2" emt. I used a tandem breaker arrangement using 12/3 wire (with a ground) to get by with one run of wire for the lights. I did break out each circuit into a separate electrical box, each box with four drop cords. Ran that circuit through a double light switch so I can turn off either bank of lights if desired. While I was at it, I also wired one tandem circuit running around the left half garage walls and another for the right. Each socket has one receptacle for each circuit, so I can pull a full 20 amps (actually less, 20 would be the max) from each receptacle form a given fixture. Thinking that will make locally positioned dust collectors less of a problem. I dropped a one receptacle on the back wall left and right and three down each wall left and right. I would have liked to have wired in a second 240 drop (but not hooked up in the sub panel) for future use with my Unisaw after I get it restored, but I just ran out of time and energy.

I have a little wiring left to finish, but it's all at the sub-panel or along the wall circuits. Before I move all my stuff out of the POD and back into the shop, I'm going on a crash cabinet building binge per Tom Clark's book. My goal is to end up with a place for everything. We'll see how close I get.

I guess all this could look better, but my shop ceilings are so high that I couldn't see any practical need to run conduit everywhere. My drop cord arrangement was easy and made layout easy to change on the fly while I was installing.