Pole Barn Lighting Options

[Doorman63]

Do you know the lumens? I’m trying to figure out if 64/sq foot is good? I’d like to be able to do surgery in there

4 or 5k…..they were on sale at Menards.

 

[KennyG]

I have around 60 lm/sq ft in my pole barn with 4 foot LEDs and it's pretty good for my old eyes. I don't have them evenly spaced. I have about double the average density over the work benches and less than the average on the far side that is just storage. I started out with fluorescent and slowly switched to LEDs. I tried the Menards cheap lights but found them to be unreliable and bought a couple of different brands from Amazon and they have been good.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I have around 60 lm/sq ft in my pole barn with 4 foot LEDs and it's pretty good for my old eyes. I don't have them evenly spaced. I have about double the average density over the work benches and less than the average on the far side that is just storage. I started out with fluorescent and slowly switched to LEDs. I tried the Menards cheap lights but found them to be unreliable and bought a couple of different brands from Amazon and they have been good.

Thanks! Yeah, I’m shooting for 65-80 lumens per sqft if possible. This would be using 2 or three 8’ lights on each truss.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

It appears many of the cheap options have a lot of RF interference, so one needs to be careful and source some with good drivers to eliminate this

 

[newbury]

How important is:
pretty?
price?
I've had great luck buying the inexpensive 4' LED units on Amazon. Generally > 4,000 lumen, linkable, twin tube and I had been getting them for ~$10@ in packs of 4 to 10. By now I've probably bought about 100 over the last 5 years (I've got over 5,000 sq ft to light). Occasionally the price dropped down to < $8.
But look for the sales. The same lights I paid ~$50 for an 8 pack now go for $181 an 8 pack.

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[CloverKnollFarms]

How important is:
pretty?
price?
I've had great luck buying the inexpensive 4' LED units on Amazon. Generally > 4,000 lumen, linkable, twin tube and I had been getting them for ~$10@ in packs of 4 to 10. By now I've probably bought about 100 over the last 5 years (I've got over 5,000 sq ft to light). Occasionally the price dropped down to < $8.
But look for the sales. The same lights I paid ~$50 for an 8 pack now go for $181 an 8 pack.

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• 
  amazon-shop-lights.JPG

  116.1 KB · Views: 448

Those are the ones I commonly see complaints about… with RF interference. If you go up to about $35 each (17500 lumen) you get filtered drivers

 

[2manyrocks]

Almost hate to bring this up, but it is relevant to your question. There's a thing called the inverse square law. Lighting spreads out over a larger area the greater the distance from source to subject, but the intensity of the light also diminishes. If you double the distance from the light source to the subject (2x), the intensity of the light diminishes 4x. Inverse Square Law for camera, with calculator for distance and intensity

The higher up you put your lights, the more area they will cover, but the intensity of the light will fall off inversely from the square of the source to subject distance.

So when you start with knowing the output of a given light, you then also have to figure the falloff based on the distance using the inverse square law.

Then you have the issue that you may have good overhead lighting, but a hood or something blocks your overhead lighting. The suggestion to also combine task lighting makes good sense to me.

We think we have enough power outlets, but then.....

 

[KennyG]

It's true that the inverse square law will cause the intensity of the light from one light to fall off, but we're talking about a defined area with multiple lights. As the light falls off from one light it will be reinforced by an adjacent light. If you have fairly reflective walls and ceiling, the height doesn't really matter much. On the other hand, with dark walls and no ceiling, the height will make some difference, but not much unless the ceiling is 16 feet or more.

 

[3Ts]

I have a barn 40x60x14 divided up into (3) 20x40 bays. Each bay has (2) 4' T8 fluorescent fixtures with (4) bulbs each at 3200 lumens per bulb at one end. So each bay has 25,600 lumens about 10' from the wall and will have another 25,600 at the other end shortly. I've not done the other end of the bays yet, but it will get the same treatment. I also have 2 fixtures in the middle of the barn sorta as a "night light" just to get around in it at night. Total lumens I can turn on is 102,400 and for the way I have the barn set up, it's enough to do pretty much anything I want to do, and puts me at 42 lumens/sqft so the other lights are a low priority. (I have them, but getting up to the ceiling to install them isn't so easy.) But, there is still a need for task lighting for some things. Once I get all the lights installed I'll have 179,200 putting it at 74 lumens per sqft.

Note: When you install lights in a garage, be sure that they are beside or between vehicles instead of over them so the light actually lights the area instead of casting shadows. In my 2 car garage, I have 3 lights. Then task lighting for working "under the hood".

 

[3gunr]

I put 2 rows of 5 led 4 ft shop lights in my 28x35 shop , It is very bright in there, real easy to work on stuff, at night with the doors open you could probably see the garage from miles away.