Need Some Advice For Workbench Lighting

[monteu]

I build a 10 ft long work bench in my new pole barn. Then I bought a couple 4ft. 2 bulb flourescent lights to have above it. My ceiling is 14 ft high. What do I do? Buy extra chain and hang these down from the ceiling? What height should they be? Would I be be better off to build a bracket out from the wall maybe 10 ft. high for these lights? I would like your input

 

[BeezFun]

I hung mine but not with chains. Electrical supply has a fitting you screw into a ceiling joist, then you screw a 1/4-20 threaded rod into the bottom of fitting. The fluorescent fixture gets jamb nutted to the bottom of 1/4-20 rod. I stubbed out a few inches of conduit next to each 1/4-20 rod and ran BX down to the fixture for power. Wind will make the fixtures move around if they're on chains, makes me crazy because shadows move all over the room.

 

[Raspy]

I am doing the same thing over my bench and the ceiling is high too. I like the idea of chains because if you bump the light it just swings and is less likely to break than if mounted on rods. It's also real easy to adjust the height.

If your bench is against a wall, put the lights close to the wall so you don't work in your own shadow. Make the lights just high enough to be out of the way for anything you think you might do. Put the lights end to end so the side to side shadow is eliminated. And get bright tubes because more light is better when doing small tedious work like gun repair or reading or measuring.

You can also pick the "temperature" of the light for the least fatigue.

If it's cold in the winter, get lights that will start in cold weather. They will have a rating on them for that.