Adding some lighting to the hangar..

[Tram]

Hey guys-

Our hangar has 2 - maybe 150 watt bulbs throwing out the light for us, which needless to say, if you want to do any work at night or in the day with the door shut, you need extra lighting..

Just thought I'd see what some of you might have done for extra lighting?

I am quasi-thinking about picking up some of the 1,300 watt work lights and throwing them up on the rafters..

Anyone?

[Mitch757]

When I built my hangar, I made provisions for 4 of the industrial type hanging lamps and also installed 8 ft HO fluorescents lights to get instant lighting.

These have worked out so well that I did not install the expensive hanging lights. I got mine at HD with the electronic ballast to prevent the hum.

Mitch

RV-4 flying
RV-12 ..workin' on it

[breister]

Also from HD check out the high intensity driveway lights. As efficient or better than florescent, brighter, but take about a minute to reach full intensity. Small and easy to mount compared to long fluorescent fixtures.

[David Shelton]

I use 8ft long fluorescents on the low (8ft ceiling) part of my workshop. For the high part (20ft ceiling), I bit the bullet and bought some HID light fixtures. They are pricey but I haven't found anything else that will match them from a high ceiling. In this economy, you might be able to find used ones really cheap. Check EBAY and Craigslist.

[JonJay]

Even at 20', 4 lamp, T5HO 4' Flourescent Fixtures will do an extremely good job. These are now the common replacement for Metal Halide.
Stay away from the Quartz floods. I had a neighbor buy the 1500W Quartz Floods for cheap as he did not want to pay the price for the Flourescents. He changed them out less than a year later as all the lamps had burned out. The Flourescents will last many, many years.
If you have lower cielings, there are many choices of T8 Flourescents that do a very good job as well.

For my money, and this is how I make a living, Flourescent is the way to go. Make sure you are buying quality electronic ballasts. If color is important to you, upgrade to an 835 or 840 lamp. (835 are warm color, 840 are cool color, relatively speaking.) They both produce excellent CRI (color rendering).

For those that already have 250W Metal Halide, you can upgrade them to Pulse Start Ballasts and Lamps, and if you want to go all out, Ceramic MH. They have much higher performance in regard to lumen depriciation and color rendering than the older technology. They are still not as good as the Flourescents in my opinion. http://www.lithonia.com/product/defa...scent+High+Bay

[Crossbow]

Originally Posted by Tram

Hey guys-

Our hangar has 2 - maybe 150 watt bulbs throwing out the light for us, which needless to say, if you want to do any work at night or in the day with the door shut, you need extra lighting..

Just thought I'd see what some of you might have done for extra lighting?

I am quasi-thinking about picking up some of the 1,300 watt work lights and throwing them up on the rafters..

Anyone?

My workshop was a bit dim as well, so I just went to Lowes and bought six of the dual four foot fluorescent lights and a box of light tubes. Then, I attached them to my the ceiling beams with some cheap rope and wired them all up in parallel to a single outlet which can be plugged and un-plugged as needed. The lights do not draw too much current, so one outlet can adequately support the load.

And while the setup is not terribly pretty, it does the job rather well.

However, if your hanger has high ceilings (as many hangers do), then this method may not work for you.

[RV10Man]

My hangar is a 60' X 72' (43210 sq. ft) Morton Building with 14' side walls. There's 5 trusses besides the two end ones. I put 3- 8' HO flourscent 2 bulb strips on each of the 5 inner trusses, each truss (bank of lights) is on a switch. I have plenty of light, I don't have to strike a match to see if they're on. In the rear of the hangar, I built a 16' X 32' room for building in. It's heated and cooled. On the front bank of lights, I wired in a doorbell transformer so it's only hot when the front lights are on, but I made a "dingler" switch out of a model airplane bell crank hooked to the door jamb so if someone comes in the hangar while I'm in my room, they can't sneek up on me. A door bell rings in my room. I've got a 100amp service in the hangar and lots of receps along the walls.

Marshall Alexander