Alright so I recently had a 30x40 pole barn put up. The south wall in this picture has two 10x10 doors. No windows anywhere. Currently in the process of finishing out the inside and have reached the point of putting up white steel with blown in on top.

In the back there is a full width, 10ft deep loft that will have its own recessed lights under it. I’m not worried about ceiling lights having an effect below it.

I will be using this mostly for motorcycle work. I’ll have three lifts on the left hand side so the righ side bay is open to vehicles.

I have drawn up a layout to show what I am thinking. Basically 8ft lights that are setup 3 in a row and in 24ft sections. They will be spaced equally apart from the side walls. What I want is suggestions based on your experience.

Is this enough light in the right places?

Will the walls be too dark and need overhead bench lights at the working height of the bench?

Is this layout wasting light on the roof of cars rather than throwing light to the sides of them?

Would rotating the lights 90 degrees and adding another run be more beneficial?

 

Some random thoughts:

This is going to be LED lighting, right? Fluorescent doesn't work well in cold weather.

How high are these lights off the floor?

I would put a bank of lights at a 90 degree angle cross-ways at each junction of your fixtures. At least 4 or better still, 8 additional fixtures. That will help eliminate the shadows that will be cast by all the lighting being on one direction.

I would always put additional lighting above any workbench. Those could be on their own switches to be used as needed. Otherwise you'll find yourself working in your own shadow.

Hopefully these banks will be individually switched. There's no need to throw money at the utility company when you're doing bench work or working at one corner of the building.

 

Yes all LED. I’ll put a link to the ones I am currently most interested in(always open to suggestions)

https://www.primelights.com/collecti...lumens-frosted

The ceiling is 12’6” tall and I’ll lose probably an inch or two with the ceiling mounted.

Each run will most definitely be switched. I won’t need 100,000+ lumens just to grab something quick.

To clarify, you’re saying to put more lights in between the runs in almost a square grid pattern to avoid shadowing down below.

Most of the bench work(carb rebuild, suspension service, etc) will be done below the loft, so lights at the lifts shouldn’t matter. Do you think I’ll be casting a shadow on the bikes at lift height if I didn’t add more lights?

 

I would start with that and see how it goes. You can always add more lights later. You may only need task lights when working on stuff anyway. I normally have a rechargeable spot light with me anyway.

 

I use telescoping 20 V. DeWalt tripod lights in my shop. They work well to get the good angles over your shoulder views on cloudy weather days.
also, the Floor 20V. Dewalt lights to look up, say at brake or front-end work, even under body stuff. Bikes have different side view lights that the Tripods furnish. The tripods have 3 flavors of light settings letting the batteries last for hours. Maybe not so bright is the best at times. The point being, ya busy, not much room, presto the tripod is there where every ya need the work area. Haha Sometimes extending them to full height and bouncing the light off
the rafters work very well.
The same with the Dewalt fan, I mount them on Camera tripods and move them around wherever i need good flow of air for several hours. They sure work well when wearing Safety glasses too. The reason for DeWalt is I have a Dozen Batteries that work in all the stuff so I always have fresh power available wherever, whatever I wish doing, be it impacts, trimmers, chainsaws, nailers, sanders, skill saws leaf blowers to clean the shop, etc.

 

It ended up turning out absolutely perfect. It’s almost too much light! So usually I’ll just run the center strip if I’m not doing anything too important.

 

If they're leds, they won't pull much juice anyway. When you said pole barn I was expecting something much bigger, that looks like a regular garage on a suburban home.