I hung 5 lights last night in the shop, I raised the loader bucket up, used a ladder to crawl in and get busy.

I need to run about 8 more along the sides and get things wired up. I can get thses from just a ladder. Ofcourse I have to now move everything to the center of the shop....no more 8 foot pathway, might be time to acually clean things out that don't need to be there.

I will NOT work with a dropcord over my head this winter

 

Well, I have 10 out of 15 fixtures wired together.

Going to try and get ambitious today and get the other 5 run, then run the main line and switches.

At least the sun we have today will keep it comfortable near the top.

 

Let me know the next time you will be working on them - I will give you a hand.

 

Thanks Clint.

I'm just about done though, need to run the hot line and wire up the switches...

And on the 17th day he (take your pick as to who) said...

"Let there be light"

 

I think it was PG&E...

 

OK, I'm not too savvy on electrical wiring, but how many shop lights can you put on one circuit? Don't they draw a lot of current when you first hit the switch? (At least that's what I have been led to believe) I have five in my shop. That's as many as I dared to do off of one wall switch.

That shows you my level of electrical investigation: Just hook em up and if the breaker doesn't blow, then it must be all right! Jag

 

In-rush current can be very high, but it only lasts an instant, not long enough to trip a breaker in most cases. It sort of depends on the type of lights you are using.

If you use slow blow breakers and fuses you should be able to go over by 150% for a few seconds - but a sustained over current would trip the breaker.

I go by total watts, with a safety factor. For instance, florescent tubes produce the same amount of light for about 15% of the power, so you could use a 15 amp switch to control a whole lot of those fixtures, or about 15 100-watt incandescent fixtures.

But, like you said "hook em up and if the breaker doesn't blow, then it must be all right!"

 

I ran all 15 fixures (30 34w lights) on one circuit.

But....

I ran 12ga Romex, and I'm switching each set of 3 fixtures individually...as well as spacing the switches about 6 feet apart (under each light run) to resist the urge to light'em all ff at one time.

For rough estimate, I have 210 watts on each switch (3 fixtures=6bulbs@34watss each, roughed to 210watts total).

210 watts x 5 runs, is 1050 watts.

1050 watts divided by 110/120volts is less than 10 amps running. Easy enough on a 15amp circuit breaker anyway, plus the safety margin of the 12ga. My longest run is about 75 feet to the box, so that's why i went with 12ga, probably not needed, but only a few bucks more for the wire instead of 14 ga.

Besides, most likely I'll only have one set, two at the most, runs of lights (either 3 or 6 fxtures) on at anytime. I have them wire across the shop for each run so depending on where i'm working at, I'll have light on either side facing down at 45*'s and right over the middle of the shop. Should minimize shadowing.

My wall plugs will be 2 lines of 4 plugs each on seperate 20amp cuircuits, run through 12ga as well.

Oh, and if the breaker trips, aren't you just supposed to get a bigger breaker?

 

Now I understand Mike. I had pictured you lighting off all 17 fixtures at once. I have 5 that come on all together. For short trips into the garage I have a motion detector that turns on 4 strategically placed incandecent bulbs for 4 minutes. That saves the power of firing up the 5 big fixtures. I know that flourescents use a lot of power at start up and I hate the idea of turning them on and then turning right around and turning them off.

Has anybody figured out the differences in the various types of flourescent bulbs?? I had the normal 40 watt "shoplite" type bulbs that go on sale for $1.00 each. Then I tried some yuppy looking lights I got at a yard sale. They have a spiral built into the intire length. They are much brighter than the normal shop light bulbs. Any idea why? Jag