# LED strips for shop lighting



## isotope (Dec 14, 2013)

Hi all,

I just wanted to share with everyone something I tried, which in my opinion, worked quite well. My workshop is in the basement of an old house. Often times, it feels more like a cave than a shop. Anyways, I had several fluorescent light fixtures which provided a reasonable amount of light, but I had problems with shadows. I would routinely find myself standing between my work and the light, and therefore create a shadow over the work. After some thought and research, I decided to try out some LED strips for lighting. I bought a 50 meter long coil of LED strip, and attached it to the underside of every joist (navigating many obstacles along the way). This LED light strip runs on 120V, and just simply plugs into a regular outlet. This particular strip is said to emit 300 lumens per meter, and was affordable, costing $85 for the entire 50 meter coil. I think the results are great. There is plenty of light and very little shadows. The only downside is that it does give a Christmas look to the shop.

Maybe this lighting option will prove useful for someone else. Thanks to everyone on this site for sharing so much. I love this site.


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## redSLED (Mar 21, 2013)

Nothing wrong with a Christmas look for your shop!

I personally prefer ample halogen flood lights plus LED flood and/or strip lights instead of the look of "bland office lighting" that florescent lighting creates, IMO. I believe I am in the minority with this sentiment. You can safely assume I hate working in offices, lol.


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## JesseTutt (Aug 15, 2012)

Thanks for the post. I have considered replacing the florescent lights with LED in my shop. I don't have a problem with florescent except in cold weather they don't work as well.

As time passes, please update us with how the LEDs are working out.


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## WoodNSawdust (Mar 7, 2015)

A search of LumberJocks returned this post. What brand of LED strip did you use and how is it holding up?


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## isotope (Dec 14, 2013)

I purchased the LED strip from Lighting Ever. Its a strip of daylight white 3528 LEDs for 120V, 50 M long (4100064-dw-us). The item can be found here. I've had these up for a little over 2 months and I think they are great. No issues yet.

Let me know if you have any other questions.


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## Tennessee (Jul 8, 2011)

My only concern is the LED light tends to lean into the blue spectrum, so it will change the way your staining and coloring looks compared to other lighting, or when you take a project out of the basement. Natural is best, but most people use incandescent lights, (still), in their homes and have the advantage of windows so if you use Cool White fluorescents or Daylight you are closer than you are with the LED's.

That being said, there is a real advantage to taking out the shadows, and this lighting might be it.


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## TheLastDeadMouse (Aug 19, 2014)

No pictures of the install yet, but I just installed some LED strip lights from this company based on this thread. My shop is quite a bit bigger than the OP, so I ordered one string (164 ft or 50m) of the 5050 lights which put out about 2.5 times as much light as the 3528 lights he used. My shop is just north of 800 sq ft, and I'd say at that size one string its not quite enough to get the light I'd like, but close. Certainly workable, but for detailed work you'd want a bit more.










This is the routing I used to install my lights. A zig zagging pattern down every other or every third rafter would probably have been better, but my 8ft fluorescent fixtures are set up in a shape that would have made this very difficult. In the next couple months I'm planning to remove the fluorescents, reroute these lights and install a second string which should be more than enough light.


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## soob (Feb 3, 2015)

300 lumens per meter and 50 meters gives just 15,000 lumens, not even as bright as a single four-bulb t5-ho fixture. In a 400-square-foot garage that would be just 37.5 lumens per square foot, not nearly bright enough in my opinion.

In my little 450 square foot shop I have four four-bulb t5ho fixtures and three four-bulb t8 fixtures for a total of approximately 100,000 lumens (probably more). You can never have too much light.


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## TheLastDeadMouse (Aug 19, 2014)

The 5050 strip I used is 720 lumens per meter, (720*50/812) which gives me about 45 lumens per square foot. Its enough light for non-detail work. I'll probably use just the LED for things like cleaning and organizing, glue ups, milling, and rough sanding. I'll still use the fluorescents any time I'm cutting or fine sanding. Once I get a second string of LEDs up (90 lumens per sqft) I'd feel comfortable working without the fluorescents. I'm used to less light though, so for how many lumens per sqft are really needed is a your mileage may vary thing.


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## soob (Feb 3, 2015)

I guess. It's just that lights are cheap and fluorescents work really well. I just don't see the need for LED strip lights like this.

Also, I would look into the deficiencies of small LED lights at color rendering. A modern t5 or t8 fluorescent usually has an 85-90+ CRI, but LED strip lights often don't publish it because it's very low (60-70%).


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## Mosquito (Feb 15, 2012)

In the garage I use a combination of a 50' LED rope light, and 2 work lights/flood lights attached to the rafters for work lighting. Otherwise the only light is the single bulb on the garage door opener. Luckily (I think?) I don't do much woodworking in the garage.

In my spare-bedroom-shop, I recently picked up one of these (1 comes with a pair of 4' lights) http://www.ebay.com/itm/161730359312?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Mounted them on the ceiling above my bench, and been pretty happy with them. Good amount of light where I want it


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## TheLastDeadMouse (Aug 19, 2014)

> I guess. It s just that lights are cheap and fluorescents work really well. I just don t see the need for LED strip lights like this.
> 
> Also, I would look into the deficiencies of small LED lights at color rendering. A modern t5 or t8 fluorescent usually has an 85-90+ CRI, but LED strip lights often don t publish it because it s very low (60-70%).
> 
> - soob


There's a couple reasons working together for me. I have 8' T12 lights currently, and they've been very problematic. They worked fine when I bought the place two years ago, but after a couple months they started going dark. New bulbs, worked fine for a couple months and then started to go again. One went out entirely, replaced it, immediately the rest went almost completely dark. I'm at the point where I just wanted to replace everything and start from scratch, and the LED strip lights let me do that without doing any wiring. Also, my shop is mostly unheated (shares a wall with heated rooms) except for a small kerosene space heater on the coldest winter days, and up here that means -20s outside and 30's in. LEDs are a lot more reliable for those conditions.


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## isotope (Dec 14, 2013)

Thanks for the update TheLastDeadMouse. I will be interested to see your pictures.

I'm not lobbying anyone to convert to LED strip lights, but I think they are a very good option nonetheless. The advantages that I see are: 
1) Very disperse light, eliminating shadows 
2) Low power consumption. In my case, the 50M strip equates to 15,000 lumens or roughly 10×100W incandescent bulbs. The reported wattage for the strip is 4.8W/M or 240W total. 
3) Relatively inexpensive. I calculate roughly $1 for 200 lumens. You don't need to buy or install any fixtures. Nor replace any bulbs.

Additional benefits to me are that due to my very low ceilings. I gained some headspace. And, I no longer have to worry about breaking lights by accidentally hitting them with a piece of wood or tool.


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## turbov6camaro (Sep 23, 2014)

very nice

I'm replace all lights in my shop with these tried of the buzzing/crappy expensive light from florescent

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-4-ft-LED-Linkable-White-Shop-Light-54103161/205331022


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

I've been replacing my four footers with four foot LED's Costco is selling. I will not be going back.

Of course, the LED's don't care about the temperature, so that will be a plus for many.

If you need task lighting, check out lightingwill.com. I've bought from them several times for house lighting bars (e.g., 20" aluminum strips with 45 LED's for ten bucks) and have been happy with the results. You order do get here by slow boat from China, however, so plan on up to a month for the product to arrive. However, it arrived working and well packaged.

All my shop tools, like the drill press, band saw and grinders now have sixty watt equiv. screw in LED's.


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

> Thanks for the update TheLastDeadMouse. I will be interested to see your pictures.
> 
> I m not lobbying anyone to convert to LED strip lights, but I think they are a very good option nonetheless. The advantages that I see are:
> 1) Very disperse light, eliminating shadows
> ...


hope this works out good for you. One challenge with the rope lights and many of the 'decorative' LED options is that their light depreciation is high. Generally from the epoxy/silicones the chips are set in. Since these are blue lights with some phosphor to convert that blue to white, while the LED has long life, the electronics and plastics aren't that good on some of these.

Check the CRI (Color Rendering Index) there are "grades" of everything. In california to qualify for utility rebates CEC proposes minimum of 90 CRI

LED is definitely a get what you pay for game right now… so many of the budget options are likely to disappoint in the longer term.

T8 Fluorescent bulbs run ~2 bucks for 3000 lumens, and have 85 CRI

T12 is expensive and much lower light (with current Dept of Energy bans on the brighter versions)
.


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## MrRon (Jul 9, 2009)

I would like to upgrade to LED, but my shop is 1200 sf with a 10' ceiling.I don't think I could get enough light from LED's.


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## turbov6camaro (Sep 23, 2014)

> I would like to upgrade to LED, but my shop is 1200 sf with a 10 ceiling.I don t think I could get enough light from LED s.
> 
> - MrRon


every LED i have is brighter


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## isotope (Dec 14, 2013)

MrRon, 
As many have pointed out in this thread, there are multiple options for LED lights. But, fundamentally, there is no reason why you couldn't get enough light. As a ball park calculation, I have a roughly 300 sf shop and lighting equivalent to 15,000 lumens, this suggests that you would need roughly 60,000 lumens in your shop. Your ceilings are higher, so more light wouldn't hurt. Depending on whether you want to simply replace the bulbs in your existing fixtures or install strip lighting, this may or may not be doable. If you tell us more info on your current lighting situation, people might have some good ideas for you.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

What we're all looking for is lumen output. LED's get us there just as good as florescents.

I installed two three way circuits. The thousand foot portion of the shop I do most my work in has about fourteen four footers. It's good enough to go, by a mile. However, I plan on adding about seven more and I shouldn't have shadow anywhere.

That should be somewhere in the ball park of seventy-five thousand lumens at about eight hundred forty watts.

The other eight hundred square feet is storage and I find four or five four footers toss enough light for those purposes.


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## turbov6camaro (Sep 23, 2014)

I disagree

lumen output is really for the birds, what you really want is PAR, if you can fins PAR measurements that tells more of a story

PAR is what they use in salt water aquariums to make sure the coral has the needed light at the depth it is at, and is much more accurate for messing the light option at different distances.

as you more away form the light the light spread and reduces PAR but lumen measurement can still stay high directly under the light source.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

Finding PAR references on lighting is, probably, not quite as easy as finding "3 HP" on a Craftsman hand power tool. In fact, I wouldn't even know one if I hit it on the golf course [a few hundred feet from my house]. Lumens, on the other hand, they's about as common as that "3 HP" thing.

I'm sure they'll do another terminology shift, after word gets out and if it's an improvement in establishing light levels under my counter.


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## soob (Feb 3, 2015)

I dunno what PAR is, but you can get a light meter for $20 on eBay and find out how many footcandles you're getting at any given location. That could be very… illuminating. I can't remember what mine is because it's been a while since I did it, but IIRC it was 150+ at bench height in most places (of course it varies depending on where you are in relation to your fixtures). And that's nice.

It's good for houseplants too. The human eye is very adaptable and so it's hard to estimate absolute brightness. 150 footcandles (which is 5x as bright as most rooms in a typical house) would be like what you'd find under a dense tree outside. Direct sun is 8000+.

IIRC a footcandle is 1 lumen per square foot. Of course you will not get as many as you expect because all of the light isn't projected straight down evenly across your floor.


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## turbov6camaro (Sep 23, 2014)

http://www.lumigrow.com/demystifying-lumens-lux-par/


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## soob (Feb 3, 2015)

That says PAR is a measure of light available to be used by plants. Since we presumably aren't growing plants in our shops, lumens or footcandles is probably a better measurement to use.


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## vskgaming (Dec 23, 2013)

Thank you for this thread OP, this was the exact thing going on in my mind these days.

I will be looking into the HD commercial LED light *turbov6camaro* mentioned in his post. 2 of them (plus existing 2 fluorescent) should be suffice for my 400 sq ft garage.


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## turbov6camaro (Sep 23, 2014)

> That says PAR is a measure of light available to be used by plants. Since we presumably aren t growing plants in our shops, lumens or footcandles is probably a better measurement to use.
> 
> - soob


plants use red, green, and blue area of the spectrum , mostly the red (depends on plant and time of year/sate of growth ect.)

with that in mind
Current understanding is that the 6 to 7 million cones can be divided into "red" cones (64%), "green" cones (32%), and "blue" cones (2%)

64% of your sight is read light, 32% only 2% blue, thus why to much blue cause eye strain and such

since all colors we see are measured from the red/green/blue measuring the yellow does not really help us

since PAR meter cost $300 it is not really something I can experament with right now, but well balance light from aquirmus are bright and everyone says they look good.

LOL

just something to think about really


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## turbov6camaro (Sep 23, 2014)

> Thank you for this thread OP, this was the exact thing going on in my mind these days.
> 
> I will be looking into the HD commercial LED light *turbov6camaro* mentioned in his post. 2 of them (plus existing 2 fluorescent) should be suffice for my 400 sq ft garage.
> 
> - vskgaming


i have one over my Table saw and outfeed and it cover that entire are very well, its 8×7 but i would think 2-3 in your area should work, you may need 3 or 4 for shadow elimination though

don't matter if you 500000000000000000000 lumen if it's shadowed it still sucks lol


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## Marti1954 (Aug 10, 2016)

I'm trying to decide on lighting for my shed and was looking at the 12v led's for more light and cheaper price than flourescent. I didn't realize there was 110v led string lights. How did you wire them? Are they all on one switch and one breaker? Or did you break them up?

thanks


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

You'd be mistaken. They will work just fine. Compare light output of the LED's to the florescent you'd use. Better yet, invest sixty bucks in a couple for a work area and get some first hand experience.

I have eight foot ceilings and wished I could get a couple more feet for better dispersion of the lights I have.



> I would like to upgrade to LED, but my shop is 1200 sf with a 10 ceiling.I don t think I could get enough light from LED s.
> 
> - MrRon


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## isotope (Dec 14, 2013)

> How did you wire them? Are they all on one switch and one breaker? Or did you break them up?


I wired up a normal receptacle box in the ceiling and the LED strip plugs into that with a normal 2-prong plug. The entire length (50 meters) is powered through that one plug, and it's controlled by a wall switch. The power draw is pretty reasonable. I don't remember exactly, but somewhere in the 200 Watt range. There should be detailed specs for the strips you are considering.


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## OnhillWW (Jan 10, 2015)

I have been moving in the direction of the OP. I may be reconnoitering my shop soon and have considered going with strip/ribbon LEDs installed as he did. Obviously no one size fits all. Quality LED components are not the be-all-to-end-all. They are not inexpensive but do offer lower operating costs, far less maintenance(none), and wider design / use options beyond what other existing lighting options do.

Over the past year I have worked LED lighting into a number of projects, the results have been great and going forward I will be using them with more frequency. If you do the research you will find that there is a plethora of cheap versions which offer poor performance, i.e. premature failure as well as a handful of quality offerings that live up to Lumen, CRI and longevity claims. As with anything else - you get what you pay for.

I replaced a pair of outdoor flood lights with a commercial LED fixture. I am extremely happy with the results. The price was high but the results are great and if it lives up to the stated specs I will save money on my utility bill, never have to climb a ladder to replace a bulb again, and get great performance even in sub zero temps (which I did this past winter).

I also used LED strip/ribbon lights similar to those used by the OP to encircle the entire inner perimeter of a large but shallow clothing closet. The result was outstanding , by spreading the light source over a very wide area it all but eliminated shadowing while searching through the closet and gave good enough color rendering to distinguish dark navy blues from blacks .

I had a 8' remnant piece from the closet project which I installed at the wall to ceiling juncture going down the length of my basement steps. This shed far fewer overall lumens that the previous existing 75W bulb at the top and 75W bulb at the bottom of the stairs offered however the result is far superior as the lighting is far more evenly applied and eliminates shadowing from the source. Everyone who uses the stairs agrees.

So my point is, from my experience, when spreading a light source over a wide area as you do with an installation such as the OP used, you blanket that area with light that is nearly devoid of any shadowing and thus ideal for a work area. Quality LEDs can be had that are similar to fluorescents, i.e. cool white and warm so color rendering need not be any worse that with fluorescents. If accurate color rendering is essential to a task I could set up a work area specifically outfitted with any light source appropriate for that task.


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## magaoitin (Oct 20, 2015)

Great and economical use of strip lights Isotope!

To get rid of the "Christmas light" feel there are a ton of inexpensive options you might want to consider. The easiest/cheapest would be to take any scrap 2×4 material, cut it in half for a 2×2, dado a 5/16"-1/2" (depending on your light strip width) slot in the middle and secure that to the underside of each joist. You can notch the top of the 2x material so that is spans any electrical wires/conduit, and just screw it to the joists. Then you get a nice tight appearance without sacrificing much height. Paint it white and it can really clean up the look.

You could even get really crazy and build in a lens cover by cutting in a 1" T slot so you could insert a plexiglass/lexan strip. The possibilities that LED strips are giving us are amazing.

I am putting up an "art wall" at my shop stairs with scrap acrylic panels from a commercial job we were going to toss, and have incorporated LED strips. Cut a 10mm dado for the light strip to recess, then cut a 12mm dado for my acrylic panel to sit in.

This application is obviously for a clear acrylic panel to get secured in, but the same principle applies to overhead applications. Any piece of wood with a dado in it gives a clean spot for screws to be recessed and for the lights to be secured. The strip lights I purchased have sticky back tape on them. I dont know how long that would last against bare wood, but a couple dabs of CA glue here and there, and your champion.


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## kelvancra (May 4, 2010)

Like Onhillww, I've experienced the advantage of spreading the light over an area and was very pleased with the result.

I bought ten 20" long light bars for ten bucks each from lightingwill.com and installed them under my kitchen cabinets. I had wired for halogens so I had to dim them through a magnetic transformer (120VAC dimmer), rather than the usual means of dimming off a 12V dimmer. They work so well, we rarely turn on the overhead lights, other than the task lights at the stove and the sink.

With the bars, there are not bright and dim spots, like we would have had with the halogens. Of course, there is the heat issue too. Finally, though power is REALLY cheap in Eastern Washington (e.g., literally three dams next door) running halogens hours a day would have spun the meter. As it is, the entire counter is lit off only a few watts.

All these things said, for my shop, I want the maximum blast of light I can, reasonably, get. It would take a lot of bars to give me what the four foot shop lights provide.

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NOTE: LED's offer no significant, if any, power reduction compared to florescents.


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## OnhillWW (Jan 10, 2015)

Magaoitin,
Very neat project, I can just imagine the aesthetic effect. Allow me to caution you on the design as I can see you have put a lot of thought into the project and would not want to see it fail. LEDs one limiting factor is that they degrade when exposed to heat. By trapping those lights in a channel there is no way for the heat generated by the lights to dissipate and as such will lead to premature failure unless you can offer some kind of venting to the strip. Perhaps incorporate vent gaps into the design. To this end if you look at quality LED fixtures you will see they are equipped with cooling fins for this very reason. From the link below - *1. Thermal Management - Heat = death to LEDs. Ask if and how the LED strip lights have been designed for proper thermal management and heat dissipation. If they have not, the LED's 50,000+ hour LED chip life span may drop to 10,000 or 20,000 hours. This can be done on a chip level and on a PCB level. Do not solely rely on an aluminum heat sink to dissipate heat away from the LEDs. The product should be designed at a component level to ensure a longer lifespan.*

Also, the deeper one buries an LED strip into a dado type grove the more severely you will limit the lateral spread of the light. For area lighting such as a work shop a better and less expensive solution is to first apply aluminum foil tape (the type used to seal ducts) which has very tenacious adhesive to the joist bottoms, then apply the ribbon lights to the taped surface. The LED adhesive will adhere very well to the foil tape. Suppliers also offer narrow aluminum strips designed to house the LEDs but these can be costly for a project the size of a work shop. Here is one example:

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=71702&cat=1,43349

FWIW - here are two good resources for LED information. The first has a lot of technical detail but you should skim the entire article as there are some easy to understand sections and great graphics. The second link is more user friendly:

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightinganswers/led/abstract.asp
https://www.flexfireleds.com/top-4-considerations-before-buying-flexible-led-strip-lights/


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## OggieOglethorpe (Aug 15, 2012)

* If accurate color rendering is essential to a task I could set up a work area specifically outfitted with any light source appropriate for that task.*

I never decide on colors, or try to match under general shop lighting. I prefer to take the materials or samples to an area similar to the expected location an item will be used to make color decisions.

It's easy enough to find a "typical home location", or daylight in a home shop.


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## Knockonit (Nov 5, 2017)

i have the four foot led fixtures thru out shop, some days one must wear sunglasses, plenty of light, even have task lighting at a few locations, seems the older i get the more light i want. 
led no heat ,and white light


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## controlfreak (Jun 29, 2019)

> i have the four foot led fixtures thru out shop, some days one must wear sunglasses, plenty of light, even have task lighting at a few locations, seems the older i get the more light i want.
> led no heat ,and white light
> 
> - Knockonit


I just go by the 4' LED shop lights at Sam's or Costco and pick one up every so often and in fill where I am getting a shadow. Check the way that they interconnect. I have some with a proprietary goofy plug so I always need to move them to the end of the line. Get the ones that have a standard plug to interconnect. Very happy with mine, small shop so this method works for me.


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## OzarkJim (8 mo ago)

Yet another useful thread as we build out our shop. Lighting is one of the things we are working on. At present we are in the "something quick to get setup" mode. As such we simply have 4' LED lights from a mix of the big box stores hanging from our currently open rafters. That will change once we have the ceiling in. At that point, lighting will be installed on a more permanent basis and this thread will be a reference. What we install will at least partly depend upon what we end up using for ceiling (roofing tin, sheetrock or beadboard panels). With roofing tin LED roll lighting may well be a good choice.

I have already considered incorporating the roll LED into our cabinet builds. Having some lighting experience, I know that having light without seeing the light bulbs glare is a very good thing. On a cabinet setup you can easily hide the light strip. We are building one set of cabinets that will be about 30' along our north wall. That will be the ideal place for LED strip lights.


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## therealSteveN (Oct 29, 2016)

My experience is "shadows" just mean you don't have a sufficient number of fixtures to "COVER" the area with light. Adding go go lighting might make it a little better, but for old guys like me, probably at a risk to greater eye strain than needed.

If anyone has headache, or difficulty focusing after being in a darker space, and trying to do work, a look at your lighting source may be helpful to a good solution.


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