Hi, My new shop is a pole barn 40 x 34 w/ metal sides and roof. Fully insulated and conditioned, but with 4 rows of florescent tubes. Plenty of light but absolutly very bad radio reception. An outside FM antenna helps a little, but not much and no AM reception. We are in a rural area. When the lights are off the radio works fine. Any suggestions about further filtering? Carlos Ralon, RPT ----- Original Message ----- From: Joseph Garrett To: pianotech Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 8:11 PM Subject: Re: [pianotech] Shop Lighting? Barbara asked: "Anyway, I digress. My question is: What sort of lighting would be best? Currently, there are a total of 4 bulbs in the entire basement and it's really dark. We are going to have to wire for more electrical outlets and lights. Should I stick with traditional bulbs or would fluorescent lighting be better for the shop? Or canister spot lights? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you! :-D" Barbara Nobbe, RPT Barbara, I just did a basement remodel for one of my Associates. It was patterned after my shop set-up. First, put outlets 4' apart 4' up the wall around the whole darned thing! Second, I use a combination of lighting. I use mostly flourescent fixtures, (two bulb/4 footers. I had 8 footers. They were unsuitable for many reasons!). The Flourescent fixtures should be at right angles to any work bench in order to have the least amount of shadow problems. I augmented my shop with Halogen Flood Lights to off-set the poor color spectrum of the flourescents. Made a world of difference in the overall mood in the shop, (which is tatamount to good work.<G>). The flourescents, alone, tend to get me nervous and anxious. I've also added a few "under counter fixtures to add to better lighting in specific work areas. In short, I would suggest you take the time to blueprint everything you intend to put in the shop. Do that BEFORE you do anything you'll later regret.<G> As for those light fixtures, in the ceiling, change those to outlets. That way you can just plug whatever light fixtures you want into them. If you have more than one entry into the shop area, you will need three-way or even four-way switch set-ups. If you have an Electrician Friend or Client. Pick their brain for more ideas. Also, consider Air exchange, i.e. fans to the outside, etc. Multiple plug in bars, like you use for your computers & stereos are absolutely necessary ON any work benches you plan to have. The more the merrier.<G> Have fun with the whole Planning Stage. I find it is a real kick to do this sort of thing. Regards, Joe Joe Garrett, R.P.T. (Oregon) Captain, Tool Police Squares R I -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091014/60714ebc/attachment.htm>
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