How to find best shop lights led for garage lighting?

2022-10-07

Garage Lighting is Important

Of all the improvements that you could make in your woodworking shop, the lighting is one of the most significant, and you will feel the results right away. Most of us have our woodworking shop in the garage, so getting your garage lighting laid out correctly is very important.

Unlike other projects, when you improve the lighting, you notice immediately. Not only is it easier to see you, but the shop feels more inviting, you are more comfortable, and all of those factors add up creating a place where you do better work.

When you are comfortable and happy in your shop, you produce the best woodworking projects that you can produce. There is a mental component to any hobby, and woodworking is no different. Lighting makes a big difference, and I’ll show you why.

Thankfully, designing your lighting layout for the garage is pretty easy, especially with all of the tips and tricks that I’m about to show you. 

Shop Lighting is Inexpensive thanks to LED Lights

One of the best things to happen to garage lighting in history has been the introduction of the LED light. These lights are awesome, inexpensive, and they cast a very large volume of light anywhere you use them.

It’s rare that something is the best and also one of the least expensive. LED shop lights are actually less expensive than a lot of other comparable lighting methods, and they are far superior for several reasons.

First, the quality of the light is outstanding. It mimics real light or daylight very well, and gives you a much more realistic look in your shop. LED shop lights also come in very compact shapes, which makes placing them extremely easy.

Thanks to the technology being so easy to produce, these lights also come in a number of different shapes and configurations. This makes it really easy to pick out the right lights for your garage shop, and get them in place to improve the lighting.

AntLux 4FT LED 40W Shop Lights for Garage, 4400lm, 4000K

Replace less-efficient fluorescent light fixture with a 4400 lumens output at 40 watts 4ft LED shop light. Energy Savings of up to 70% electric bill instantly. Provides 50,000 hours of maintenance-free operation.

Consider Where You Stand and Work

One of the biggest considerations is where you stand and work. The vast majority of the time spent in your shop is typically spent in only a few places. Most of the time this is going to be your bench, and a couple major tools.

When placing your lighting in these areas, it’s very important that you design the lighting layout in a way that does not create any shadows. For example, you wouldn’t want all of the lighting behind you when you are standing over your bench.

If the lighting was designed in this manner, you would constantly cast shadows on top of your workbench. This means you would also cast shadows on top of your projects, making it far more difficult to do simple tasks like measuring and marking.

The goal is to have light everywhere in the shop, but especially in areas where you do the most work and spend the most time. These are the places where the difference in lighting will be appreciated the most, and where you can make the biggest impact in your garage.

AntLux 4FT 50W Ultra Slim LED Shop Lights for Garage, No Glare, 5500 Lumens, 4000K Neutral White

Soft, no glare, Eye care design. Ultra Slim design make your space more elegant. 180°shining from both side, no inadequate lighting. Two led strips inside this 4ft led shop light fixture, no extra bulbs needed.

Add Lights to Fill the Entire Area

After you place your major lighting over the tools in the places that you spend the most time, add additional lights to fill the entire area. You don’t want to have a really bright area in one spot, and then a really dark area in another spot.

It’s important that the lighting be pretty consistent from place to place, though it may be a little bit better in some areas and others. What you don’t want to have happen is going from a well lit bench to a poorly lit bandsaw, which could be a safety issue.

As you are adding lights to your diagram, keep them evenly spaced, and the light should fill the entire area. The nice thing about working with the diagram and drawing your lights to scale is that you can easily see how big they are in relation to the room.

Eliminate All Dark Spots

On top of providing great lighting that illuminates all shadows, especially important areas where you were going to be doing a lot of work, the final piece of the puzzle is to illuminate all dark spots from your garage shop.

Many times, this is simply a matter of just referring to your diagram, and looking for areas that are looser than others. When you find these areas, either add additional lights, or adjust existing lights to fill any dark areas.

Dark spots are a safety concern. It’s not blatantly obvious when you are working in a well lit area and you transition into a poorly lit area. It seems like it would be, but it’s actually pretty easy to not realize that you are seeing as much as you should.

This is where mistakes can happen, and your safety, and the safety of your fingers could be at risk. Don’t let that happen, and eliminate all dark areas in your shop when you are designing your lighting system.

AntLux's 4ft Flush Mount LED Garage Lights

There are 2 holes on each end. Knock out on ends and assemble the lights in line together (up to 10). Easy to install. The integrated 4ft led garage light fixtures include led strips inside each fixture. No extra bulbs are needed!

Don’t Block the Garage Door

This is probably one of the more humorous issues that you may run into as you are designing the layout for your garage lighting in your shop. Make sure to note the location of the overhead garage door, because the lighting can become an issue.

The biggest issue you can run into is knocking down some of your lights the first time you open your  overhead garage door. While this will be a very humorous story later on, it will not be funny at all the moment that it happens.

The other issue you can run into is having too many lights above the garage door, and when you work with the door open, all of those lights are running for absolutely no reason. While that isn’t necessarily the end of the world given that LEDs don’t take up much energy, it’s still not good.

The way to design the lighting layout for your garage is to think about the garage door as being either up or down the vast majority of the time. If you know that you always like to work with the garage door open, and that you work in daylight most of the time, designed it that way.

In contrast, if you know that you work with the garage door closed the majority of the time, design it differently. Use lights that hang closer to the ceiling so that way they avoid the garage door, and put as many as you need in that area to illuminate the shop.

AntLux 110W 8FT Flush Mount Office Ceiling Lighting Fixture

Rugged aluminum used with excellent heat dissipation. Protect LED chips and driver to ensure long lifespan and stable performance.

Lights Over All Benches and Working Areas

It’s important that the lights that are over all benches in working areas are covered from a few different angles. This will help ensure that no matter which area you were standing in, there will always be light on your project.

One of the best ways to do this is to put lights directly above the bench, but a little bit further forward in the direction that you are facing when you stand at the bench. This makes it harder for you to cast shadows.

Couple that with a few lights to the left or the right, and the field that they create will help keep everything on your bench in plain sight. The additional lights in the shop will also provide fill, and that will make your bench super easy to see.

No Lights Directly in the Eyes or Face

With lights that are on the ceiling this isn’t too common of an issue, but sometimes lights that are hanging a little lower can cause a glare in the eyes. This is definitely something you want to avoid in a woodworking shop, for several reasons.

First of all, lights directly in the eyes can cause big problems while using power equipment, and can cause safety issues. You definitely don’t want to have to contend with a glaring light in your eyes while you’re operating your table saw.

Next, low hanging lights can cause an issue with you having to duck around them, or work around them when the lighting should be completely out of your way. Spend time on your layout and make sure that you aren’t putting any lighting to low, or in a place where it will hit your eyes directly.

Another time this happens is when there are shelves on the wall, and you decide to put lighting below those shelves. If the shelves are higher than your high level, you will get plenty of light directly in the eyes from those bulbs.

However, if the shelves are a lot lower, you can use that light has essentially non-directional light and fill light very effectively. Make sure it doesn’t hit you directly in the eyes, and your lighting will always be comfortable in your shop.

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The 8ft led strip lights provide 12000 lumens output at 110 watt with high efficiency. Energy Savings of up to 70% electric bill instantly. Provides 50,000 hours of maintenance-free operation.

Ceiling Lights and Wall Lights

When adding lighting into your layout, consider the fact that you can put lights on the ceiling, you can also put lights on the walls. The lights on the ceiling are very obvious, and that’s where the vast majority of shop lighting will reside.

The lights on the walls are not nearly as obvious, but is long as the light is not hitting directly in the eyes, you can put as many lights on the wall as you want. Keep them low enough to provide fill without glare.

These kinds of lights are actually really nice above a workbench, and shielded by a shelf. The shelf can be a place to store some of your tools, and it will also block the light from coming upwards towards your face.

The extra lighting can be great for projects that require more detail, or more attention to a smaller area. You can also run these on a separate switch so that way you can turn them on only when you need to.

Lighting Temperature Considerations

When buying your lighting, another thing to consider is the temperature of the bulbs as a relates to the type of light they produce. Most household light bulbs are considered soft white, but there is a lot more to choose from than that.

There is another option that’s similar to daylight, and that’s closer to 5000 Kelvin for the temperature rating. There are some that are higher, and some that are lower, with the higher numbers being a clear light and the lower numbers being more yellow.

There are a number of different schools of thought on lighting, with some suggesting to go for an even mixture of temperatures, and others saying to go daylight all the way. In my shop, I go daylight all the way, and I’ve never regretted the clear lighting that it produces.

These types of lights are in that 4000 to 5000 Kelvin range, and they produce a light that is very clear, and similar to daylight. I find that working in an environment like this is very easy to do, and it feels much brighter in there as well.

AntLux 3 Color Temperature Dimmable 4 Foot LED Flush Mount Ceiling Lights

This 4ft led flush mount light has three adjustable color-temperature settings from 3000K to 5000K, for warm white, natural white, and daylight white light( No Dimmers Required). You can choose anyone temperature to create the most suitable lighting for your activity or environment like kitchen, laundry room, warehouse, workshop, hallways, garage, office and so on.

AntLux's garage light fixture provide high performance and energy saving for you. Advantaged LEDs technology, our led shop light with good heat dissipation, using less energy and higher effective than tranditional fluorescent tubes. Over 50,000 hours lifespan. This low-energy led lighting is perfect to use in residential, best replacement for old style fluorescent lights.