Garage lights

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parshisa

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I just did full pain correction/CQUK coating on my civic and struggled due to extremely poor lightning in my garage. All I had was a portable living room lamp and sun match tool (looks like scangrip but cheaper). It was a nightmare trying the see if all the defect are gone on the grey metallic of my civic. With my wife’s pilot correction/coating planned what are the budget options to improve the lighting to make my life easier? Can anyone recommend a basic 2car garage setup at reasonable for DIY guy price? Thanks in adavance.


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I did T5 High Power Florescent. Two bulbs per unit, four units total thus a total of 8 T5 bulbs. Combined with my garage door opener it's 39,000 lumens and very bright and very clean. I had two bulbs in the ceiling towards the house and simply the first two wired them in there and extended the other two units towards the front of the garage.

I just didn't find LED's that were cost effective to be bright enough. Perhaps prices have dropped. I don't regret florescents though as they are very bright and super easy to find.

This is an old photo and not the best but the lights are the same:

original.jpg




Here's the set up showing a customers car parked and completed.

original.jpg



Plenty of light to work with. I still use my stand up lights for revealing swirls.

original.jpg
 
Thanks for the feedback. It looks like your garage is a bit larger than 2 car garage? I wonder how many bulbs would be sufficient for regular garage? would that be a good idea to place those not only on the ceiling but on the walls as well (as opposed to using stand up lights)?
 
I assume you have two installed on the ceiling? How high off the ground are those two on the side walls are installed?
 
I ran into the same thing and just installed new lights in my 24x26 two stall this past weekend. I ended up using the lights in the link below. I installed 8 of them and the garage has almost zero shadows and it more than bright enough for me. I picked these fixtures because that can be daisy chained and they also have pull cords so you can shut some of them off it wanted.

https://www.amazon.com/Hyperikon-Li...UTF8&qid=1516042221&sr=1-7&keywords=hyperikon
 
For mine I have three suspended from the ceiling at a height of 7.5’ and one wall mounted at 5.5’. The only reason I wall mounted one was due to an attic access door that blocked ceiling use in that area.
 
I added two of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y1ZHFMZ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Brightest lights I've ever seen. I still have two small problems - First, they are on the ceiling at the front left and the back rear of my garage, because that's where the fixtures are. I end up needing to turn my car around for inspection to feel sure I've seen everything I need to do. I'd love to find a good way to put two more in just for even lighting. Second, it does leave the lower part of the car, under the midpoint of the doors, and below the grill and the trunk deck, still a bit dark. I use a head lamp for those areas. Some side lights would be great, but with my setup as is, it won't happen.
 
parshisa said:
Thanks for the feedback. It looks like your garage is a bit larger than 2 car garage? I wonder how many bulbs would be sufficient for regular garage? would that be a good idea to place those not only on the ceiling but on the walls as well (as opposed to using stand up lights)?
Click to expand...

24ft x 24ft x 10ft high. I have way too much stuff to do the sides even though in a perfect world I would.
 
TTQ B4U,

That garage is incredible as far as light. Are you using an HDR enchanced feature or multiple exposure composite on your phone/camera? Or is that just all fluorescent lighting?
 
machz said:
I ran into the same thing and just installed new lights in my 24x26 two stall this past weekend. I ended up using the lights in the link below. I installed 8 of them and the garage has almost zero shadows and it more than bright enough for me. I picked these fixtures because that can be daisy chained and they also have pull cords so you can shut some of them off it wanted.

https://www.amazon.com/Hyperikon-Li...UTF8&qid=1516042221&sr=1-7&keywords=hyperikon
Click to expand...

Same here, love the Hyperikon set up. Used a wireless remote to turn and put the remote near the door to the garage, eliminated the pull chain.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013F9JJ72/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Last but not least a fellow geek gave the rundown on a DIY LED setup. Lots of people on the forum have made a set, works great.
https://www.autogeekonline.net/foru...-led-work-light-much-better-than-halogen.html

Good luck, let us know what you end up doing.
 
Look up Obsessed Garage in YouTube. His garage setup is quite similar to what I have now and his lighting link is in his videos too.


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cyclops said:
Same here, love the Hyperikon set up. Used a wireless remote to turn and put the remote near the door to the garage, eliminated the pull chain.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013F9JJ72/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Last but not least a fellow geek gave the rundown on a DIY LED setup. Lots of people on the forum have made a set, works great.
https://www.autogeekonline.net/foru...-led-work-light-much-better-than-halogen.html

Good luck, let us know what you end up doing.
Click to expand...

That remote is a great idea...

Here are my hyperikon lights also remember this is without sheetrock that will make it even brighter.

View attachment 61605
View attachment 61606
 
LEDetailing said:
TTQ B4U,

That garage is incredible as far as light. Are you using an HDR enchanced feature or multiple exposure composite on your phone/camera? Or is that just all fluorescent lighting?
Click to expand...

That's straight from my phone with no enhancements. It's bright. I've yet to paint the walls or ceiling yet too. I'm more than pleased with how it turned out. Each fixture was like $35, plus bulbs. About 3hrs to get it all installed.
 
Not that it matters but I would be shocked if those weren't HDR as they have the tell tale plastic look. I would guess it's turned on on your phone for these pics. Either way the lights look good.
 
machz said:
Not that it matters but I would be shocked if those weren't HDR as they have the tell tale plastic look. I would guess it's turned on on your phone for these pics. Either way the lights look good.
Click to expand...

Nope. In camera jpg processing only with whatever the Note uses for their default processing which IIRC is simply rich-tone. You can't set HDR on for Panorama shots.
 
I recently installed four Metalux 4-foot LED strips from Lowes in my 2-car garage and it lights up the inside like the noon day sun. They are far brighter than one would think for their size and produce a nice, even diffusion of the light. I have a side entry garage with front facing windows and amount of light escaping from the blinds led my neighbors to joke that it looks like a UFO has landed in there or I'm a mad scientist working on some experiment.

They were a little pricey, but I decided to LED rather than avoid the issues with fluorescent slowly getting to full brightness in cold temperatures. I've had "instant on" bulbs in there previously and they would still take a minute or two when the temps dropped into the 50's or lower.
 
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