Let there be light

[JTknives]

Is it true you can never have to much light on your grinder?

What I got is 2 1000w metal halide lamps mounted above my bench. This adds about 220,000 lumins to the grinding area. Enough?

 

[wkfl]

No you cannot have too much. I need to thank you for the led tube post, my shop shines now cuz of that one.

 

[LCKT707]

Rofl that first picture is awesome! But yeah, you can never have enough light. You should of seen what I was working with when I first started knifemaking even up to 8 months ago. I was using the shittiest, single, dull bulb in the ceiling for everything. Sometimes I'd get a work light (the ones that act like a heater lol) to bring in extra lumens but it wasn't until I finally got serious and said "fuck it", went to Home Depot, and bought LED lights to hang in the shop that I truly realized how nice it is to have good lighting!

I'd like to fit one more hanging light in there but it's way too small when the remianing ceiling space I want to fill with one of those WEN air filter systems. I'm literally under a staircase like Harry freakin' Potter lol

 

[JTknives]

I can understand suffering with lack of light. My last shop was 11ftx22ft and have one 100w bulb in the middle. As much as I love LED it’s hard to beat the shear amount of lumins you can get out of other types of lamps. It’s not that thy have much if any higher lumin output per W but thy are substantially cheaper then an equivalent led with a true lumin output. I mean these 1000W metal halide bulbs put out 110,000 lumins each and the bulb is like $20 to replace. No the shitty thing is the CRI is very low in the 60-70s where my leds are 90+. But that does not matter much for grinding. Then wear a white shirt and bam no shadows. The one draw back is thy take time to fire up. I plug them in 10min befor I start my grinding. Once there fully warmed up I recommend you don’t look them in the eye. After I first got them installed I could not stop staring at them. I went inside and felt sick. I dont know if light poisoning is a thing but I did not deal good. So I don’t stare at them any more lol. I normally would not have even considered these lamps but my work just replaced all our yard lights with leds and thy where just tossing them. You would think thy would feal hot but actualy you can’t feal any heat from them.

 

[Rhinoknives1]

one of the things I do that works like a charm for full light wherever I am is To use one of those, as seen on TV . Tac Lamp head lights. They are bright! The beams is adjustable and all you need is three AAA battery’s. ——/—-/////But Wait! There’s more! You get two Tac Lamps for only $19.95——////// Really they work great and I keep the other one in the truck

 

[kuraki]

lol

 

[Lieblad]

Nice ! Big lights, big press, You are soon to 'max your new electric service.
Advent of LED is great for us scroungers. I picked up free NOS explosionproof several lamps much like yours. Going to put them up in my forecourt.

 

[JTknives]

And my surface grinder, heat treat oven, mill, 2x72 grinder, 25 and 7.5 hp rotary phase converter, plasma cutter, welder, jet wood bandsaw, Kalamazoo steel bandsaw, and the wife’s freezer. Yeah here comes the pier bill lol

 

[Geoff Flato]

I tried a big halogen over my grinder a while back, but that only lasted an hour or two. May as well have hung a barbecue over the grinder... I think you've got the right idea sticking them way up and to the side. I'll have to revisit it eventually... My pair of LED bulbs on the grinders lamps is a bit lacking

 

[JTknives]

I’m not sure on the heat output of halogen vs metal halide. These lights do get hot but I don’t find that it radiates out like say a heat bulb. I’m going to move the left one back a little bit. It’s to far forward and casts a little shadow.

 

[i4Marc]

......and on the 8th day the Lord made sunglasses.

 

[Busto]

......and on the 8th day the Lord made sunglasses.

AND....SPF 1500 Sunscreen

 

[Geoff Flato]

I’m not sure on the heat output of halogen vs metal halide. These lights do get hot but I don’t find that it radiates out like say a heat bulb. I’m going to move the left one back a little bit. It’s to far forward and casts a little shadow.

I'm not too familiar with metal halide, but the halogen I had was uncomfortable to hold my hand a foot in front of it. I'll need to look at some other options, ideally something that screws in a normal socket..

 

[timgunn1962]

Looks perfect for grinding.

All the Metal Halide lights I've used have conventional ballasts and, like older fluorescents, the output flickers at twice mains frequency (100 Hz flicker over here, 120 Hz over there). Should be no problem with a grinder, but it may possibly cause strobing with some symmetrical rotating machinery. I know a couple of guys who have had cuts and bruises from reaching for moving-but-apparently-stationary chucks on lathes and I've seen the same effect on drill press chucks. It may be worth bearing in mind if you add further machinery to your bright area.

Note: I only get to use older, scrounged, lighting units: newer ones may have HF ballasts like many newer fluorescents.

If you have access to an optical tachometer, pointing it at the fitting while it is on will usually give an RPM reading corresponding to the frequency. 7200 RPM corresponds to 120 Hz.

 

[12345678910]

https://www.bigassfans.com/lights/high-powered-fixture/

From the Big Ass Fan people

a 12,000 lumen LED fixture

Daylight, but I wish it was a higher kelvin though

 

[Rhinoknives1]

Gentlemen , I learned this from a man that did lighting for movies etc in HW, one thing to remember is the more while paint you have on the Ceiling and walls, the better all of those those lights will work! Very important! If it’s all dark in there. You’ll need two three times the lights!

 

[Drew Riley]

Is this so you don't have to take off your burning goggles while you grind?

 

[javand]

Lol you can definitely have too much light when you get blinded by reflections, or see spots when you look at a dark area. Those HIDs can do serious eye damage btw, be careful.



IMO, high light is important, but *MORE* important, is balanced light. If you have more intense light source on one side or the other, when you hold a blade up to eye-ball for straightness and evenness in tapers, it'll create an optical illusion, which can make a things look off, when they're not. With tube LEDS or CFLs, I find it important, to center myself inline with the length of the tubes, holding the blade up straight, to look at the spine, facing a dark background. This will show minor variances in tapers especially, that you will miss in any other scenario.


Also, light color is a big factor IMO. You can see things in warmer color light that you can't see in cold temp spectrum lights.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

You can definitely have too much light.

Your eyes are designed to work best in a certain amount of light. You have different cells for low and normal light. When you greatly surpass that limit, you start damaging the receptor cells. Add to that the fact that those type lights give off a lot more than the visible spectrum. 2000+ watts is way too much to have 6 feet from you. Check out the UV output of those halide lamps.

Also, the spectrum of halide lamps is in the mid-spectrum peaking at yellow. The peak is also double what the other color ranges ar, so it is only putting out 50% green, 30% orange and blue, and 10-20% of red and violet. The UV is around 20-30% , which means you get a good dose of UV while only seeing yellow. As you see, they do not give a wide spectrum of white light. High kelvin LED bulbs in the 6500K range would be much better. They are doped to emit more blue light and have a wider color range.

I would have to do some testing, but I feel I would rather have 300 or 400 watts of high kelvin LED over the bench in an arangement to create no shadows than have 2000 watts of halide lamps.

 

[JTknives]

The origanial plan was to replace the bulbs with big led replacement bulbs.