Shop Shop Lights - Excessive Edition

[SomeGuy]

Don't judge me lol

I came across a bunch of used ETC Source 4 Par's for $15/each, these used to be $400ish stage lights. I picked up 10 of them and hung 8 in the garage, wired in four new circuits for them as they're a bit power hungry. Ironically, it cost me more to rig/wire them than the lights themselves cost. They're 575 watts each, though can also take a 750 watt lamp, all HPL style lamps. It's completely pointless, given I already have 8 of the 4500 lumen 48" shop lights (you can see a few in the picture) which is plenty bright, but this was fun for shits and giggles. They're also rather nice in the winter, standing at the bench with four of them shining on me gives me a nice warm back from the heat radiating off these things without even turning on the heater cost to run all eight works out to something like 50 cents per hour depending on time of day.

Quick little video too:

 

[whydontu]

Lord, aim all 8 of them through a fresnel lens and you could probably use them to weld aluminum.

 

[SomeGuy]

Lord, aim all 8 of them through a fresnel lens and you could probably use them to weld aluminum.

LoL well, it is almost 5 kilowatts, so I'm sure you could melt something with it...at least make a grilled cheese sandwich.

 

[skippyelwell]

Now just add some coloured gels in front of them and create mood lighting, there are also coloured gel carousels so you can turn your shop from an Antarctic twilight to the depths of Hades.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

LoL well, it is almost 5 kilowatts, so I'm sure you could melt something with it...at least make a grilled cheese sandwich.

Have you ever seen Alton Brown's live show? He bakes a pizza on stage in under 5 minutes in his mega bake giant easy bake oven... it uses 54 Par 64 bulbs, for a whopping output of 54,000 watts.

dont call these your lights. Call them your heating system

 

[SomeGuy]

Now just add some coloured gels in front of them and create mood lighting, there are also coloured gel carousels so you can turn your shop from an Antarctic twilight to the depths of Hades.

Yup, colour scrollers...I did theatrical lighting many many years ago, I then DJ'd for a number of years, and I still do live sound work a few times a year. I have a bunch of cheaper LED pars with DMX control that I use. So very familiar with all the fun that comes along with production lighting I do have one 15a DMX dimmer pack, but sadly not enough to do full dimming of this entire set to get the proper mood in the lighting lol

Have you ever seen Alton Brown's live show? He bakes a pizza on stage in under 5 minutes in his mega bake giant easy bake oven... it uses 54 Par 64 bulbs, for a whopping output of 54,000 watts.

dont call these your lights. Call them your heating system

I haven't....but that sounds like fun when I did theatre lighting we had a big honkin Lee Colortran dimmer rack, 72 x 2.4kw dimmers in it and would power 100ish (some twofers) fixtures, mix of leko's, par's, fresnel's, cyc's, etc. Standing on stage with everything at full was sweaty to say the least.

I have heat in the garage with that natural gas hanging heater...but ya, these lights sure are nice supplementary heat

 

[Tom O]

Now just add some coloured gels in front of them and create mood lighting, there are also coloured gel carousels so you can turn your shop from an Antarctic twilight to the depths of Hades.

Only if you want the “ Village People “ hanging around.

 

[140mower]

Only if you want the “ Village People “ hanging around.

YMCA!

 

[Brian Lawrence]

Don't judge me lol

I came across a bunch of used ETC Source 4 Par's for $15/each, these used to be $400ish stage lights. I picked up 10 of them and hung 8 in the garage, wired in four new circuits for them as they're a bit power hungry. Ironically, it cost me more to rig/wire them than the lights themselves cost. They're 575 watts each, though can also take a 750 watt lamp, all HPL style lamps. It's completely pointless, given I already have 8 of the 4500 lumen 48" shop lights (you can see a few in the picture) which is plenty bright, but this was fun for shits and giggles. They're also rather nice in the winter, standing at the bench with four of them shining on me gives me a nice warm back from the heat radiating off these things without even turning on the heater cost to run all eight works out to something like 50 cents per hour depending on time of day.

View attachment 57739

Quick little video too:

How many of these lights on on a single circuit? According to the Canadian Electrical Code you should only have one per circuit, as you are only allowed 1200 watts per 15 Amp circuit. If you have 20A circuit breaker then you are allowed 2 lights, but the wire involed will have to be 12/2 gauge not the normal 14/2 gauge in residential housing. 15 A breaker = 1200 watts = 14/2 wire, 20A breaker = 2400 watt - 12/2 wire.

 

[SomeGuy]

How many of these lights on on a single circuit? According to the Canadian Electrical Code you should only have one per circuit, as you are only allowed 1200 watts per 15 Amp circuit. If you have 20A circuit breaker then you are allowed 2 lights, but the wire involed will have to be 12/2 gauge not the normal 14/2 gauge in residential housing. 15 A breaker = 1200 watts = 14/2 wire, 20A breaker = 2400 watt - 12/2 wire.

There are two lights per circuit. I put in four 15 amp circuits, using tied 15a breakers (Siemens Q215 - 2 x 15a) into two sets of 14/3 wire, and then did 4 switches (switch each of the hots red and black individually), and into split plugs so each outlet is connected to both red/black for one of the two receptacles in the plug. There are two plugs (4 receptacles) per 14/3 run, 8 receptacles total.

Loading is 575 * 2 = 1150 watts per circuit with two lights. But you're wrong about the limit on a 15a circuit, code calls for no more than 80% planned loading which is 1440 watts (120*15=1800*0.8=1440). Technically running 750w bulbs would be close on a 15a circuit, but 83% would be perfectly fine and isn't my planned load anyway so meets code. Same reason why we can plug a vacuum or hair dryer or space heater in which are more than 1440 watts.

All of this meets electrical code.

 

[Russell_Reid]

FYI you can get 375w HPLs for these. At least you used to. And the XL versions of the lamps had slightly less output than the short life version. But at that distance you wouldn't notice.