How I should wire and light the shop

[jfkid]

My new house came with a 25x27 stick built shop. It has 10 ft walls framed with 2x4s, 16 ft overhead door, man door, and one north facing window. It is unfinished. I would like to insulate, Sheetrock, and instal some heat and ac. This means I need to wire it first! Starting from a 100 amp box there are two 220v 50a welder circuits, one 220v 20a circuit, one 110v 20a lighting circuit, two 110v 20a outlet circuits, and one 15a outdoor light circuit. Leaving six empty slots.

Help me figure out what else I should wire up to facilitate a general metal shop before I close up the walls! I plan to at least wire in a 220v circuit for heater and air conditioner, an outlet for a future door opener, and add more 110v outlets then the current 4 (one per wall).

I hope to have a lathe (13"-15"), Bridgeport type mill, drill press, saw, grinder, welder and maybe a smaller cnc mill eventually. All this will be slowly acquired most likely through craigslist or similar second hand route. I'd like to not handy cap myself in the beginning.

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[JimDawson]

What I did was to mount the breaker panel on the surface rather than flush to the sheetrock. That way it is more ''industrial'' and allows me add wiring in the shop as needed. I run all of my wiring in conduit. I'll be adding a circuit in the next couple of weeks to run my surface and T&C grinder. Just run a conduit, pull in the wires and wire as needed, simple. Plastic conduit is cheap, and very easy to run. Only use metal boxes for fire safety, and be sure to properly ground everything.

Also if I put in a 120V drop I put in a twin duplex box. That way I have 4 outlets at each drop, and I only use 20 Amp industrial outlets, much tougher than standard house outlets.

EDIT: This sentence should read .... I only use 20 Amp industrial outlets (not plug)

 

[drs23]

What I did was to mount the breaker panel on the surface rather than flush to the sheetrock. That way it is more ''industrial'' and allows me add wiring in the shop as needed. I run all of my wiring in conduit. I'll be adding a circuit in the next couple of weeks to run my surface and T&C grinder. Just run a conduit, pull in the wires and wire as needed, simple. Plastic conduit is cheap, and very easy to run. Only use metal boxes for fire safety, and be sure to properly ground everything.

Also if I put in a 120V drop I put in a twin duplex box. That way I have 4 outlets at each drop, and I only use 20 Amp industrial plugs, much tougher than standard house outlets.

Solid advise. That's the way my shop is wired and it's worked out great.

 

[Terrywerm]

+1 on the surface mount wiring in conduit. We did my uncle's farm shop that way. It is a pole building with steel on the outside, and we also did steel on the inside. Not having to work around the electrical when putting up the sheeting was a definite plus. He had an electrician do the wiring (it was harvest time... too busy to do it ourselves!) and he had it all done in just over a day.

 

[DMS]

We re-did out garage wiring a couple years ago, and I will throw in a vote for surface conduit. Our walls were already finished. There were some receptacles there, but they were all on one circuit shared with lighting circuit from the house (WTH?). We ran a bunch of separate curcuits, mostly 120, with dedicated 220 for the dryer, mill (a ceiling drip), lathe, and welder. Dedicated 120 for the lights (5, 4 foot, 2 tube splash proof fixtures hung from chains), washer, and drill press.

It took us a while to do, but mostly because we only had evenings and weekends to do it, but it wasn't that hard. I think we only screwed up two bends in the conduit. Here are some photos.

 

[jfkid]

Thanks for all the help (and pictures!)

Is there any thoughts on best lighting for the job. I was thinking 4 banks of fluorescents to replace the four existing bulbs.

 

[Waketec1]

Just be carefully with regular magnetic fluorescent fixtures, the frequency of your power utility, usually 60hz up here in Canada can cause a situation where a spinning chuck, spindle etc appears to be at a stand still. Electronic fluorescent ballasts are what your after.

 

[DMS]

I splurged for the "high end" water washdown rated, electronic ballast, low temp start fixtures from the local Home Depot. I really like them. No flicker at all, start really quick too. Not to mention the lexan covers have withstood several strikes from me whacking them with stock as I try awkwardly to maneuver through the shop.

 

[Propfool]

You might consider using 1/2 inch plywood or 1/2 inch OSB instead of sheetrock for finishing the walls. It is a lot easier to install and there is no need to finish the joints. This would permit attaching heavier objects to the wall without the need for finding a stud every time you need to hang something on the wall. I use multiple Harbor Freight magnetic strips to hold small items such as tool bits, drill bits, and hand tools.
Paint the walls flat white to reflect the maximum amount of light. There is no such thing as too much light in a shop! I used 8 foot 2-75 watt single pin electronic ballast fluorescent fixtures from Lowes ($38). They will start at 0 degrees F. I also used 4 foot shop lights (2-40 watt fluorescent lamps) suspended from the ceiling over each machine and workbench. Install wall outlets 4 feet above the floor to plug these prewired shop lights into. You can use a flush mounted main breaker panel and wire outlets and switches by wiring the shop with romex by drilling the studs. This eliminates the need for conduit. You can include a 100 amp surface mounted panel for future circuits using PVC conduit.
I will be happy to send photos of my shop if you wish.

 

[rmack898]

I ran all my wiring (romex) in the walls during construction. I have 4-gang receptacles every 8' around the perimeter walls of the shop. I also put a few duplex receptacles in the ceiling for cord reels, door opener, and additional fluorescent fixtures above the lathe and mill. I also ran a few 60 amp 220 circuits for welders and my single phase machines.


All of the 3-phase wiring coming off my RPC is run in surface mounted plastic conduit. This makes it very easy to add or move a machine in the shop. I've done 3 complete re-shuffles of machines in the shop over the years when a new machine needs to find a home.


You cant have enough lighting. My Ceiling is white and I have 12, two tube 48" T-8 fixtures with an additional 2 two tube 48" hanging fixtures over the lathe and mill and sometimes it's just not enough light, this is truly a case of where more is always better.