[soob]

300 lumens per meter and 50 meters gives just 15,000 lumens, not even as bright as a single four-bulb t5-ho fixture. In a 400-square-foot garage that would be just 37.5 lumens per square foot, not nearly bright enough in my opinion.

In my little 450 square foot shop I have four four-bulb t5ho fixtures and three four-bulb t8 fixtures for a total of approximately 100,000 lumens (probably more). You can never have too much light.

 

[soob]

I guess. It's just that lights are cheap and fluorescents work really well. I just don't see the need for LED strip lights like this.

Also, I would look into the deficiencies of small LED lights at color rendering. A modern t5 or t8 fluorescent usually has an 85-90+ CRI, but LED strip lights often don't publish it because it's very low (60-70%).

 

[soob]

I dunno what PAR is, but you can get a light meter for $20 on eBay and find out how many footcandles you're getting at any given location. That could be very… illuminating. I can't remember what mine is because it's been a while since I did it, but IIRC it was 150+ at bench height in most places (of course it varies depending on where you are in relation to your fixtures). And that's nice.

It's good for houseplants too. The human eye is very adaptable and so it's hard to estimate absolute brightness. 150 footcandles (which is 5x as bright as most rooms in a typical house) would be like what you'd find under a dense tree outside. Direct sun is 8000+.

IIRC a footcandle is 1 lumen per square foot. Of course you will not get as many as you expect because all of the light isn't projected straight down evenly across your floor.

 

[soob]

That says PAR is a measure of light available to be used by plants. Since we presumably aren't growing plants in our shops, lumens or footcandles is probably a better measurement to use.