Dust, and a floor that gets wet
Do not shop for waterproof. Shop for a stated rating, match it to the actual exposure, and confirm it on the product page. A rating on the tape is only part of the answer: connections, end seals, the driver enclosure, the mounting method and local code have to suit the position too. Whether the spot beside the bench counts as dry, damp or wet is a classification made under code rather than by eye, and the licensed electrician makes it against the rules adopted locally.
Dust settles fastest on an upward-facing surface, and a downward-facing run behind a lens wipes clean more easily than bare tape.
Things get knocked
Bare tape on a joist face has nothing protecting it from a lifted sheet of plywood. A profile from the profile listings gives the run a screw-fixed body, helps dissipate the heat the strip makes, and reduces but does not guarantee an end to visible dots, which also turn on LED density, profile depth and the diffuser fitted. It is never mandatory, though in a workshop it earns its place. Terminate cable at a fixed point; a dangling connector is doing work it was never designed for.
An open ceiling with exposed boxes
Open framing makes routing easy and mistakes permanent. Run low voltage cable along the side of a joist rather than across its face, where a drywall screw will find it later. Exposed boxes are the other half of that: an open ceiling does not make line voltage equipment approachable.
Working off an existing circuit
Nothing gets connected until the breaker feeding that part of the garage is off. A garage branch often carries a door opener, a freezer and every receptacle on the wall, and only a licensed electrician can tell you what it will take.
Any hardwired driver, junction box, receptacle, cable run inside a wall, or switch or dimmer box on that circuit is line voltage work, carried out to local electrical code, the NEC where adopted, and the manufacturer instructions supplied with the device. Do not open a live box or put a meter on a line voltage conductor. Working confidently at 24V grants nobody authority on the 120V side.
The build sequence the constraints produce
Measure the bench length and the height of anything above it. A workbench is a task surface, so specify a high output tape: the EnoLED 24V UniPlus high brightness series is one option, with watts per foot, tape width, CRI and cut interval read off the listing.
Many strips can be cut at designated points and rejoined with compatible connectors or by soldering, depending on the product, with that interval belonging on the parts list before anything is bought.
Size the supply next, while nothing is fixed. Published watts per foot across the installed footage gives the load, 20 percent or more current headroom goes on top, and both that figure and the rated output of anything chosen from available driver options get checked against the published specifications. Voltage matches through the chain: 24V tape, 24V driver, 24V control.
With the driver settled, clean and degrease the mounting surface. How well an adhesive or fixing holds is specific to the tape and the surface beneath it, so follow the mounting instructions supplied with your product. Then mount the channel and wire every run back to that driver in parallel, never one chained into the next.
If a dimmer or low voltage controller is going on the run, settle it now. Compatibility between strip, driver and that device is published by their makers for the exact models involved; a shared dimmable label is not. A wall dimmer or switch box is line voltage and stays on the electrician's list.
