Florescent to LED Conversion

[TractorGuy]

<china rant>

Info for anyone else converting florescent to LEDs. Be aware they don't have a standard for wiring. I have purchased from 3 different suppliers and every one of them has required a different wiring scheme. Total BS that we may have to rewire our fixture every time we replace a bulb. Not only that but will probably have to replace in pairs. I now have 3 spare bulbs in 3 different colors that won't work in ANY of my fixtures without rewiring.

One of my previous warm white bulbs quit working and the wife said she wanted a different color so I ordered 6 Daylight bulbs. Took the warm whites out of the previously converted fixture and installed the identical looking bulbs which tripped the breaker as soon as I flipped the switch. Looked back at the ad to make sure I bought bulbs requiring ballast removal and noticed the difference in wiring in their schematic.

The bulbs I originally put in our dining room required a hot on one pin and a common on the other. They were also reversible so no matter how you put them in they worked just like a florescent would. The next was a bulb I purchased through HD to put over the kitchen sink. Fixture rewire was the same but it turned out the bulb only had connections on one end so it has to but put in the right direction to work. The latest I bought has to have common on one end and hot on the other. These make the most sense as the ballast previously had one end common and the other hot.

</china rant>

 

[jeff9366]

Replacement LEDs will outlive you.

Buy once, cry once: replace the fixtures all at once with a single brand/type of LED fixture. I just finished doing this within my closets.

Eventually you will fall off the ladder replacing fluorescents. Ladder accidents kill a fair number of seniors, not from the fall, from pneumonia.

 

[mddorange]

I am like you Jeff. When I replaced my lights with LED's, I did it once and forgot about it. It was a very simple conversion.

 

[TractorGuy]

I have a few more to do at some point so I will just label the fixtures as I go for future reference.

I wasn't expecting different wiring schematics every time I purchased. In my case I have some different lengths and haven't found every supplier to have every length.

They preach for ever lasting but I have already had one fail. The LED bulb elements MAY last forever but the little electronic boards most likely will not.

 

[ultrarunner]

I took the quick and easy way with the 1960 Flouresencts at the family home garage...

Simply removed the T12 and replaced with off the shelf Costco 4' LED... no rewire.

It was like night and day... no more Frankenstein's Lab of flickering lights waiting to warm up... almost a religious experience!

I do know over time LED are projected to lose brightness... or so I have been told with the magic number being 15 years...

That said... I still have some circa 1995 T8 bulbs in service at the hospital... they have been locked on for 24 years... impressive.

 

[Streetcar]

Almost 10 percent of my led bulbs have failed

 

[ultrarunner]

Almost 10 percent of my led bulbs have failed

I have had one CREE screw in fail and it was replaced immediately with a phone call... bought them some time ago... the replacement is much lighter and looks cheaper... called and spoke to tech support and was advised the design continues to evolve...

So far none of the Costco LED 4' have failed... 38 installed to date.

 

[the old grind]

I bought 3 types of 4' T-8 LEDs in 3 colors. Phillips and Osram/Sylvania claim to be direct replacements, but don't work with all oldie 32w ballasts. I prefer their ~4000K 'color'. Philips' ballast compatibility list is confusing, but most T-8 solid state ballasts are ok and don't generate much if any radio static with theirs. (many of us have trashed ballasts and tubes mismatching T-8/32w & T-12/40w tubes and fixtures .. )

The 25-packs of Chinese LEDs I bought came single-end fed or double end fed, and 3000K or 6000K. One of each gives a good 'average' color with the occasional blurry shadow to remind of the old blue/yellow bulb in a y-socket party gimmick. Totally not for us NPR nerds, as their ballast-boards generate a lot of radio static. I relabeled some fixtures, and re-ballasted a few.

 

[bunyip]

Had a fewLED failures, mainly underated caps exploding.

 

[plowhog]

Simply removed the T12 and replaced with off the shelf Costco 4' LED... no rewire.

I bought a small truckload of those for $19 per fixture including bulbs. I think the energy savings has paid for that ....

 

[bunyip]

On a proper computer now, at work we have had many LED downlight failures and they were all name brands purchased from reputable electrical retailers, the units I had were ebay globes from China and I had 4 out of 10 explode in the socket, I dismantled the remaining units and found that the electrolytic caps were 100v, we run 220v so it was inevitable that something was going to let go, after the explosion there is nothing of the cap left to investigate.
Having said that once they explode it is all over and I think the risk of a fire is minimal but I simply do not want to take the chance.
I replaced some kitchen halogen spotlights with LED's and they have been up for 5 years now without any problems, the light output is the same as the halogen and no sunburnt neck.
The technology is improving and my car even has LED from front5 to rear and interior.
We have no fluoro's so I cannot comment on what they are like.

 

[Stimw]

I shopped for over a year for lights to put in my 40' X 60' building and found 4' LED's at Rural King for $24.95, sometimes on sale for less.
With 6 lights it's like daylight in there and only 240 watts total!

 

[ultrarunner]

^^^Amazing isn't it... just the thing to put a smile on your face... saving money and improved lighting... win/win

I changed out all the bulbs at Moms except for her 3-way lamps... she has two and told me she rarely uses them... OK

Recently she is using them all the time to save money?

The large kitchen fixture uses two 4' LED which combines use 34 Watts... the fixture I replaced had 3 ea. 100W bulbs... a huge savings and better light.

Anyway... she didn't want to use the big ceiling lamps (34W) and instead has been using 2 table lamps 150W ea with the 3-way on high.

Me trying to explain LED tech to her is like some on TBN trying to explain configuring routers/WiFi etc... to me...

 

[bunyip]

We have all LED now and other power saving devices, last bill was $53 in credit with our solar, apart from LED what else can we improve on.

 

[ultrarunner]

The largest utility in the USA is purportedly PGE my provider...

PGE filed for Bankruptcy due to the California Fires where many perished and estimate from 30 to 50 Billion on liabilities possible.

One things that came up is the contracts PGE has with solar and wind... saying in Bankruptcy these could very well all be on the table... the shockwave could devastate and have a ripple effect industry wide if providers with contracts priced at a fixed kW price loose them...

I'm still waiting for my first Electric Bill with Solar... I do know my meter 30 days later registers 230 kWh less than before...

It is winter and depending on the situation I may find it prudent to replace gas appliances with electric such as Water Heater or Range...

 

[Alan W.]

I swapped my basement and the churches basement and now am working on the fellowship hall with Jesled that I got off Amazon. No failures and everyone loves them and much brighter than the florescent they replaced. I got the ones that do away with the ballast. Its simple to wire one end for line and the other for neutral. They are 3000 lumen frosted, 5000k.

 

[drssg]

I didn’t realize they made LED bulbs to replace fluorescents. For some reason, I thought I would have to buy new fixtures.

I have a bunch of 8’ fluorescent fixtures in my barn, and each one has two 110 watt bulbs. My biggest issue is that they are finicky with the weather. On a cool damp day, I might get only 10% of the lights working.

Any thoughts on whether that issue would be likely to persist if I just switched to LED bulbs?

 

[ultrarunner]

In the shop in Olympia I too had 8' bulbs and never would work right in cold weather... and they were noisy on start up and flickered.

I know I can order cold weather rated ballasts and such...

One day I just got fed up and took all of them down... added duplex receptacles to the J-Boxes and installed 4' two bulb LED from Costco... $20 each fixture...

Never had such good light... instant on... not temp dependent and silent...

On the other hand in Oakland the existing 4' three bulb fixtures with T12 and starters were installed in 1960.

For these I just swapped the bulbs like for like with LED bulbs only... no wiring and it was two bright!

So instead of leaving all three bulbs in each of the 4 fixtures I pulled one out and left 2... perfecto!

 

[YanmarFever]

I just put up a 30x60 shop so I was shopping for lights when I saw Costco had led's for 19.00 a piece. I wound up buying 15 fixtures, and they really put out the light, I really like the instant on and no more flickering.
So far Im happy with them

 

[kco]

I swapped my basement and the churches basement and now am working on the fellowship hall with Jesled that I got off Amazon. No failures and everyone loves them and much brighter than the florescent they replaced. I got the ones that do away with the ballast. Its simple to wire one end for line and the other for neutral. They are 3000 lumen frosted, 5000k.

I also got the tubes from Amazon that allow removing the ballast. The tubes are the kind that have the hot and neutral at one end instead of the hot at one end and neutral at the other.

I imagine it wastes power to energize the ballast, some are noisy, and they are another point of failure. We had a ballast fail in a valance fixture above the kitchen cabinets a couple of years ago with a huge flash and explosion which produced a lot of smoke from the hole burned through the ballast's plastic case.

The new tubes are much brighter and quicker than the old fluorescents.