LED replacement for 4 foot tubes

[Greg R Bradley]

Ole,
Yes, I missed those lights required ballasts left in place. There are a number of reasons to not do so.
- The ballast needs to still work.
- There is power still wasted by the ballast.
- The bulbs themselves are less efficient. One typical comparison is 2000 lumens from 18 watts instead of 2400 lumens from 18 watts.

Wiring in direct wire is as easy as it gets. The two connectors at one end get hot and neutral. The other end is not connected at all.

I bought a number of different ones from earthled.com and was happy with the product and their service. I've been happy with these: https://www.earthled.com/collections...nt=32907738255

[Jason Roehl]

I've done a few of the direct-wire LED 4' tubes at work. They're pretty easy, and don't take me long to do, save for a couple DOA tubes. All the ones I've done have been powered from one end only. I've done a LOT more T12-to-T8 conversions--I don't stock T12 lamps, so when one needs to be replaced, the fixture gets re-ballasted for T8s if it's easy to access, and gets LED tubes if it's harder to reach.

[Ole Anderson]

We definitely plan on bypassing the ballast. We have a member who used to do drugstore relamping projects, so he has plenty of experience with ballasts and fixtures. He is also a pancreatic cancer survivor, 8 years now.

Greg, thanks for the link. Any advantage to glass vs polycarbonate? I see they are frosted, which is not unique, but it seems that feature would help with the issue of directivity of non-frosted bulbs.

[Greg R Bradley]

Glass will never change color. Polycarbonate probably will, but likely in a long, long time.

Most, maybe all, 4' LED will be frosted, the question will also be how much. If the ones in the link haven't changed they have small lengthwise ribs which help spread the light.

I would always buy just enough to convert one fixture, test for desired results, and then order the rest. EarthLED has free freight so you can feel free to order in sample quantity.

[Rod Sheridan]

We definitely plan on bypassing the ballast. We have a member who used to do drugstore relamping projects, so he has plenty of experience with ballasts and fixtures. He is also a pancreatic cancer survivor, 8 years now.

Greg, thanks for the link. Any advantage to glass vs polycarbonate? I see they are frosted, which is not unique, but it seems that feature would help with the issue of directivity of non-frosted bulbs.

Hi Ole, where I live you cannot convert a fluorescent fixture to LED unless the fixture retains the ballast. (The fixture was approved as a ballast type, so things like short circuit ratings were approved for a ballast application).

Changing the ballast to T8 plus installing LED tubes may not make much sense compared to just converting to T8.

The LED's don't really last much longer, and as others have stated the optical design of the fixture was for an Omni-directional light source, not directed like an LED...............Regards, Rod.