LED Bulbs in a standard fixture

[kevin nee]

Has anyone converted to LED bulbs with a standard fluorescent fixture. The T8 LED bulbs say on the package
For T8 or T12 with no wiring changes necessary. Do these work?

[Doug Garson]

I have done it once with no problem. However it only works with fixtures with electronic ballasts not the older magnetic ballasts. A quick way to determine what type of ballast you have is to view the light thru a cell phone camera or digital camera. If you see dark bands across the light you have the older magnetic ballast and you can't install a LED light in that fixture.

[Jim Becker]

There are two types of LED replacement "tubes"...the kind you mention which can "plug and play" in an existing fixture that has the electronic ballast that Doug mentions or the "retrofit" type that require removing the ballasts and rewiring for direct AC. The later uses onboard electronics to drive the LEDs.

[Andrew More]

Yes, I converted over some old standard flourescent fixtures to LED bulbs. I don't think I've had to replace one since the switch. Supposedly they're less efficient than direct wired, but you might not care, since they're easier to swap over to. The local architectural salvage places stopped taking flourescent tubes and fixtures about 10 years back for this reason.

[Ole Anderson]

Not removing the ballast and going direct wired negates two of the advantages of LED: long life and higher efficiency. Many issues with ballast failure and efficiency. Not that difficult to do. Just rip our all of the ballast and wiring, leaving just the 120 volt supply wire. Actually quite satisfying.

[Jim Becker]

Not removing the ballast and going direct wired negates two of the advantages of LED: long life and higher efficiency. Many issues with ballast failure and efficiency. Not that difficult to do. Just rip our all of the ballast and wiring, leaving just the 120 volt supply wire. Actually quite satisfying.

Or just replace the entire fixtures with the easy to install linkable LED strip lights like I used in my new shop. Extremely cost effective...

[Alan Lightstone]

I went with retrofit bulbs. Been very happy with them. Don't worry about ballast failing (which I've had a bunch do over the years.)

[Curt Harms]

Not removing the ballast and going direct wired negates two of the advantages of LED: long life and higher efficiency. Many issues with ballast failure and efficiency. Not that difficult to do. Just rip our all of the ballast and wiring, leaving just the 120 volt supply wire. Actually quite satisfying.

That's what I did. Pretty simple to do really. I also like the quality of light better than fluorescent tubes.

[Ken Platt]

The simple swap bulbs do work, but in addition to the drawbacks noted by others, you also still have ballast hum, or at least that's what I found in my fixtures. I've since gone to the rewire for direct 120v AC route, like Ole and Curt, and like them find it easy and satisfying and get an improved light quality. Each fixture takes maybe 5 minutes to rewire. I take the ballasts out and take to my local transfer station.

New fixtures are cheap and easy also, but I love reusing stuff. I had a fair number of old fixtures sitting around.

[John Lifer]

I've got about 16 2x4 fixtures in my basement. And about a full case of bulbs. But most of the time in the past 6 years, when the bulbs go out, it is the ballast. And so I have gone with replacement LED fixtures from HD.
I had to add more lighting in my work area and those went in first. Way big difference. The new fixtures are about 5 pounds each. Ballast is almost that much in old units. I've replaced 3 more in past year with another box of replacements waiting. I do try to use bulbs, hate to waste them as they are paid for, but I hate fluorescent lights. flicker, slowly dim (main issue) and are not cost effective. 4x32 watts (cheap low watt bulbs) is 128 watts per fixture plus ballast loss. LEDs are running all of 40watts total and light is bright till they stop working.

[Bill Howatt]

If you are changing to direct wire where the 120V is applied to the tubes without a ballast be sure you apply the warning stickers that should have come with the tubes so nobody inadvertently puts in a regular tube.
I don't understand why they didn't slightly change the pin spacing on the direct wired tubes - often new tombstones come with the tubes anyway in case the original ones are shunted. This would have eliminated the possibility of wrong tubes being used.

[Mike Henderson]

I went with retrofit bulbs. Been very happy with them. Don't worry about ballast failing (which I've had a bunch do over the years.)

I did the same. Much easier than removing the ballast. No problems with the lights, no ballast failures. It's been several years now with no problems.

I especially like that I don't have to change bulbs like I had to do on a regular basis with the fluorescent bulbs. The LED bulbs last a long time - haven't had one fail yet.

I have one fixture that I still have fluorescent bulbs in - just so I can use the bulbs I had. Once they're gone, that one will get LEDs also. Better than throwing away good bulbs.

Mike

[Bill Dufour]

Do they still make bulbs fed 120 from both ends or are they all fed from only one end now?
Bill D.

[Jason Roehl]

Do they still make bulbs fed 120 from both ends or are they all fed from only one end now?
Bill D.

You can get either, as some fluorescent fixtures have shunted tombstones (need LED tubes with hot on one end, neutral on the other), and some have non-shunted tombstones (hot and neutral can be on the same tombstone. There are even some LED tubes sold that will work in just about anything—shunted, non-shunted, ballast, ballast-bypass.

Personally, I prefer to use non-shunted tombstones, and bypass the ballast (just one more set of electronics that can fail). I do lots of retrofits at work, and rather than dealing with disposal of the ballasts, I just cut the supply wires close to the ballast and leave it in place, wire a tombstone to line voltage, and label that end with a Sharpie.

Incidentally, I discovered that once a hybrid LED bulb is used with a ballast, bypassing the ballast and trying to reuse the bulb will kill it. (Another reason to use ballast-bypass from the conversion get-go.)

[Alan Lightstone]

...
I especially like that I don't have to change bulbs like I had to do on a regular basis with the fluorescent bulbs. The LED bulbs last a long time - haven't had one fail yet.

Mike

I've actually had two fail in my workshop (strangely one is lit over half it's span, the rest dark). Expensive, high CRI bulbs too. But at 15.5' off the floor, I haven't got up there to replace the bulbs yet.

But still a huge improvement over fluorescents, and the electricity usage, while not tiny, is much less.