How About Replacing Overhead Fluorescent Tubes with LED tubes?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

superwarp1 posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

The cheapest bulbs I've found are the direct connect where you remove the ballast.  I did a recent search and they were $8/ea, when I bought them a few months ago, I got them for $7/ea.  So far, my "bargain" bulbs are working just fine, and are vastly superior to the tubes they replaced.  New fixtures will be far more expensive than just replacing the bulbs at $8/ea I would imagine!

Well that's a **** good price.  Last time I looked I could only find 18 bucks a tube.

$8/ea...  https://www.1000bulbs.com/prod...53506/PLT-10018.html

How's shipping charges from 1000Bulbs?

• I have thirty two 4 lamp T8 fixtures in the train room.  In prep for a video shoot I recently had to replace 18 burned out 3400k fluorescent tubes. Over the last several years I’ve also had to replace 8 ballasts. I installed the troffer grid fixtures around 10 years ago before starting the railroad. With this pattern of failure, I suspect I'm getting close to the design life of the old tubes and ballast. 

  I've watched the LED fixture upgrade videos earlier in this thread and understand I have at least three options.

  • Stick with the fluorescents, replacing the ballasts and tubes in kind as they fail
  • Retain the existing ballast & wiring, replace failed florescent tubes with ballast compatible LED tubes
  • Rewire the fixtures, remove ballast, install 110v direct powered LED 4’ tubes

   

  A couple of questions:

  Are there a variety of warm white LED tubes available for both LED tube types?

  Can you mix fluorescent tubes and ballast compatible LED tubes in the same fixture? (the phase in approach)

  Are the LED tubes dimmable? (Something I can’t do with my current train room lights)

   

  Access to the fixtures is a little awkward in some places but I am in relatively good shape for my age and feel comfortable working on a ladder. I could do the fixture rebuilds myself – but it would be a tedious project. With “free” labor cost would not be a major factor – but the time and /hassle would be.

   

  I’d like to hear your recommendations/comments..

superwarp1 posted:

How's shipping charges from 1000Bulbs?

Looks like $25.66 for eight of them to me if I ordered.

Looks like the bulbs mentioned above are non-dimmable and cool white color.

I want to say I love LEDs and to swap. The problem that I run into is all the variables. I prefer a slightly warmer color than blueish. Some of the control circuit components fail and leave me wondering if it was worth the effort. So now I try and buy some to test, before diving fully in.

Keystoned Ed posted:

• I have thirty two 4 lamp T8 fixtures in the train room.  In prep for a video shoot I recently had to replace 18 burned out 3400k fluorescent tubes. Over the last several years I’ve also had to replace 8 ballasts. I installed the troffer grid fixtures around 10 years ago before starting the railroad. With this pattern of failure, I suspect I'm getting close to the design life of the old tubes and ballast. 

  I've watched the LED fixture upgrade videos earlier in this thread and understand I have at least three options.

  • Stick with the fluorescents, replacing the ballasts and tubes in kind as they fail Eventually the parts for these fixtures will no longer be available. 
  • Retain the existing ballast & wiring, replace failed florescent tubes with ballast compatible LED tubes  IMO, these are a short term item in a rapidly changing market.
  • Rewire the fixtures, remove ballast, install 110v direct powered LED 4’ tubes IMO, same applies here.
  • New LED fixtures, scrap the existing fixtures.

   

  A couple of questions:

  Are there a variety of warm white LED tubes available for both LED tube types?  ????

  Can you mix fluorescent tubes and ballast compatible LED tubes in the same fixture? (the phase in approach) (Yes), Older (4) tube fixtures/before electronic ballast had (2) ballast, usually one for the outside (2) tubes, and one for the inside (2)tubes. 

• (No) Newer electronic ballast fixtures, either 3 or 4 tube, have one ballast.

  Are the LED tubes dimmable? (Something I can’t do with my current train room lights)   I had mentioned that the commercial fixtures we installed were two stage. Hi/Lo.   most likely either 1/2 or all of the LED's, which are installed on printed circuit boards in the fixture.

   

  Access to the fixtures is a little awkward in some places but I am in relatively good shape for my age and feel comfortable working on a ladder. I could do the fixture rebuilds myself – but it would be a tedious project. With “free” labor cost would not be a major factor – but the time and /hassle would be.   You would find the new light fixtures much lighter and a slim profile/not as deep as standard lay-in fixtures.   Also note that lay-in fixtures need to be supported in addition to the ceiling grid, at least two wires opposite corners, fixtures should have an attachment point for the support wires. 

   

  I’d like to hear your recommendations/comments..

  Edit/ADD.  There is a significant difference with these fixtures.  A lot less energy consumption per circuit, if your (32) fixtures are wired with 4 circuits, or more, you may be able to wire a new LED lighting system on less than 4 circuits.  More important would be, over all illumination, (32) fixtures would indicate a relatively large space.   You may want to consider a re-design/ relocation of fixtures / or less fixtures.  There is lighting design software available for simple room calculations.   I had mentioned the Hi/Lo options.   There would have to be  AE's or engineers, who monitor the forum who could chime in on this.  
• Best wishes
• Mike CT

Engineer-Joe posted:

Looks like the bulbs mentioned above are non-dimmable and cool white color.

I'm using daylight color tubes now.  One the website Gunrunner  posted there are 5000k tubes which is darn close to daylight.

My experience with the newer electronic ballast has been very poor.  I replaced six or seven ballasts with the electronic ballast models from Home Depot, using the correct T-8 tubes, and four of them failed within a year!  That's when I decided that the LED replacement tubes were a better bet.  I have two more lights in my garage that have bad ballast, so those are the next to get the LED tubes.

When the spiral fluorescents came out I changed out my incandescent bulbs for those. Now that the LED's have come out I have done the change over to them. I had bought those bright sticks and found like in the kitchen where I had a light with five 60 watt rated fluorescents I can get by with just two 60 watt rated LED's. So the main house has them and now I am going to change out the basement , attic and garage............Paul  

We did this at our new club location with using LED lighting. Lasts much longer, just as bright and cheaper in electric bills.

Rayin"S" posted:

Gentlemen,

I am reading this thread with much interest. Are these LED replacements available for the eight foot fixtures?

Ray

The surface mount 8 ft fixtures installed on the commercial job, I noted, were LED, there were (2), 4 ft panels, one fixture was connected as if it was two fixtures.  Even the parking lot lighting was LED.   

I'm in the process of remodeling my basement, to build a layout, and have been installing a white metal roofing for the ceiling, along with rows of 4' T8 32 watt florescent lighting, and now may be returning the bulbs.  So I have a few questions.  (1) Has anyone had any issues with the LED tubes when video recording their layout?  I noticed when watching engines coming at you that have LED headlights, the headlight looks like its pulsing.  So is there any pulsing or flickering noticed from overhead, when watching your videos? (2) When used over a bench grinder or drill press that is running, do the LED's make them look like their not? (3) Which type come closest to resembling sunlight? (4) Has there been any complaints of radio communication with handhelds or wifi? (5) For in my unheated garage, how are they in the extreme cold of winter?  Thank you in advance for your answers.

Dave, I can give you my opinion on a couple of your points. Having operated such things as electric drills and dremels under the LED lighting if my workbench and garage I can tell you that there is no noticeable flickering. The higher the temp rating, the whiter the light. In the range of 4000K you get warm light, meaning more yellow. Over 5000K is quite white, 5500K is "brain surgery" white. Depends what you like. I like it in the 5000 to 5500 range. The ones I bought are advertised to be instant starting even in temperatures down to 0 deg C. Time will tell how they will work in my unheated garage, but they are bound to be way better than the old fluorescents they have replaced. I cant speak to how they behave for making a video, but I cant imagine you would notice any flickering.

Rod

The LED's in my unheated garage have not failed to turn on immediately summer or winter.  The remaining fluorescent tubes sometimes don't come up immediately in the cold...   I see flicker with the fluorescent tubes, but not with the LEDs.

Due to my current health condition I can't change bulbs out now overhead but when I hopefully can or have someone do it for me I plan to change all my Fluorescent bulbs in both the house and garage out to LED's and I plan to remove all the ballasts from the fixtures and put in the 110 Volt LED's, if no ballasts one less thing to fail and the LED's seem to be very reliable and long lasting.  Great for over layouts or anyplace where access is a problem, just make sure you get the right LED bulbs for what you are going with; No ballasts or LED compatible ballasts, don't use them the wrong way or you could have a dangerous situation as they could explode.

Don't expect any Led light to last 50 years as claimed. I've had 4 of 16 spotlight can light LEDs fail in less than 2 years. They do work better than compact fluorescents though. Instant on plus dimmable. 

Dave, some LEDs will not start >32deg F.  That's why I have kept halogen spotlights on the rear of my house.

The LED's don't typically fail, it's all the other stuff like the connections or regulators.

Here are a couple things to think about. Bulbs are rated in Kelvins. Typical yellow bulbs have a rating of 2700 Kelvin. Daylight 5000 K. I like 4000 K bulbs as they are "white light" and not that irritating, bright daylight. We have switched out all our bulbs in the house to LED. The first month's electric bill was $7.00 less. I still have to buy replacements for the tubes in the basement. I am sold. Also I hit a $2.00 a bulb close out at Home Depot and bought 10 40w equiv. 

Dick

The biggest advantage of LEDs is that you can increase the amount of light  you can get in the trainroom without having to add addition electrical circuits.  My living/dining room has one overhead fixture which would allow me to have about 200 watts of incandescence but the circuit could support 1000 watts (HOT!).  I added track lighting with 18 65 watt equivalent LED spotlights and only consumed 180 watts.

I could never have done this without LEDs.  CFLs were my interim solution but they were inconsistent in performance.

Jan

Gentlemen,

   I have replaced every bulb in the log cabin home and most of the bulbs in the Churchill home with LED's, I have no problems at all, even with the flood lights.  If you are a Military Vet, purchase them at Lowe's and get 10% off.  Decreased my electric bill's big time.

PCRR/Dave

When it comes to shunted and non-shunted sockets.  I found my T12 sockets were not shunted.  Made for a very easy conversion. 

Anyway are most T8 fixtures shunted?

As like Dave above, every time I do a Home Depot run I bring back more and more LED.  I'd say I've converted 65-70% of the house to date.  I would also note, buy CREE LED bulbs.  They are assembled in the USA!

Thanks for all the info.  If you're not sure about shunted lampholders, the web site Gunrunnerjohn posted carries a wide variety of Non-Shunted lampholders at very affordable prices, with many great customer reviews.  I am going to order both the lamps and lampholders from them, then just gut and rewire my housings.  

superwarp1 posted:

When it comes to shunted and non-shunted sockets.  I found my T12 sockets were not shunted.  Made for a very easy conversion. 

Anyway are most T8 fixtures shunted?  Note that there Would be (two) wires to a non-shunted tube end from the ballast and most likely (one) to a shunted tube end.  The shunted tube end can have the second wire as a daisy chain connection, more than one socket.  Upgrades of existing fixtures to T8 tubes and electronic ballast usually involved splicing the two wires together, non-shunted tube end.   In most cases with flouresent lighting there is a wiring diagram on the ballast/electronic driver. 

As like Dave above, every time I do a Home Depot run I bring back more and more LED.  I'd say I've converted 65-70% of the house to date.  I would also note, buy CREE LED bulbs.  They are assembled in the USA!

I just installed my first shipment of LED.  I did a little measuring before and after with a light meter and the 5000k Stark white tubes are 30% brighter than the 6000K daylight T12 they replaced.  I've now put in a second order to replace the T8 fixtures and all my closet lights.  Great posts/information from everyone.  I'm now saving over half on my lighting bill for the basement.

We had a CFL go bad in our kitchen, so we replaced all eight with 2700*K LED bulbs of comperable wattage.  Turn on lights and wow how bright, and now we clearly see the cabinet and appliance nicks, dings and discorolations that were "invisible" with softer CFL lamps!! 

Replace all the hot incandesecent GUI lamps in train room with dimmable LEDs.  Now I run lamps half bright because with full power, we can see a lot of scenery oopsies that need a do over!!

So guess be careful what you replace, you might get an (un)pleasant surprise.

UPDATE: I went to Costco today and picked up some more of the direct replacement (no re-wiring) LED tubes. Tried them in my 2 tube and 4 tube train room fixtures and they all work just fine. They are truly plug 'n play. I attach a scan of the important stuff on the box, just for reference. I am corrected on a couple of earlier points. They are made by Luminus and are rated at 19 watts and 2200 lumens per tube. The color temp is 4000K, which they call cool white. They seem quite bright to me. They are rated at 50,000 hrs, and they are instant on, non-flickering. The rated temp range is -20 to +40 C; so they should work in most garage applications as well. They have a five year warranty against failure. Their expected life is 45 years based on 3 hours average per day. Tomorrow I will head back over to Costco and pick up the balance needed to finish the job.

Rod

I found some LED bulbs while at Lowe's buying a washer the 6/23 floods ruined.  The box said direct replace or rewire.......laundry room light had gone out....so I took it down and removed te ballest and re-wired lamp. With these you re-wire so power is on one end only.  Took 20 minutes from taking it down to back up and working.  Very bright white light. Lowe's price was about 50% more than on line so if I replace all my bulbs.....I'd shop around......thx 

If you have and use a Lowes credit card, you get a 5% discount.  There is also a discount for active and retired military.

And I did that........

But my collector car barn. garage and train room will need almost 75 bulbs.......at a price difference of 45% I need the online price. thx

Is it cost effective?  Will going from flourescent to LED save enough dollars over a "middle-aged" (i.e., 70+) person's lifetime to justify the cost of a wholesale replacement??????  I'm not talking about replacing failed bulbs.

Cost is only one factor for me......

Operating cost are said to be 70% less......but as I have a number that are out (some up high and been putting off) AND do not operate much of the time in my barn because of temps......worth the $300 it will cost me. thx

Incandescent bulbs should be replaced with LEDs right now. The instant-on feature of LEDs combined with the low-cost of incandescent bulbs make immediate replacement financially wise. 

But replacing compact fluorescent bulbs before they have failed is a foolish waste of money. Especially if you consider that LED bulbs will continue to drop in price if you wait a year or two.  The savings in energy will be neglible for the remaining life of a used CFL bulb  

It isn't as clear cut when it comes to fluorescent shop lights and other long fixtures. I don't think we should be casually suggest that anyone should rewire old fluorescent fixtures to accommodate LED replacements, but if you know what you are doing then that's a legitimate option. Certainly, there is no point in replacing worn-out ballast at this point. A new LED fixture is an option for folks looking for a suitable replacement. 

I have a cabinet full of CFLs that I bought as replacements for worn-out CFLs over the years , so I am locked into those bulbs for several more years yet. But the last of my incandescents -- I think I am down to four bulbs in spots where I needed instant light and which get so little use that I haven't changed a bulb in 10 years -- will be replaced with LEDs soon. 

I noticed recently that discount stores such as Walmart and Target have severely curtailed sales of CFLs in favor of LEDs. So the transition is well under way. 

Gerald, I hope we outlast the LEDs.  I did replace most of the BR30 floodlights in my train room with 2700k LEDs.  I had installed dimmable CFLs, and appropriate dimmer switches, but when dimmed they howled. 

I find my eyes hurt if I have the higher k LEDs.

I'm like GunRunner...That is changing to led lamps as my fixtures are dying. Old fluorescent lamps are being used up in still functioning fixtures. 8 Led 4' lamps off eBay is $56 shipped. Friend of mine searched eBay and found 4' fixtures with lamps for the same price or cheaper delivered so it is worth shopping around. 

RJR, The lights i bought you can get with either clear,or frosted covers ,the frosted covers will help a lot if the lights are to bright i bought mine on amazon,where i believe is the only place you can get them,at least that was the case last year,the brand i bought was  Hyperikon,they have excellent customer service. I had to rewire the fixtures & i eliminated the ballast altogether ,it was very easy to do.  Good luck with whatever you decide,& WE WILL OUTLAST THE LED'S.!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I have now switched over all my overhead train room lights to LED, and couldn't be happier with the outcome. No rewiring necessary, they are way brighter than the old fluorescents, and start immediately. Unlike the old fluorescents they are at full brightness the moment they light up. I always noticed it took 5-10 minutes for the old 34 watt tubes to get to full brightness. For anyone hesitating I encourage you to make the jump; you won't be sorry.

Rod

Rod Stewart posted:

UPDATE: I went to Costco today and picked up some more of the direct replacement (no re-wiring) LED tubes. Tried them in my 2 tube and 4 tube train room fixtures and they all work just fine. They are truly plug 'n play. I attach a scan of the important stuff on the box, just for reference. I am corrected on a couple of earlier points. They are made by Luminus and are rated at 19 watts and 2200 lumens per tube. The color temp is 4000K, which they call cool white. They seem quite bright to me. They are rated at 50,000 hrs, and they are instant on, non-flickering. The rated temp range is -20 to +40 C; so they should work in most garage applications as well. They have a five year warranty against failure. Their expected life is 45 years based on 3 hours average per day. Tomorrow I will head back over to Costco and pick up the balance needed to finish the job.

Rod

I tried a couple of these for my bedroom closet and they were about a third of the brightness of the fluorescent  bulbs. I returned them right away. After all I have read here, to say that I was disappointed is an understatement! As Rich says, it must be my computer.

I found out that some ballast units cannot handle the replacement LED tubes. For the newer lighting fixtures I got some at Lowes and they work great.

Here is a link to an LED fixture that retro-fits inside an existing florescent trough fixture.   Note that the energy savings v.s. a standard  (4 tube) T-12 fixture is 106 watts.   A very old T-12 (4 tube fixture) using, at this point in time, rare, 40 watt tubes, and a ballast before electronic ballasts, probably consumes close to 160 watts of energy.   So a retro-fit to LED reduces energy use by almost 1/2. 

LED replacing incandescent lamps is well above 70% savings.