Fluorscent to LED lighting transition
#38
(11-10-2016, 11:20 AM)CARYinWA Wrote: Here are the ones I am using.  You have to gut the ballast.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G4G...=UTF8&th=1

18W, 2065 lumens, 50000K.  Love them.

Based on this recommendation I ordered this the same day as posted except I went with the 4000k bulbs. Received them a couple of days later and started the rewire only to find that the tombstones provided would not work in my fixtures. Took me a couple of days searching but finally found the right ones on line at a place called 1000bulbs, order and received today. Took me about 15 min to rewire each fixture. Great lights, very bright compared to the T-8 tubes I replaced.
Reply
#39
Why all this BS??? Just dump them and buy LED lights? I posted the ones I bought previously here and very happy and no conversions. What do you not understand about keeping life easy and simple?? Or do you want to recreate the wheel.
KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE EQUALS WISDOM. RMB
The SO asked me today, "what are you going to do to day"? I said "nothing".  She said, "that's what you did yesterday"! Me, "Yes love, but I was not finished yet"!!!!!!!!
Smirk

Reply
#40
Well in my case removing and replacing the fixtures would of been a lot more work than replacing the guts. The rewire is very easy and you get rid of the ballast which is makes sense if the bulbs last anywhere close to there advertised lifespan.
Reply
#41
(11-18-2016, 07:34 AM)bottd Wrote: The rewire is very easy and you get rid of the ballast which is makes sense if the bulbs last anywhere close to there advertised lifespan. [emphasis added]

The ballast is the most expensive part to replace, and the cheap lights from the BORGs use cheap ballasts.  I would not spend money on replacement 'bulbs' that required the ballast.  It's going to go sooner or later anyway, so unless the bulbs can work with or without the ballast, it makes more sense to make it sooner, bite the bullet, and bypass the ballast.  Or wait until the ballast fails.

New fixtures would be LED from the get-go, but I have several with grills over the bulbs (like over the lathe), which are definitely worth modifying.
Tom

“This place smells like that odd combination of flop sweat, hopelessness, aaaand feet"
Reply
#42
(11-17-2016, 10:47 PM)bottd Wrote: Based on this recommendation I ordered this the same day as posted except I went with the 4000k bulbs. Received them a couple of days later and started the rewire only to find that the tombstones provided would not work in my fixtures. Took me a couple of days searching but finally found the right ones on line at a place called 1000bulbs, order and received today. Took me about 15 min to rewire each fixture. Great lights, very bright compared to the T-8 tubes I replaced.

My box didn't have any tombstones in them.  I used the tombstones in the fixtures.  I have put them in T8 and T12  fixtures without issue.
"There is no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people"
Reply
#43
The bulbs were packed in individual boxes with one tombstone and one bulb in each box. They were packed in a way that if you opened the individual boxes from the end without the tombstone and removed the bulb it would be easy to overlook the tombstone unless you were looking for them. The new bulbs have dummy pins on the one end just for mounting and the other end require a hot on one pin and neutral on the other pin. The original tombstones in my fixture were of the shunted variety with no provisions to remove the shunt. The ones that came with the bulbs were too big to fit in my fixtures.
Reply
#44
bottd, were the tombstones on both ends of your lights shunted? The shunted end can be used by the dummy pins on the LED lights.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 10 Guest(s)

Product Recommendations

Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.