Flourescent to LED bulb swap

[FullySprinklered]

Didn't know this until last week, but there are LED bulbs that can be installed in fluorescent light fixtures. Customer requested it and had already researched it, so I had to drift through the learning curve to make it happen for him.
It's pretty simple. You cut the wires loose from the ballast, and run your hot and neutral straight to the sockets on one end of the fixture. The sockets on the other end are now dead and remain that way. The LED bulb has a live end and a dead end, the live end goes where the power and neutral are.
No significant difference in the light that I could see, but there's a savings in energy usage, and the bulbs supposed to last 46 years, they claim. At my age, the last 40 years of that would be wasted at my house.
The bulbs are pricey at 30 bucks apiece, but bragging rights ain't cheap.

 

[DonL]

That sounds cool.

Who makes them ? Link ?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[FullySprinklered]

Can't remember the brand name; something odd. Bought it off the rack at HD. Triangle box with green lettering.

 

[DonL]

Can't remember the brand name; something odd. Bought it off the rack at HD. Triangle box with green lettering.

What a Tease You are,.

 

[WorthFlorida]

It might have been these:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/TOGGLED-...near-LED-Tube-Light-Bulb-A416-35210/205935900

This site has some good info on LED lamps. However, is does list a hard wired model as you explained and a retrofit unit. It uses the existing ballast as it's driver.
https://www.1000bulbs.com/category/t8-retrofit-led-tubes-3500k/

Searching for info on 48"inch T8 lamps there is one thing that stands out. The lumen rating for an LED T8 is anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 of the equivalent 32 w fluorescent T8. An F32T8/835 is roughly 2800-2900 lumens whereas the LED unit is about 1900 lumens. Wattage wise the LED generates about 100 lumens per watt and a Fluorescent gets about 90 lumens per watt burned. But I was told by a sales rep that the LED lights travel further and more evenly. I think this is somewhat true but i could never find the candle power rating that hits the floor as you can find on other hight powered lamps such as metal halide lamps.

One day there will be nothing but LED lamps of every kind and I'm started to convert my home and place of work with LEDs when needed. But to change out about 100 fluorescent T8 tubes to LED T8's the immediate saving is not there. I can still buy T8's for about $1.75 each. Fluorecents clams 20,000 hrs of life but I have rarely ever seen anything to last that long. I find fluorescents, especially T8's not to last as long as the old T12's. The biggest failure I'm finding with fluorescents T8 is the light output degrades over time and a few times I have done a relamp of a room to get the light output up and a more even color.

LEDS, never diminishes with age but you can loses the driver or an individual LED within cluster of a lamp such as a 48" T8. Traffic lights is a perfect example, the LED one almost always seem to have segments out, but at least there is still light output from the other 50 or so LEDS. LEDS lamps do not contain mercury or glass and therefore LEDs lamps will not impact the environment as readily.

 

[Dana]

LEDS, never diminishes with age but you can loses the driver or an individual LED within cluster of a lamp such as a 48" T8. Traffic lights is a perfect example, the LED one almost always seem to have segments out, but at least there is still light output from the other 50 or so LEDS. LEDS lamps do not contain mercury or glass and therefore LEDs lamps will not impact the environment as readily.

LEDs don't have lumen maintenance issues?

Really?

Mayhaps the manufacturers of said LEDs haven't gotten the memo on that:

How fast LEDs lose luminance over time is largely a function of the operating temperature, but they all degrade over time. The definition of their lifecycle is the L70, the time it takes to drop to 70% of the specified luminosity. They still put out light long after that point, but with less light for the same power input, it's by definition lower efficiency.

Many T5 fluorescents put out 100 lm/watt or more at a decent CRI, but don't have the same lifespan of a LED T8 replacement.

"I was told by a sales rep that the LED lights travel further and more evenly."

I was told by a sales rep that I could make money buying shares in the Brooklyn Bridge too- maybe it's the same guy!?!

Photons are the same regardless of the source.

LED technology is inherently highly directional nearly point-sources with narrow cones of light that need to be dispersed with optics, whereas fluorescent tube technology is a uniform glowing phospor on the inside of a cylinder. This makes fluorescent lighting inherently more even than LED, and LED lighting inherently higher spot-intensity & sharper edges. The directionality of linear fluorescent technology in practice is a function of the fixture, not the tube, but it's hard to get sharp shadows with them. Most fixture manufacturers specify the photometrics of light intensity with angle & distance with the fluorescent tube installed, but it's inherently "lumpier" at close range, since it's a series of discrete dice with plastic lenses distributed on a strip to emulate the more even output of a fluorescent tube. With LED tube replacements the LED manufacturers specify the angular/distance photometrics of the LED assembly, but not the photometrics when combined with any particular fixture. The effective performance of the LED replacements varies with the fixture.

There are fixture efficiency losses from having to reflect ~1/2 the light of a fluorescent tube back to the designed direction, a loss that the LED replacement doesn't have, but the range of fixture efficiency is all over the place. Even at the same lm/W the fixture losses for fluorescent tubes will usually give a net efficiency edge to the LED replacement, but that really varies with the fixture. There are some anti-glare fluorescent troffers that would suffer equal or worse fixture losses with an LED replacement assembly as with a T8 or T5.

 

[WorthFlorida]

Thank you for the corrections.