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LED- Flourescent replacement question

F

fixerupper

Well-known Member
This has been hashed over before but I still have questions. Yesterday I picked up a couple of LED replacement tubes that work with the ballast still in place and working. How will this affect the life of the ballast? Shorter life? Longer life? I assume I will not experience as much energy savings with these tubes as I would with the tubes that require removing the ballast because the ballast will be using power too. These are 8 foot tubes that are replacing t12's. The amount of light the LED's put out is beyond comparison. The rest of the building with the Fluorescent T12's is dim compared to the area these tubes are lighting up. I got these at Menards and I didn't see the direct wired 8 foot LED's on the shelf but I thought I would buy a couple of these just to see if they really are brighter. At $64 per tube it is an expensive experiment for sure.
 

They come in a box with two 4' tubes that plug together in the middle. There is also a little clip on support with a magnet that clips to the middle of the tube to keep the tube from sagging. If I would put these things in all of the 8' lights in this building I would have $650 invested. Whoooo!
 
I've seen these advertised but have never been able to find any. The ones I am looking for state you can hook them up with the ballast or without it. The Steel Sales place below town changed all their lights to LED and it makes a big different. I went in 2 days in a row, and noticed the big difference because they had just changed that room overnight.
 
The direct LED replacement ( has driver that works with ballast) uses no more electric than the than the one you wire around ballast. The bulbs that you wire around ballast actually have a ballast built onto bulb .
 
I see the days of Fluorescent, especially the squigglys, coming to an end since LED is being mass produced and getting cheaper all the time and is so much more efficient yayyyyyyyyyy its all I have in the RV........

John T
 
(quoted from post at 20:41:52 01/21/16) The direct LED replacement ( has driver that works with ballast) uses no more electric than the than the one you wire around ballast. The bulbs that you wire around ballast actually have a ballast built onto bulb .
Click to expand...

I don't think so. No LED needs a ballast.
 
I will report back if I am still alive by then. LOL these fluorescent fixtures were old when I bought them at a consignment auction at least ten years ago so it's anybody's guess when the first ballast will conk out. The tubes SHOULD outlast me IF the longevity claims are true.
 
I have 6 LED fixtures in my shop with no heat (only if I work in it) and they work great. I have 7 LED bullet lights mounted on house to light up yard and they also work fine. The 7 bullet LEDs use only 100 watts totally and the 2 halogen they replaced used a 1.000 watts.
 
The direct replacement LED bulbs have a driver and uses the ballast of the light fixture. The LED fixtures have no ballast in them but the LED bulbs have a ballast built in.
 
I would contend that LED needs no ballast, but that the power for the direct replacement units does flow thru the ballast, just as if were a wire.....it is just coiled up.
 
After reading your replies I have more questions from you who know more about the subject than I do, and I admittedly don't know much. I need an explanation on how AC current can be made to light up a light emitting diode. Isn't a diode a one way switch? Electricity will flow through a diode in only one direction. This is why a DC powered LED is polarity sensitive. Right or wrong? What kind of flow comes out of a fluorescent ballast? AC or DC?
 
(quoted from post at 22:39:44 01/22/16) After reading your replies I have more questions from you who know more about the subject than I do, and I admittedly don't know much. I need an explanation on how AC current can be made to light up a light emitting diode. Isn't a diode a one way switch? Electricity will flow through a diode in only one direction. This is why a DC powered LED is polarity sensitive. Right or wrong? What kind of flow comes out of a fluorescent ballast? AC or DC?
Click to expand...
he problem here is that the "fluorescent replacement LED" is more than a single LED (diode), it is an assembly. What all is in there? Yes, "a" single diode (LED or not) is a DC, one-way device. A ballast is just an inductor, AC in & AC out.
Virtually all this discussion is an over simplification. More here than meets the eye. As an example, connect two LEDs in parallel, but in opposite directions.......on one half of the AC cycle, one lights & on the other half cycle the other lights. Many possibilities for the assembly. They are very low voltage devices, so a transformer to obtain lower than line voltage is one possibility, but one might built an assembly where many low voltages devices (LEDs) are connected in series........remember the old series connected Christmas tree light strings? World of possibilities out there!
 
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