LED light frustration

Did you know that it matters when you replace a fluorescent lamp with an LED lamp the bulbs have polarity ,yet there is nothing on the box that states this . After a ten minute job turning into total frustration I called another electrician who told me the lamps have polarity . I flipped the three bad ones and they lit right up. Was about to return to Home Depot. I hate when you follow instructions and flip a switch and lights don't work . That never happened to me except for a 110 volt fixtures fed by 277 and all the ballasts burned up. But usually when your done it should light right up. Very poor instructions. Lost my temper and was cussing.

I haven't heard of that before.

Were these the type that keep the ballast, or the direct to line voltage?

Yes, Polarity must be considered when wiring anything that is AC...

Could you explain more about the bulb polarity please? Are they sensitive to the hot wire and the neutral wire being correct, or is it something else? Thanks!

(quoted from post at 23:15:50 07/30/17) Yes, Polarity must be considered when wiring anything that is AC...

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o sheet! With AC, which is positive , the black line or the white neutral? :roll:

Black is positive and white is neutral if it's wired correctly.
I replaced the florescent light in mom's house last year with led's and had to get adapters to replace the original bulb holders.
On florescent one end is positive and the other is neutral, for the led bulb's I used one of the two pins is positive and the other is neutral on the same end, the other end just holds the bulb.

Hey, fellas, I had tongue firmly planted in cheek when I asked about which is positive............there is no positive & negative with AC power!!!! Unless you look at it as reversing every 8 milliseconds. :roll:

This is true, but for most folk the black wire comes from the breaker and will shock you, the white wire connects to the neutral bar and shouldn't shock you.
Connect a white wire to a breaker or a black one to the neutral bar and the electrical inspector will fail the inspection.
We've used several different wire colors in industrial wiring on the breaker side, but always use white for the neutral and green to ground.

It's the way of the world today. Everything is being re-invented by the brain dead.

Only one side of the sockets remains hot [and neutral]. Only one side of the tube has the hot side connection. so if the lamp is in backwards it won't light.

Cut out the ballast and line to the sockets.

Factory lady called me back and told me all was in the instructions very clear. I told her not one of the four boxes contained any papers or wirenuts. She blamed Home Depot.

Yea you know Home Depot opened all of those boxes and pulled the instructions out. Not!

Are these four foot long fluorescent light tubes? I was thinking they were threaded base compact fluorescent bulbs. I couldn't see how one of those could be installed backwards unless the fixture was wired wrong. Thanks!

Destroked 450;

That's what I was thinking. We're seeing more and more of that nowadays, aren't we? An explanation or and excuse doesn't have to be reasonable, or even make any sense at all.

Did you ever see the movie "Idiocracy"? It was funny and entertaining when it came out in 2006. Now it's funny and entertaining and unsettling.

Stan

The bulbs that I have seen have the instructions on the bulbs, like a ballast does. Of course I haven't seen everything either.

Hello JMOR,

Explain this.......

Hello JMOR,


Man! I hit the wrong button....explain this,

(quoted from post at 13:37:32 08/05/17) Hello JMOR,


Man! I hit the wrong button....explain this,

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useems self explanatory. Just swap those wires every 8ms! :twisted:

Here's one way you can think about it. Let's look at AC and DC power as though they are saws. AC would act like a reciprocating saw, with the blade (the electricity) moving BOTH directions. In DC, it would be like having a bandsaw, moving only one direction.

In that bandsaw frame-of-mind, the + goes in through (usually) a red wire, then through the tool/device/appliance, while the ground or negative (-) usually being the black wire. Sometimes both wires will be the same color. Sometimes the wires can be the same color, but one will be smooth and the other ribbed, or one will be solid and the other have a small longitudinal line.

Same holds true for "some" AC tools/devices as well, that you can plug them in either way, while the rest have a polarized plug with one spade larger than the other. Whether a tool/device/appliance has a polarized plug or not depends entirely on how the device was engineered. You could have two seemingly identical tools, except one uses a polarized plug while the other does not. This goes for both AC "and" DC. There's a lot of magic that happens inside the case.

Now if you REALLY want to get confused, you could always look more deeply into electricity and how it works and how it's made, and then you end up with all sorts of other wave forms. ....Then add 3-phase into all that as well! :shock: