Anybody tried the 4' Phillips LED tubes w/ ballast bypass??

[JR]

I heard these are pretty bright


Satco S9751 40W LED HID Replacement 5000 K MoGUl Extended Base Adjustable Beam Angle 100-277V Light Bulb Amazon product ASIN B01IA6N57K

 

[Dan_69GTX]

That looks similar to what you showed us at the Rally - is it?

 

[JR]

Dan, yes it is what I have. I see they have 60w available now, mine are the 40w.

 

[Jim W]

Mike, I installed LED's in my wife's craft room about two years ago. I replaced the entire fixture with new LED fixtures and LED’s in them. I purchased the fixtures at Sam’s club and the cost for new was almost the same as the replacement bulbs cost. About $50.00 for two fixtures and are a Honeywell brand.

The lights are rated for 5,000 LUMS and are linkable up to 10 light fixtures so, only one needs to be plugged in to one outlet freeing up the other outlet. They pull about 50 watts each.

I have installed LED’s in my garage also but I do have an RF interference with the one fixture I used but this was from Rockler Wood Working Co. and was on a close out clearance sale. Since I use this infrequently, I can live with the interference.

That is one reason I went with the Honeywell Fixtures to prevent RF interference from the LED blubs which can happen.

Jim

 

[Tuesdak]

LED technology isn't mature yet. Manufactures are still going CHEAP on LED drivers and this causes flicker from the 60 HZ mains and LED's. Some flicker free stuff out there, but, it isn't in the 20,000 HZ plus range of the electronic fluorescent lighting. Older fluorescent magnetic ballast's would run at the mains frequency and flicker. You can shoot the lighting with a slow motion camera and see how bad LED's flicker vs an electronic ballast. Make sure you got someone around during slow motion playback in case it triggers a seizure for you. Flicker can cause headaches, migraines, seizures... and unlike Europe's standards Americans have their heads buried in the sand over CHEAP regardless of worker's health. Consumers simply don't know any better and shop price. (Some of the recent filming trends for shows of "flash flash flash" rapid scene cuts like a slide projector gone NUTS without a transition cause problems for people sensitive to flicker. Riding in a helicopter is also a problem for em.) Some CHEAP GM LED taillights are also known to flicker... It's sad really as the flicker problem has finally and only recently been solved for the bane of flickering fluorescent lighting only to be replaced by flickering LED's.

Phillips is hit or miss with dimmable "flicker free" LED's they market.

Regarding low life on T8's... There is a huge difference in lamp life with "Instant Start" and "Rapid Start".

"Instant Start" fires the tubes with very high voltage on cold filaments and this blows some material off each and every time you turn the lamp on. Coating is all blown off - lamp fails and usually at a high temperature on what's left of the metal. It's cheaper to leave these lamps on 24/7 than to ever turn them off due to life reduction. It's a terrible design all the way around due to short lamp life. It saves some watts by not heating the filaments. It's a common wiring mistake to only use one pin of the socket instead of shorting them together: this also reduces lamp life.

"Rapid Start" uses a lower voltage to start the lamps and uses some power to heat the filaments up. So they take 2-3 seconds to start up due to waiting on the filaments to heat up. The hot filaments do not blow as much material off during a start up. Lamp life is way longer than "Instant Start" esp. if you turn the lights on/off rather than run em all day. As they have 4 wires per tube they also take longer to install than "instant start".

So instead of LED's one may look at a commercial grade T8 "Rapid Start" ballast (vs. residential grade) with Lamp Striation Control and words to the effect of no flicker.

Any moving machinery in a shop should have some incandescent lighting around it or other high frequency lighting ... because an induction motor running in sync with 60 HZ mains can look like it's not running due to 60HZ strobe effect of lighting.

Edit: Looks like they have even longer lamp life now with "programmed start"

https://unvlt.com/literature/litera...-the-new-way-to-start-a-fluorescent-lamp.html

 

[mwilson]

Just found these at Home Cheapo.....

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Halco-L...ck-T8FR14-850-BYP3-DE-LED10PK-89003/308101924

 

[Ozymandias]

Just found these at Home Cheapo.....

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Halco-L...ck-T8FR14-850-BYP3-DE-LED10PK-89003/308101924

I wouldn't go that way to rewire all lights. The solution with the exchange Ballast/Starter is so much easier.

I asked my friend at Home and he said we used Osram LED Tubes.

 

[mwilson]

Trying the Home Depot offerings. Grabbed a case of 10 last night.

I have 3 two tube units where the ballast is junk. In my case if these work out it will be cheaper than any other solution...

Makes the cost about 15.00 per two light unit..

 

[AH64ID]

When I deleted my ballasts I was able to reuse the tombstones and pull about 5' of wire out of each 4 bulb fixture as I rewired them.

 

[mwilson]

Works great!!

First light test after rewiring. These bulbs don’t care which way the tombstones are wired. Have instructions for either scenario..

 

[Dan_69GTX]

Ummm - my recommendation is to hang the light OVER the workbench - allows you to see what you are working on.

Yea, I know - it was a long weekend and you had other things to do....

On a more serious side - do you have any way of measuring electric usage for 2 bulbs? I'd be curious to find out. Something like a killawatt makes it easy.
http://www.p3international.com/products/p4400.html

For reference here is what I found when I changed lighting in my garage
t-12 4 bulbs - 183w
T8 4 bulb - 107w
T12 2 bulb 93w
T8 2 bulb 55w

Haven't measured the LED when run on a ballast - guess I need to do that too.

 

[seafish]

Mike,

how does the light OUTPUT and quality fromthhose conversion tubes compare to the other LED bulbs ??

 

[seafish]

ALSO, just to clarify, are their actually LED bulbs that fit T8 lalast fixtures that do NOT need rearing and are simply plug n play ??

The reason I am alking is that all the lighting fixtures in the woodshop are 12' up and I would need to work off a ladder to the the rewiring,

 

[mwilson]

Seafish, both styles of LED tubes are available. The majority of the offerings require a ballast. Have to specifically search for the ballast bypass tubes.
All of our fixtures here at work were converted to electronic ballasts some years back. As the regular fluorescent tubes burn out we simply replace with the LED versions. Much nicer light.

Here is the bulb we use here..

 

[mwilson]

Light output of the LED bulb is equal to if not a little better than the standard fluorescent bulb.
I prefer the Daylight or 5000k versions for anything I do. That is what we settled on for the dealership as well.
You might to just try a few to make sure it’s the kind of light you want to work under. I would think so but everyone has their own preference..

 

[seafish]

Seafish, both styles of LED tubes are available. The majority of the offerings require a ballast. Have to specifically search for the ballast bypass tubes.
All of our fixtures here at work were converted to electronic ballasts some years back. As the regular fluorescent tubes burn out we simply replace with the LED versions. Much nicer light.

Mike, Thanks for the additional info.
Am I also now correct in understanding that ANY of the ballast bypass tubes require an initial rewiring of the fixture (cause somehow I missed that in the original post)??

 

[mwilson]

Mike, Thanks for the additional info.
Am I also now correct in understanding that ANY of the ballast bypass tubes require an initial rewiring of the fixture (cause somehow I missed that in the original post)??

From my quick learning curve I would say yes, that is a true statement....

 

[Bill Lins]

ALSO, just to clarify, are their actually LED bulbs that fit T8 lalast fixtures that do NOT need rearing and are simply plug n play ??

The Wal-Mart bulbs I bought are plug & play- I'm very pleased with them.

 

[mwilson]

So my takeaway from a cost conscious standpoint for an LED upgrade on a 4' two bulb fixture is this...

If ballast is ok then use the LED replacement tubes. Costs me 13.00 or so for two frosted 5000k 4' LED tubes.

If ballast is trashed then use the LED Ballast Bypass tubes. Costs me about 15.00 for two frosted 5000k 4' LED B/Bypass bulbs..so why even bother with a toasted ballast....JMHO.

And my garage lights are switched on and off several times a day as our main access point is through the garage...and I suspect that is why I have been through many bulbs and several ballast units. Hoping for better results with the LED changeover.

Plus I keep the heat down to 50 unless I'm going to be working out there so the LED conversion will do away with the cold flickering with standard tubes running at low temps.

 

[AH64ID]

I would get ballast bypass bulbs from the get go, that way you're not replacing a ballast in the future because you have LED bulbs for a ballast.

You will also use less electricity with ballast bypass bulbs.