Fluorescent tube LED replacment

[Johnny B Good]

I was in a similar situation earlier this year with my office lighting. Since I didn't want to purchase yet another of the new shitty breed of T8 replacements for the better T12 tubes that are now an extinct species, I decided to try a LED replacement tube. The closest to the T8 5000lm tube I could find (and also the cheapest) was this 2400lm one.

Alternative 5 foot LED tubes typically ranged from 1800 to 2000lm and cost even more. The Philips 2000lm tube in B&Q for example had an 18 quid price tag for f*ck's sake!

I had to order it for collect and pay the next day from my local Toolstation store. It came supplied in a substantial cardboard tube package that weighed as much as the tube itself, the quality of which seemed rather good.

Despite my misgivings about the halved light emission claim compared to that claimed for the fluorescent I was replacing, the illumination seemed to be hardly any dimmer which rather confounded my expectations.

It was supplied with a dummy starter and a fitting instruction leaflet which showed how to bypass the ballast circuitry if you had an electronic ballast or just wanted to shave off the couple of watts that would now be consumed by a magnetic ballast at the reduced lamp current rather than, as I did, elect to simply swap out the starter and the tube for an easy peasy job (I didn't think removal of the ballast just to save a couple of watts was worth the hassle in this case - it wouldn't effect the lamp's performance since it's designed to work over a mains supply voltage range of 85 to 265 volts)

I'd been getting by with a "100W" LED uplighter, supplemented by pointing my "60W" LED desklamp up to the ceiling for the past couple of weeks when my son suggested I should try a LED tube replacement, which he'd thought would be an improvement after doing a similar lighting upgrade the week before, so, to spite him out of 12 quid of his inheritance and prove him wrong (I know how to read a data sheet), I checked out local suppliers for 'instant gratification' otherwise I'd have looked for a better on line deal rather than shell out four times the price of a replacement fluorescent tube on this "wonder of modern lighting technology".

I haven't bothered looking for a cheaper on-line source but I suspect you might find something of similar quality for less if you care to look hard enough.

[Dave Liquorice]

Found the same when I swappd to 2000 lm LED 5' tube. Remember the eyes response is log not lin. So halving the "power" only results in a 3dB reduction of level, which is only just noticeable.

Picked up a 5' Osram 1800 lm 19 W tube for £5 in Homebase, Hexham this week. Discontinued stock. B-)

[T i m]

<snip>

Quite.

A cheaper way is to get some college boy doing a summer job to take all the lights down in a large office one at a time, change the tube, wash the diffusers and wipe down the fittings. ;-)

Because smoking was allowed in offices in those days, the diffusers were absolutely disgusting, covered in a sticky furry skin of gunge and went from yellow to near translucent after being washed (and it needed hot and very soapy water to get the stuff off and a scrubbing brush to get into the little prisms).

Not that it was really needed but it was yet another reminder of why I didn't smoke.

(On that, for the first time in a long time ... a small group of us were sitting under a shelter in a park, enjoying a chat and a coffee when 'a woman' came and sat with us (I even got her a chair FFS) and started smoking? Daughter and I left (we were close to leaving in any case) ... but it was a reminder of the 'bad old days'). ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[ARW]

And the risk assessment? So were they the bad old days?

[Johnny B Good]

I'm aware of the 'log response' which is why, when looking to improve the illumination level, I look towards achieving a doubling or better improvement.

TBH, I'd prefer a doubling up on what I'm getting from this "LED Upgrade" but since it seems no worse than I was getting from the crappy T8 tube, just a few thousand hours into its lumens output curve whilst it was only some 5 to 10 percent down on its "Design Lumens" figure, I'll make do for now until better LED replacements become available in the next few years.

At just a fiver, I may well have been tempted to take a punt myself but, considering that even 2000lm tubes were 50% dearer than that Toolstation example, I was more inclined to blow a whole 12 quid to get the maximum lumens available in a LED version of replacement tube in spite of the halving of total light emission.

After all, these LED tubes must somehow manage to provide sufficient light to avoid 'returns' by reason of being "Not fit for purpose", so just how bad can they be? The answer it turns out, is not quite so bad as the lumens figures had suggested would be the case. However, I rather doubt that an 1800lm LED tube would have been quite so 'acceptable' a substitute for a 4,800lm fluorescent tube as that CED 2400lm LED tube.