LED 'retrofit' tubes

Scott wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Great. will it lead to you having redundant yet powered components in the fitting?

Surprisingly argumentative? At least it kept on topic.

I will aim to answer that and other questions tomorrow :-)

It's the usual minimalist instructions with pictograms. As far as I can see, removing the ballast is an installation option. I am meeting a mate for dinner tomorrow night who is an electrical engineer so I will try to clarify then.

For anyone following this thread, my electrical engineer friend could not follow the instructions provided by Philips. He points out that the HF ballast has to be cut out but the instructions are silent on whether an EM ballast can be removed.

My own interpretation is that if the lamp can work without the HF ballast it follows that no ballast is needed so the user if free to remove the ballast. I appreciate this will be very exciting news to one of the contributors to the earlier thread, who seemed to obsess about this particular detail.

I am most impressed. They start instantly and there is no sign of flicker in operation. At the moment they are substantially more expensive (than conventional fluorescents) but for two tubes in a domestic environment I am not particularly concerned about this.

Scott wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Great - what is needed now is an optimised fitting - and maybe a foolproofing feature to prevent the wrong type being used in the wrong fitting. Perhaps the LED could have a plastic pin arrangement at one end

- No - just make an optimise holder for an optimised LED strip and let's ditch compatability.

In message , Scott writes

I am, and thank you for the update. We have 5 x 2ft tubes in the kitchen, and I keep debating with myself, whether or not to go LED. Interesting to read your experiences.

You don't need instructions once you know what's in the tube.

They work by just connecting 240V to the terminals, BUT...

All the ones I have seen have the 240V inputs on one end of the tube and a SHORT between the pins on the other end.

So if you connect the mains directly to one end then putting the tube in the other way around will trip/blow fuses.

This is fine if you use the shorting starter supplied and one the mains inputs then goes through the choke, through the two shorted pins at one end, through the starter and then connect to one of the pins opposite the shorted end. The other mains goes to the other pin. The tuve will work either way around then. You can just short the choke out if you want.

If you want to rip out all the electrics then connect one pin at each end together and the mains to the other pin at each end. The tube will work either way around then.

Make sure nobody fits a plain tube if you short the choke.

I do not see how that would be consistent with the concept of a 'retrofit' tube. The idea of retrofit is to use the existing luminaire - plug and play in computer language. No doubt over time LED luminaires will appear and your ideas may well feature.

Do you have magnetic (EM) ballast - with a starter - or electronic (HF) ballast. Philips at least offer different versions of the tube.

(I have no connection with Philips by the way.)

There are many versions of fitting and may ideas of how to make the LED tube adaptation reversable - this creates risks I feel.

surely better to do some simple by-passing of components using Waygo or similar and mark the fitting as unsuitable for Fuorescents.

This may be a counsel of perfection but the argument is that by-passing components requires a 'qualified person' and replacing a tube does not. Hence the demand for retrofit. Incidentally, there is a sticker to be added in the terms you suggest because the starter has been replaced.

The good news is that both options are available so in the pluralistic society in which we live consumers have a choice. What could be better than that?