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OT Fluorescent to LED conversion

Future FiL's 5ft LED tube failed last night so he swapped the tube for a

5ft fluorescent tube without rewiring the ballast and starter back in:-)
Reply to
ARW
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Did it provide a bright light, for about a second? Did it take the MCB out?

Do tell?

At least it's a quick fix!

Reply to
Fredxx

It welded the lightswitch closed!

TBH he swapped it about 5 minutes after I told him not to.

Reply to
ARW

Hmm, I’ve swapped a couple of old tubes to LED in our garage and replaced the starters with the ‘special’ ones provided. As the others fail, I plan to swap them all out* - I think there are 2 left. Plus I have a few lights in the loft waiting to fail.

While I know I’ve swapped to LED and stuck a label on each fitting as I’ve swapped over, in the back of my mind I’ve had a niggling concern ‘what if someone pops an old style tube in here….’

  • I can’t bring myself to dump working tubes. I’ve taken working incandescent bulbs out but they get more use.
Reply to
Brian

Mine aren't labelled, but the shed ones are integral LED ones, all the garage ones have been swapped to LED and it's pretty obvious, as the tubes are plastic and bendy; the only other one is the loft light - which is simply not worth converting, as it's usually on for less than an hour a year!

Reply to
SteveW

My loft is where I sent all my old CFLs when I replaced all my normal bulbs with LEDs.

Reply to
Andy Burns

Hmm. My LED tubes are glass (hence the advice to check before leaving the supplier) Not easy to spot the difference. I suppose a warning sign next to the switches might be wise.

Reply to
Tim Lamb

One might have actually expected that if the thing needed to be rewired to make it led, then the reverse ie, wiring stuff back must be needed. What did it do to the tube. I'm surprised it welded the switch, the breakers should be much too fast. I don't see why using a few diodes and some kind of detection circuit, the need for changes other than removing the starters would be required in the first place. Of course if he did the original conversion himself, maybe it was never done right and the leds were being used in the incorrect way, which was why it stopped working. Those usually last almost for ever. Brian Make something idiot proof and along will come a better idiot.

Reply to
Brian Gaff

From memory, the LED ones I’ve fitted are plastic.

I’m no worried if I swap the tube- I know there is a mix, so know to check, plus there are the labels. It is more if we move etc- not that we plan to.

That said, in the past, I’ve always left a ‘hand book’ for the house- where things are, any special items to note, etc.

Reply to
Brian

I've had an automatic relay switch weld due to a short.

I manually pried it open, minimal force, and it was fine.

Reply to
Pancho

Has anyone reverse-engineered the dummy starter supplied with the LED replacement tubes?

nib

Reply to
nib

I think it's just wired straight between the pins.

Reply to
Andy Burns

Ta! Indeed. Had a better look myself!

One end of the LED tube has the pins connected together.

The starter is connected across the pins.

The tube takes power at one end only, the two pins at that end are connected to N and L via the original fluorescent ballast, the dummy starter and the connected pins at the other end).

So putting a real fluorescent tube back in without changing the starter would result in permanently driving the preheat filaments.

nib

Reply to
nib

Some claim to have an internal fuse.

Yes, but once the tube fired an awful lot more current would pass.

Hence I thought there might be a flash before the filament wires fused or the MCB gave way.

Reply to
Fredxx

Surely with the starter being a short circuit there would never be enough voltage across the tube to allow any conduction through the gas. It would just sit with current through the filaments limited by their resistance and the reactance of the ballast choke. Not a flash, maybe not long until failure? I've never run a tube like that to see how long the filaments last!

nib

Reply to
nib

I see your point. In the OP's case I believe the ballast has been removed and the starter has also been replaced with a short. I don't think a tube would run like that for very long. :-)

Reply to
Fredxx

Ah - I missed that first post and came in on another post. Similar to that post, I used an Osram set that left the ballast in, just replaced tube and starter. No ballast and shorted starter wouldn't last long!

nib

Reply to
nib

A bit more info - I have been working away at short notice [1] so I was not able to reply to any of the points made.

Maybe the way I worded it did not help.

The fitting had been rewired so that only one end of the fitting had power - the other end had no electrical connections at all.

So fitting a new LED tube the wrong way around would also have blown the MCB or lightswitch by causing a dead short.

So only one end of the flourescent got 240V!

[1] Don't you love a phone call on a late Sunday afternoon and to be asked if you can be in South Oxfordshire for 8am in the morning?
Reply to
ARW

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