replacing fluorescent tube with LED

[Clive Page]

In our kitchen we've got two 58 watt 5 foot (1500 mm) fluorescent tubes, one of which is showing signs of age. I might replace them with LED equivalents, as with current electricity prices, the payback period would be only a year or two. But I'm not sure whether the replacements that I can see sold by the likes of Screwfix and Toolstation are adequate. The existing 58 watt tubes are rated at 5200 lumens, but the LED replacements drawing around 20 watts seem only to emit about 2000 lumens. So will they be bright enough - does anyone know? Maybe with LEDs all the lumens go downwards. Or can one get brighter equivalents from specialist retailers?

[Jon]

I replace mine with a strip of LED spotlights.

[Jeff Gaines]

I put the 5' version of this in my kitchen 2 months ago:

Kitchen is 15' x 10' and standard height, light is excellent, gets into every corner. When I decorate I will put spacers behind the brackets to allow more room for the flex.

[Andy Burns]

You can get 24W tubes delivering 4000lm and as you say shining downwards probably not noticeably dimmer that (degraded old) 58W fluoros, e.g.

[Tim Lamb]

Point to check is that your existing fittings are not high frequency types as fitting the LED tubes will require additional wiring alterations.

[wasbit]

Cool white gives a much whiter light than warm white, so check the specs. Some people find it too bright but after a year or so the harshness softens (in my experience - that may be because I buy on price not quality).

[Davey]

There is a good selection at:

(8 pages)

I need to upgrade my garage lighting this year, so I will be making a selection myself.

[The Natural Philosopher]

10 out of ten for spelling fluorescent correctly.

[alan_m]

You may find it economical to take the whole fitting down and replace it with a LED batten light

Example (not recommendation)

[Mark Carver]

Seconded.

It might mean a bit of redecoration, but it's far better I think to replace the whole thing. And the modern LED fittings are a light as a feather.

[Tim+]

Or that your cataracts are advancing. ;-). Seriously though, cataracts add a yellow tinge to your vision.

Tim

[Tim Lamb]

Cable entry point may be an issue for fitting replacement.

>

[Tim Streater]

They also add a nice rainbow around every bright light you look at at night.

[Tim Streater]

Any way of getting a clear indication of the power consumption of these jobs? The 6ft one is listed at 5W, the 5ft and shorter are variously 48W, 40W, 20W, and so on.

What is the *likly* consumption?

[Owain Lastname]

I bought one of those on DOTD (remember those?)

Very flimsy. If you want to run a series connected end to end you can't because they're double insulated, so you can't extend the CPC through one fitting to the next. Plastic clip-in ceiling brackets so the whole lot will come down in a fire. End cable entry untwists and exposes live terminals without the use of a tool.

For some reason my review pointing all this out wasn't accepted.

Owain

[Andy Burns]

Ask them?

[Jeff Layman]

Can't say I understand their figures. If you look at

they say it is 2300lm, "equivalent to a 58W fluorescent". But a 58W fluo provides, as the OP pointed out, 5200lm (confirmed at ). I thought the beam angle might have something to do with it, but they say their led tube is 320° (a fluo would be 360°). I hoped the explanation might be at , but I can't see the lumens chart with Pale Moon, Firefox, or Vivaldi.

The TLC fluo is £4.32 inc vat. If it works out that you need at least a couple of those BLT led tubes for an equivalent light output (more like

2.25x), you're not far off 58W. The Megaman is more efficient than the Crompton, though (22W for 2700lm).

[John Rumm]

The key is the directionality... I replaced a 36W 4' tube in our utility room with a Philips G13 T8 LED, which is claimed to produce

1600lm with 16W load. That is significantly less than the tube it replaced (or at least when new). However in reality I found that measuring the light level with a Lux meter in the room, they were in fact very nearly the same. The instant on, and no warm up time is nice as well.

[Davey]

I agree, the lumens chart does not show with Ubutu and Firefox. Nor even with Chrome, which will often display stuff that Firefox won't. Maybe somebody can try Windows and see if that works.

[PeterC]

TLC's are 167lu/w and 330 deg.