replacing fluorescent tube with LED

[Jeff Layman]

That is considerably better, although still somewhat less than the fluo. I wonder if it's noticeable, and even if it is that you get used to it eventually. There's an interesting comment on the TLC 24W led tube page: "Please note that a capacitor, ballast and or starter left in situ in a fitting will in certain cases draw more power than the quoted consumption of the LED tube itself. For the greatest energy saving it is suggested to remove the capacitor, ballast and starter.”

Anyone ever seen this, and what power might be wasted?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I inspected the source with Firefox,.

The image is supposed to be here:

that there is no DNS record for static.bltdirect.com

So the website is basically f***ed. Its a shit website anyway.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I did find what MIGHT be the correct image here

[Peter Able]

I'd drafted an almost identical post this afternoon!

I've a 58W fluorescent in this room (my shack / office), and purchased a Screwfix 36W, £14.95, 4' LED batten as insurance. Using a light meter the Screwfix surpasses the Fluorescent, both when new and in its current slightly-depleted state.

In the similarly-sized kitchen to the OP's I've used a 6' 64W LED batten which is clinically bright. Really too bright without the diffuser fitted. (Don't look up!)

And, as you say, the almost-instant clean start is a real selling point.

Also, almost no additional noise on the short-wave radio with the LED batten - and no occasional audio choke-buzz.

Will it last the unexpectedly precise 54,000 Hours? Oh, they'll have found something in LEDs which causes them to be banned by then!

PA

[Brian]

I’ve been swapping similar tubes with LED ones from Toolstation in my garage. They come with a ‘dummy’ starter you swap for the old one and you just fit the LED tube.

The LED ones are noticeably brighter. I buy the 6500k ones.

[Clive Page]

Well I had thought of that, but it's a lot of extra work, and I *really* hate working above my head on a ceiling. And it's also a lot more expensive, so losing a lot of the monetary gain from switching all these fluorescent tubes to LEDs (have 3 altogether in the house).

[Clive Page]

Thanks for the warning. I've already seen reviews that point out that cheap LED tubes are often made of plastic which sags in the middle so looks bad, and may actually fail if they get warm.

[alan_m]

I guess that all LED tubes are plastic and possibly why batten lights may be better,

I've fitted two (all plastic) batten lights and have found that they don't run hot, are adequately supported with three (metal) fixing clips and haven't sagged in the middle in over a year. Yes, they were extremely light, as are most dedicated LED fittings these days.

The battens I fitted had a two pin socket at each end (a blanking plug covering one end) and was supplied with a moulded mating plug with around 600mm of cable.

[Sam Plusnet]

Also note Wattage = 55W.

That payback period (only 3 watts less that the fluorescent fitting's nominal rating) might be... quite long.

I'm in the same boat as the OP, but I was looking at:

4790 lumens, 45 watts (hence reduction in running cost is probably not large to notice). 1500 x 200 mm.

Looks (from the pictures) to be somewhat neater.

[Sam Plusnet]

Most of the LED lights being mentioned here have very similar wattage rating to the flourescent fitting you are looking to replace. (Fluorescents are pretty efficient in their own right) Any change in running costs is going to be negligible.

[wrights...]

Have you considered 450 x 450 LED panels? The shape means the light is better than the strip light shape. More diffuse, softer shadows, fewer shadows. I've used them in several rooms. A 30W panel is far brighter than a 65W fluo. The best colour light for a kitchen is 4000K or 4500K. 6500K is horribly cold; most off-putting.

Bill

[Fredxx]

with 6300 lm

I'm surprised at the power consumption. I think the word 'twin' in the description suggests that this is equivalent to 2 old fluorescent tubes?

The old fluorescent tubes would have had a ballast with losses generally at 10% of tube power, so another saving with LEDs.

"he typical luminous efficacy of fluorescent lighting systems is

50–100 lumens per watt". An old tube could be lower still, however the link above suggests 114lm/W So perhaps not so bad in terms of overall efficiency? If you need that level of light of course.

But probably over twice the lumens?

This might be of use:

I worked out the equivalent LED tubes I got were roughly twice as efficient as the tubes they replaced, that is without taking into account tube ageing.

[me9]

There's also 600x300 at about 20w. I'm trialing one in the kitchen (6000k) so far results are promising. Just working out how to mount them.

[Paul]

I just walk sites backwards in archive.org , until the page renders properly. We can't let web site maintenance issues, spoil our fun. But even archive.org does not work now, in all web browsers (clever, for an archive).

There are quite a few sites, that remove the images from older articles, to save bandwidth. Sometimes walking backwards, gets the image content back so you can enjoy the content.

Paul

[Andy Burns]

Funny you should mention DOTD, my script still runs, and dredges up images (now without prices) from the SF website, so they're obviously still feeding deals to their backend, but they never appear on their website ...bog seat anyone?

It was semi-interesting to peek at the future deals they had lined up, but I doubt anyone actually looks at my results any more?

[Jeff Gaines]

Frankly they are too light to sag, if you are concerned you can put the bracket on 1/3 of the way from each end.

[Animal]

what the mfr says, except 5w 6' which is a typo.

[Animal]

The fluoro _was_ 5200 lumens, it'll be way down by now.

[Animal]

Caps don't use power, unless faulty - if one is that bad it'll go pop in minutes. Starters don't use power when an LED tube is used. Only the 4 pin bimetal ones ever wasted any significant power, about 1w, and they disappeared long ago. Ballasts do. An old inductor ballast eats about 10% of the tube power, electronics less. Ideally bypass the ballast, but it normally works as is.

[Animal]

Fwiw I've found many LED bulbs last a fraction of their claimed life.