Twin flourescents.

If the ballast is shared then putting in the dummy starters will have the LEDs in series.

A lot of LED batons work down to 80V

Ah - thanks. So worth a try? The TLC site mumbles on about re-wiring them.

At my age, I'm not sure what is more difficult. Working above your head or at skirting level. ;-)

on 12/12/2021, Dave Plowman (News) supposed :

Worth considering replacing the ballasts with electonic ballasts, as an alternative to swapping for LED.

But you would need LED tubes that would work at 120V.

If in series taking one starter out should take out both tubes ie stop either of them firing when the light switch is turned on.

With wagos a rewire is not too difficult

Been there, got the tee shirt. I changed to HF tubes with an electronic ballast from TLC. Light and startup time impressive but the starters failed (twice) when the tube went (which was said here when I initially warmed to the idea).

So I changed for TLC's LED tubes, £8 each? rewired straight to L&N junking the starter/ballast. Light quality good, but choose warm white, the blue/cool white is ghastly.

If ye do that, worth writing somewhere on the fitting which is the live end with power. If you install a 'LED replacement' tube the wrong way round, effectively you will be putting a surprising short across the incoming terminals.

That will not happen if wired up correctly.

L to a pin at one end of the tube, a link from the other pin at the L end to a pin at the other end and the remaining pin to neutral.

Electronic ballasts, with staters???

Then you wired it up wrong..

I was wondering about that. Some electronic ballasts are funny if left with non working/burntout tubes for some time and assumed it was just a mixup of words.

I find that Fluorries when used in a garage or outbuilding can be like candles when the outdoor is cold and they take a while to warm up and reach maximum light output

Thats one advantage of LEDs, full brightness straightaway.

Agreed when wired like that.

The above was my labelling insistance if ye opt to incorrectly wire straight on, ditching the ballast/starter and wiring and is hinted in the installation leaflet by "warning:no power input"

on 12/12/2021, SH supposed :

The isn't quite that difference cold to warm, with an e/ballast.

Drinking Wine ballast at present, my starter is a bit weak.

Not entirely correct, yes.

the fluorries I have have electronic HF ballasts and I still stand by my observation that they are dim when cold and take a while to reach full brightness

Definitely working overhead. Working at skirting level is easy. Getting up again is the problem!

Hmm, Not so sure about that, don't your fingers go a bit numb if you keep your arms raised too long? Anyway, I guess the newer tubes being thinner have less phosphor on them than the older thick ones did. Surely, if these are replacements then they must have them designed to work over a large voltage range, what worries me is what dissipates the power if you use them at a higher voltage, or do they actually have some kind of switch mode supply built into them? If yes then thy are probably going to be generating a lot of RF junk, more even than the old tubes used to do. Brian

It all seems a bit of a faff to me, new batten mounting LED lights aren't all that expensive and are often rather more efficient than the tube replacement ones.

I would have been quite happy if I could have got the colour matching northlight T12 tubes originally fitted.

But changing the ballasts would be even more work. I was hoping LEDs to be an easy option.

A twin 5ft and 6 ft LED would cost me over £100. And don't seem to come with the add on steel reflector I have on these - which not only give the tubes a degree of protection from being whacked - but shields the tubes from them being in your line of view from other parts of the room.