What is inside an LED "starter"

[William Gothberg]

Those fake starters people put into fluorescent fittings when they put in an LED tube.... what's inside? An LED tube draws power from the two ends, I looked inside one of my tubes and the two pins at each end are shorted together. The LED PSU takes power from both ends if you see what I mean, it expects live at one end and neutral at the other. So why on earth would you need anything in the starter, even if you left the ballast in? Surely it's best to have the starter open circuit, i.e. just remove it. Does it perhaps in some way negate the inductive nature of the ballast to be nicer to the LED PSU?

[William Gothberg]

I think I've answered my own question - they're perhaps for those cheap shit single ended LED tubes, which take the power from the two pins at one end, thus requiring the power to go through the starter to run the LEDs. Double ended LED tubes make much more sense, they only draw current through the ballast, and you can just remove the starter, or leave it in wasting power as it'll be on all the time.

[Brian Gaff]

Or put in a dummy to look right but it is in fact just a cover with nothing inside. Brian

[William Gothberg]

If it's an LED tube that takes live and neutral from one end, then the starter needs to be a short, not open circuit.