Failed Mod: Converting fluorescent lamps to LED

[danemayer]

We've got a dozen fluorescent lamps in our Landmark and I was hoping to convert them to LEDs to reduce the summer heat load. I searched YouTube for demos and watched two. Looked pretty straightforward.

So I ordered a 5 meter strip reel of warm white 3100K LEDs from Amazon (LEDwholesalers) for a test installation. We usually keep the 2 kitchen fluorescents on most of the time in the living area, so to reduce heat load, my priority was to convert them first.

Rather than work out the installation issues on a ladder, I thought I'd try the lone fluorescent in the bathroom as the test case. Much easier to reach. But DW didn't like that choice, since she's happy with the current bathroom lighting and didn't want me to cause her any difficulties with brightness or color temperature.

So I tested on the bedroom light fixture at the foot of the bed.

Installation issues:

1. On some lamps, the ballast is in the center, under a cover and the wiring is accessible without dropping the fixture from the ceiling. Not so on these. I had to drop the fixture to remove the end cover plates to get to the wiring.
2. The connection fittings I got to attach to the LED strip had 3.5" leads but really needed longer wires. They just barely reached to where I could connect to the hot and ground wires of the fixture.
3. The adhesive on the back of the LED strip makes it a bit tricky to slide the end into the connection fitting.
4. The first strip/fitting combination worked. The next two of the strips and two of the connection fittings just would not work. It took 4 strips/fittings to get one lamp converted. If this continued, it would double the conversion cost.
5. I remounted the working lamp with 2 LED strips to the ceiling and compared it to the other lamp that still had fluorescent tubes. I thought the color temp was ok (but I should say that in our home, I'm not the final arbiter of color choices), and overall appearance was ok. BUT, it was perhaps 1/2 as bright as the fluorescent. Converting both fixtures would have left the bedroom lighting on the dim side.

DW concurred that the result was unacceptable. I reversed course and put the wiring back to the original configuration and reinstalled the fluorescent tubes.

I suppose it's possible that there might be LED strips with more lumens, but without knowing how many lumens are needed, and without specs on most of the products offered, I think I'll have to pass on this mod.

 

[jmgratz]

I ran into a factory rep for LED florescent tubes when I was at Tweety's. He told me the led strips were not as bright as the tubes and I would only need one led tube to replace two florescent tubes. I tried just one in the LR and Kitchen and the conversion was simple and the one tube put out more light than two florescent. I put two LED tubes in the bathroom and wow talk about bright. It is almost too bright. I would go with the LED tubes rather than the LED strips. Buy just one and see.

 

[brianharrison]

Dan I had similar issues when I did this mod as well. I ended up putting 4 strips in the fixtures where I wanted similar lumens, two where the old tubes were and two on the angled ballast cover. Worked better. The connections are tough to get proper contact on the small + & - connections on the LED strip; I found I had to make sure the strip was cut perfectly square on the exact cutting mark.

I also had to add some pig tail wire to ensure I had enough slack to work with; I have forever misplaced my wire stretcher.

By the way, I bought the 300 LED warm white strip. I noticed there was a 150 strip as well when I was buying mine. I suspect the hotter colors (bright white) would put out more lumens for similar LED count.

The mod is still way more economical than buying the LED tubes.

Brian