Author Topic: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.  (Read 3116 times)

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dnix71

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LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« on: January 26, 2020, 08:48:52 PM »
I was in a Northern Tools retail outlet looking for something and didn't find it, so as not to waste the visit asked the manager about what was new. He recommended LED lighting. They had a combination of LED high hat and flurescent and I couldn't tell the difference from the ground. Same color and light output.

I didn't want high hats, but was interested in replacing linear 32 and 40 watt four-foot lamps run by magnetic or newer electronic ballasts. Northern was selling a 17 watt direct drop-in replacement for those for $20 a pair (at 5000K).

I bought a pair and swapped them out in a fixture at church that used 32 watt T8 tubes. No rewiring, just swap out the tubes. Brighter than the 32 watt tubes, too.

Only problem is the price. $10 a tube would take a long time to pay back when electricity here is cheap (10 cents a KWH). If a tube saved 15 watts is 1.2 cents a day at 8 hours a day on. A 32-watt tube is about $3 a tube in a bulk pack. That means the LEDs would take about a year and 8 months to break even.

The real energy saving are not as advertised, either. I plugged in a pair of LEDs into a new electronic ballast and my Kill-A-Watt meter said the 32's used 30 watts and the LEDs used 20 watts.

That makes the pay back just under 2 1/2 years.

Amazon advertised the same type of lamp for $6 each, a much better deal, but the reviews were mostly bad, saying that the LED dropin tubes were picky about the ballasts. I do not have an Amazon account and didn't want to buy tubes like that by internet.

I shop Walmart 5 days a week to buy food for the day before going off to work. This particular WallyWorld has a tire shop and full tool and hardware selection and they also sold 2 packs of dropin LED tubes for $4.90 a tube. That was cheap enough to gamble on and they worked well, except in a fixture I knew was dying and had to be replaced anyway.

Walmart sold boxes of 10 for $43, so I went around buying up their local stock. One manager told me the tubes were "no replenish" but he didn't know why they were being discontinued.  I have bought 7 boxes of 10 so far and won't need more for a while, as I am only doing special replacements. The older 40 watt tubes are so dull that 2 "20-watt" LED tubes provides as much light as four 40's saving 120 watts a fixture where we were still using the 40 watt tubes.

I prefer the direct dropin replacement because it does not mean making any wiring changes. I cannot trust that someone will not come along behind me and put a regular tube back in. That might create a hazard if I had to disconnect ballasts or cut the wires on one in, which are the other two options other than complete fixture replacement.

SparWeb

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2020, 12:16:43 AM »
I went with LED fixtures in my garage 2 years ago and still happy I did.  Those lights aren't on long enough to be worth considering a payback.  The quality was good and they actually do turn on in -10C cold, which I get often and the fluoro bulbs/ballasts in my shop don't like.
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MattM

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2020, 12:33:58 AM »
My older LEDs are significantly less intense after just 5 years.  I'm not so sure LED life expectancy was all they advertised, but the energy savings is noticeable.

Mary B

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2020, 06:25:11 PM »
My experience with LEDS is after ~6 months continuous use the output drops about 20% then stabilizes there. I have some bulbs going on 8 years old now... one is on 24/7/365 in the bathroom because that room gets little natural light.

DanG

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2020, 07:02:30 PM »
Take the time to bypass wire around the ballast - remove and recycle it - there is no harm in putting fluorescent tube on 120VAC as it simply will not work and leaving the ballasts to act like little heater transformers waste energy and will remain the same hazard magnet for lightning etc...  Oh - and the T-5 bulbs come with stickers to place near the bulb sockets saying 'hey doofus yeah it don't work because we installed LEDs instead'...

I just replaced one ceiling troffer fixture that had six 20W bulbs & six ballasts - the ballasts were pre-1979 and were not labeled 'NO PCB's' so they had to go to hazmat collection site and be incinerated, to find them AND have them out of the living area was worth the hassles!

The newest LED offerings should not have no/low lumen reduction past the first 10 or 20 hours, they are initially underrated and wear into their labeled ratings - and if we notice much past then it just might be the normal junction temperature heating that makes it harder for UV photons to leap away to excite the phosphors that give us the 3500, 4200k etc. white light.  I have outdoor LED spot lights that seem to go nuclear at -25°F with half again or more output than on a hot summer evening!

Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2020, 02:55:30 AM »
We had incandescents in the Nevada ranch.  (Compact fluorescents triggered my wife's vertigo.)  We also hadn't gotten around to installing an air conditioner and the place tended to get hot.

I realized a year or so ago that running a couple of the fixtures - 6 bulbs over the kitchen island and a six-lamp chandaleer - was about like running a couple 250 watt heat lamps or half a space heater.  After finding out that 3000 K LED lamps DIDN'T set off her vertigo, I relamped with LEDs.

As of that time LEDs were good enough that they only use a tenth of the power of equivalent brightness incandescents - so they only do a tenth of the heating.  That improved the heat situation drastically.  Well worth the cost, even for the little we're likely to use the place before selling out and moving on (due to the wife's lung condition, requiring oxygen above 3000 feet, making a house at 5000 feet altitude unlivably hazardous.)

TechAdmin

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2020, 09:23:07 AM »
LED business is something that is still a bit obscure to me... You can find all sorts of lights in Chinese shops and same thing on ebay/amazon as you mentioned. The real differences are prices - when I was looking at some LED light for my bike, I could either go with some Chinese thingy at like 10$ or more than 100$ in retail stores, branded, but looking extremely similar.
From what I've seen it's just about the same story for house lights too, the real problem is to figure out when companies are being greedy (over 100 for a lamp is bs, honestly, it's not gold-plated) and when they're selling trash at affordable prices. You could theoretically get a cheap item to perform better than a more expensive one because perhaps the bigger company saved on some components quality and stuff like that, but it's kind of a big gamble.
In the end... Aren't they all made in China anyway? :P

JW

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2020, 09:50:37 PM »
Im not able tell if these are made in China but it is looking good for temporary power. I say its worth that much if they burn up so what.
 https://www.ebay.com/i/232635468769?norover=1&mpt=[CACHEBUSTER]&siteid=0&ipn=admain2&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-157687-929634-7&mkcid=4&placement=529728&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIs7Gr3KWq5wIVxPvjBx28sQdvEAEYASACEgIgWvD_BwE

Less than $200 bucks for 3000w   

TDC

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #8 on: February 09, 2020, 07:22:15 PM »
LED business is something that is still a bit obscure to me... You can find all sorts of lights in Chinese shops and same thing on ebay/amazon as you mentioned. The real differences are prices - when I was looking at some LED light for my bike, I could either go with some Chinese thingy at like 10$ or more than 100$ in retail stores, branded, but looking extremely similar.
From what I've seen it's just about the same story for house lights too, the real problem is to figure out when companies are being greedy (over 100 for a lamp is bs, honestly, it's not gold-plated) and when they're selling trash at affordable prices. You could theoretically get a cheap item to perform better than a more expensive one because perhaps the bigger company saved on some components quality and stuff like that, but it's kind of a big gamble.
In the end... Aren't they all made in China anyway? :P

The quality of fluorescent replacements varies and they are about the same efficiency as screw in LED, around 100 lumen/watt.

MY EDC (Every Day Carry) flashlight was $89 and worth the money to me. Over 1300 lumen compared to 800 for a common screw in LED.
http://www.zebralight.com/H600Fw-Mk-IV-18650-XHP35-Floody-Neutral-White-Headlamp_p_217.html

Buy good components and you can get double the efficiency of common consumer stuff.  I bought the parts for two friends to light their garages and they are more than happy.  These are reduced price since their next gen has started to become available with 6% higher efficiency.
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/bridgelux/BXEB-L1120Z-35E4000-C-B3/976-1732-ND/7907661

China has everything from crap to very high quality and there's good LED from Japan, USA, Samsung from South Korea etc.

Now some fun stuff.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh9j5mDU_hA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vgNh3fLxJc



Ungrounded Lightning Rod

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Re: LED substitutes for linear fluorescent is finally economic.
« Reply #9 on: February 20, 2020, 12:21:57 AM »

The quality of fluorescent replacements varies and they are about the same efficiency as screw in LED, around 100 lumen/watt.

Actually, CFLs are about 80% as efficient, at least for the 3000k color temperature we prefer.  Per a recent web search LEDs are about 90 lumens/watt (1600 @ 17.7W), CFLs about 72 (1650 @ 23W).  (I remember them as being about half, so I suppose CFLs have improved a bit lately, too.)

Quote
China has everything from crap to very high quality and there's good LED from Japan, USA, Samsung from South Korea etc.

I've had good reliability with Feit Electric (my go-to brand) and Satco (my backup).  (A few years back each had an infant mortality out of a couple dozen.  Got 'em at Dale Hardware in Fremont CA - and Ace outlet - which was happy to swap them for good replacements.  Things seem to have improved lately, no trouble with a dozen or so more - or that could be law of small numbers.)  Got some GEs for an outside fixture but haven't used them long enough to rate them.

Feit has 60W equivalent LED bug lights, too, which look very nice.