LED tubes to replace fluorescent light

Dear all,


I am thinking of changing my fluorescent light tube with LED Tubes .
I would like to skip the process of changing or overlapping the ballasts. I found that Cree and philips provide compatible LED tubes. However, I would like to know something more about them before making the investment.
So could anyone help me with some reviews, comments, complaints, suggestions etc.


Cheers

I suggest you to skip the ballast on the connection diagram. Takes little work, but the result is better, and the reliability increased. If you don't do that way they will add consumption as well, and they are a part which is not needed and they can fail for no reason. Remove them.

Other than that, after reviewing and testing hundreds of them I can tell you that nowadays they are reliable, efficient and good enough to be replaced. If you stick to well known brands the return of the investment will take longer, but you take no risk when it comes to quality. Philps Corepro tubes have reduced their prices now (your supplier should have done it as well), and they are a good choice.

Other than that, you will notice increase in real lux readings, instant on and average a 50% energy consumption reduction.

Barbarin said:

I suggest you to skip the ballast on the connection diagram. Takes little work, but the result is better, and the reliability increased. If you don't do that way they will add consumption as well, and they are a part which is not needed and they can fail for no reason. Remove them.

Other than that, after reviewing and testing hundreds of them I can tell you that nowadays they are reliable, efficient and good enough to be replaced. If you stick to well known brands the return of the investment will take longer, but you take no risk when it comes to quality. Philps Corepro tubes have reduced their prices now (your supplier should have done it as well), and they are a good choice.

Other than that, you will notice increase in real lux readings, instant on and average a 50% energy consumption reduction.

Click to expand...

I agree. Get a setup without ballasts, it's just wasted energy to use ballasts in a circuit with led's!

Cree LS series tube LED review

I have the Cree LS series tube LED in my garage. It uses "Cree truewhite® technology", which basically means that it has two types of LED emitters inside. It has 520nm red-orange emitters, and then greenish-white emitters (440nm blue with yellow-green phosphor). Since these emitters are not standard, this type of LED tube lamp is significantly more expensive than a generic LED lamp.

It may not be worth spending the extra money to get the truewhite® technology, but I can provide a review of my subjective observations.
It is rated 92 CRI, 3500K, 90 lumens per watt. The overall color of the light is good, not ugly pinkish like a typical fluorescent of the same color temperature. The color rendering to me does not seem all that better than a regular LED though. Red and orange colors are brighter, but the coloring does not really seem "better". The light seems a little more "substantive" or "full" than from a regular LED. Skin tones look good.

Now to get into the very fine details of color rendering, things most people probably would not notice... Deep red colored objects have a slight orange-red tint under this LED. And forest-green colored objects look a little yellow-green. This is not really any different than with fluorescent lighting. Yellow colors are rendered very brightly, but this is not necessarily a good thing, it accentuates yellow-staining on old faded white colored objects, makes things look more dirty. Also it makes orange colored objects look more reddish, which I found a little annoying.

The biggest disappointment however is that the Cree truewhite® technology does not really seem any less harsh on the eyes than fluorescent lighting. This is probably because of the 440nm blue spike. It's not quite the same as a really high CRI LED though, but it is a moderate improvement over regular LED.

Some considerations:

- If they are really cheap, there is a reason
- Mid priced ones may have tolerable quality LEDs and junction temperatures also tolerable for good life
- LED Drivers they come with are often complete crap, and really need to be in a metal box for fire safety.

But what you need to consider is that many of them only have about a 120 degree pattern, not much more than a bare LED and an optical pattern that is completely useless in many fixtures. If you have a high bay fixture that requires the reflector to narrow the beam ..... not going to work. If you have a ceiling height fixture that needs a wide pattern, again may not work.

I suggest buying a couple of what you intend to use and make sure it works before buying more.

I installed a set of TOGGLED high-output 3000K tubes at my retail workplace over a year ago, and we have been satisfied. I cut out the ballasts as required. It's very easy.

The "tubes" never rise much above 120 degrees. Color rendering is nice. Power consumption is a little more than half what our fluorescent tubes were using.

These are assembled in Troy, Michigan-- NOT China.