I wanted to eeplace my current 4ft t8's with Cree plug and play replacements (works with almost every ballast). Cree t8's have been recalled. Could somebody suggest a replacement t8 4ft bulb that has low wattage, yet high lumens...maybe 2100 lumens or something equal to a traditional flourescent bulb? Thanks for any assistance.
t8 led bulb-plug and play
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brickbat
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I don't get the fascination with T8 replacements. Decent T8 fluorescent lamps on decent ballasts deliver near 100 lumens/W, at good CRI, in most any CCT...
If you really want LED, you need to replace the entire fixture with a fixture made for and designed around LEDs. LED "bulbs" for fluorescent fixtures are a band aid at best, and a fire hazard at worst. (They work fine for replacing incandescent type A or PAR and R halogen sources as long as they are well ventilated or rated for enclosed use.)
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I'd suggest using the kind of retrofit where you replace the ballast with a CC power supply designed for the LEDs, and install the LED "tubes" which don't really have any extra circuitry in them except the LEDs (maybe there is some though but probably not much).
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Phillips T8 4 foot l.e.d. plug and play bulbs at Home Depot will work for you. They are $10 each, 2100 lumens at 17 watts (123.5 lumens/watt). with a 4000K color temperature, and rated for 35,000 hours. Be aware that they aren't dimmable though.
I think the fire issues happen more from people changing out these types of bulbs with the power on. You can get away with that with flourescents but not l.e.d.s. They make a sizzling sound when you try. They give clear step by step instructions with these bulbs to avoid this problem.
I think the fire issues happen more from people changing out these types of bulbs with the power on. You can get away with that with flourescents but not l.e.d.s. They make a sizzling sound when you try. They give clear step by step instructions with these bulbs to avoid this problem.
No matter how you want to spin this, it's still a bad idea. I don't know why there's such a fascination with LED T8 retrofits. Is it just that manufacturers are bending to the masses ignorance of the differences between light sources? (Just buy an LED retrofit kit for your fixture if it's a troffer...problem solved.)The problem with the tombstones arcing is due to improper installation of the lamp, whether LED or standard T8. I've seen lamps only rotated 60 degrees and will still light up. This makes for an improper contact which in turn makes the tombstone arc out and fail, sometimes quite wildly.
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We are living in a time where l.e.d.s are just getting good and cheap enough to replace flourescents for linear tube applications. This is a huge segment of the market that has yet to adopt l.e.d.. These plug and play bulbs are not meant as a bandaid but as a transition to total adoption of l.e.d.. Most are not willing to spend the time and money to purchase an l.e.d. retrofit kit and rewire a fixture (or more likely hire an electrician to rewire a fixture). The drawback of these bulbs is that they will likely give many consumers and businesses their initial impression of l.e.d.s.. If these cheap bulbs work as advertised, we are likely to see flourescents disappear from the shelves to be replaced with hardwired l.e.d. only fixtures in the near future. If these bulbs cause a lot of house fires, people will see l.e.d.s as dangerous and total adoption will be unlikely. Good or bad, these plug and play bulbs give people the option of going l.e.d. cheaply without (forgive the pun) burning a bridge back to flourescent if they decide they don't like l.e.d.. Now that I have tried these bulbs, I agree that there are dangers from fires if they are not properly installed or installed or uninstalled when powered up, but with the knowledge of what causes the fires, you can avoid them. It is hard to resist getting a $10 bulb that cuts power consumption nearly in half when you get $400 electric bills during the summer.
No, as brickbat pointed out, the drawback is that they're expensive and usually require some electrical work and have very little power savings benefit in most cases and about the same lifetime. It could take a decade or more to make the money back. Also many troffers are designed to look their best with an omnidirectional tube in there. Putting a tube that only emits light downwards makes the whole fixture look like poop in many cases. And at the end of the day, you're stuck with the limitations of the fluorescent system (no dimming, etc).
If I'm a building owner, there just isn't a value add here for me to do this incremental switching over unless the original bulbs become hard to find or something.
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$10 a bulb is not that expensive. 123.5 lumens/watt beats a T8 bulb for efficiency. Side by side, I have seen that 2100 lumens of l.e.d. light matches a 2800 lumen 32 watt T8 flourescent bulb. A 17 watt bulb that replaces a 32 watt bulb without a drop in brightness is cutting power consumption nearly in half. These are plug and play bulbs that use the existing ballasts. There is no electrical work required. These bulbs have l.e.d.s pointed up and down. They look like normal bulbs in the fixture lit up. Lifetime rating is 35,000 hours. Cutting your electric bill nearly in half with $10 bulbs means there should be a quick return on investment. You're right that they aren't dimmable though.
brickbat
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Where are these $10, 123.5 l/W lamps? Got a model number?
Most LED bulbs get their big advantage from being unidirectional. As soon as you make them omnidirectional, then they are subject to the same fixture efficiencies as fluorescent. 2100 lumens DOES not equal 2800 if both have the same pattern.
The other reality of lighting is that we are not really comparing 2100 and 2800, we are comparing 1500 to 2600. The fluorescent tube, 40000 hour life of which is common now, will maintain over 90% of its initially brightness and closer to 93% at 40,000 hours. The cheap LED will maintain 70%. Hence the LED is really 1500 and the fluorescent is 2600 at end of life.
I am not saying there is not a place for LED tubes. Well made ones with better lumen maintenance, not to mention eliminating the "fixture" where it makes sense can give great efficiency gains. Poorly implemented installations (most in my experience) may result in a drop in power, but also light quality on day 1, let alone after 40,000 hours. There are many that say you should always replace the ballast with a dedicated driver. The dedicated driver used with most low cost tubes has a tremendous amount of line rate flicker. That is how they keep the cost down.
Keep in mind I make most of my living in the LED lighting space .... so I am not biased against LED, just bad lighting.
FYI, that 32W bulb is not necessarily run at 32W. That is a function of ballast factor and could be less. That said, over a 40,000 life there is definitely a cost savings ... unless they get recalled like the OSRAM and Cree ones.
Semiman
The other reality of lighting is that we are not really comparing 2100 and 2800, we are comparing 1500 to 2600. The fluorescent tube, 40000 hour life of which is common now, will maintain over 90% of its initially brightness and closer to 93% at 40,000 hours. The cheap LED will maintain 70%. Hence the LED is really 1500 and the fluorescent is 2600 at end of life.
I am not saying there is not a place for LED tubes. Well made ones with better lumen maintenance, not to mention eliminating the "fixture" where it makes sense can give great efficiency gains. Poorly implemented installations (most in my experience) may result in a drop in power, but also light quality on day 1, let alone after 40,000 hours. There are many that say you should always replace the ballast with a dedicated driver. The dedicated driver used with most low cost tubes has a tremendous amount of line rate flicker. That is how they keep the cost down.
Keep in mind I make most of my living in the LED lighting space .... so I am not biased against LED, just bad lighting.
FYI, that 32W bulb is not necessarily run at 32W. That is a function of ballast factor and could be less. That said, over a 40,000 life there is definitely a cost savings ... unless they get recalled like the OSRAM and Cree ones.
Semiman
OK, a couple of problems here:
You are correct that there is a cost savings, but it's not really big enough to warrant a switch for most people (at least where I am, where electricity is pretty cheap). Just using rough calculations and less than optimistic numbers, I'm looking at a total cost savings of less than $5 per tube per year. If there are occupancy sensors or other power-saving techniques, it's even less than that. That's inconsequential for most commercial buildings.
As I mentioned, you will still need to replace ballasts when they go bad. I have no idea if this bulb will work without one, so maybe you can rewire it once it goes bad but you'll still need an electrician for this or to replace the ballast. You're not really saving on electrician costs either way. And again, you're not getting any of the real benefits to LED: better occupancy sensing and adaptability, dimming, fine-grain control of lights, total absense of maintenance, etc where the real cost savings are.
Then it will definitely be dimmer than the normal fluorescent. I would agree with your comparison if this were a Cree-like tube where it was unidirectional, but having it go in both directions subjects it to the same losses as the normal T8. You can get the same effect by using a lower-power fluorescent.
35k is pretty much how long standard tubes last now. I can easily get T8 tubes with >70,000 hours.
I can definitely see them taking off eventually, but the cost savings just isn't big enough for someone managing a commercial space to switch over in most cases, especially with these recalls over fire hazards. If they can be improved to the point where you can get a 2800 lumen equivalent with 100k hours using 12W for $5 for example, then it would be a definite no-brainer.
You are correct that there is a cost savings, but it's not really big enough to warrant a switch for most people (at least where I am, where electricity is pretty cheap). Just using rough calculations and less than optimistic numbers, I'm looking at a total cost savings of less than $5 per tube per year. If there are occupancy sensors or other power-saving techniques, it's even less than that. That's inconsequential for most commercial buildings.
As I mentioned, you will still need to replace ballasts when they go bad. I have no idea if this bulb will work without one, so maybe you can rewire it once it goes bad but you'll still need an electrician for this or to replace the ballast. You're not really saving on electrician costs either way. And again, you're not getting any of the real benefits to LED: better occupancy sensing and adaptability, dimming, fine-grain control of lights, total absense of maintenance, etc where the real cost savings are.
Then it will definitely be dimmer than the normal fluorescent. I would agree with your comparison if this were a Cree-like tube where it was unidirectional, but having it go in both directions subjects it to the same losses as the normal T8. You can get the same effect by using a lower-power fluorescent.
35k is pretty much how long standard tubes last now. I can easily get T8 tubes with >70,000 hours.
I can definitely see them taking off eventually, but the cost savings just isn't big enough for someone managing a commercial space to switch over in most cases, especially with these recalls over fire hazards. If they can be improved to the point where you can get a 2800 lumen equivalent with 100k hours using 12W for $5 for example, then it would be a definite no-brainer.
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lot of fires reported. would forget these. plus fl is brighter and more unidirectional in a troffer. I don't think these are ready for prime time yet. this is where I say I stick with fl. the cost savings is nil. if you had t12 perhaps but then you need a new fixture anyways. would be stupid to run these with a ballast then. the 120v ones are better but also dangerous too. the ballast is killing your savings anyways. if you really want led go with the 120v ones. if I am wrong please do not be harsh I do not know a lot about this stuff. just trying to use a little common sense.
Went by my local Trader Joe's last night. They have completely changed out all of their interior lighting with LED, even their refrigerated display cases. Guess what? No LED TUBES! Zero, zilch, nada. They had the 2'X4' troffers retrofitted with kits (2 runs of LEDs at 5000K CCT), and the lighting in the display cases were completely replaced with new made for LED display lighting (5000K CCT, except for the meat case that had 3000K CCT). Professional install…no inferior LED junk here! Now the lighting in the store pops. (If they were going to use LED tubes, the refrigerator display cases would have been the logical location…glad they didn't settle for band aides.)
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Total adoption eh? I hope that you are not into conspiracy theories.
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Just had a class on Title 24 and the new systems required for powering and dimming the lights. For businesses, non-dimmable linear l.e.d. tubes aren't an option because of all the requirements on the system. These systems pretty much rule out florescents in new construction as well. This is why you'll see businesses go the expensive l.e.d. lighting route instead of using cheap non-dimmable l.e.d. bulbs. As I remember, here are the new requirements for lighting in California for large occupied interior areas:
Lighting can't exceed 0.5 watts per square foot of lit up space
Lights have to have individual dimming with at least 4 light levels. The third of these levels has to go up to 80%, meaning that 4 florescent lights in a fixture switched individually (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) doesn't satisfy the requirement. It would take a 5 bulb fixture to avoid having to dim florescents.
Lighting has to have an occupancy sensor.
Lighting has to have a photocell.
Lighting has to have 3 zones, plus emergency/ egress lighting
Each of the three zones has to be able to dim at a different level depending on proximity to skylights or windows.
Lighting must be able to be scaled down to 50% by the local utility company any time the state or county runs short on power.
Looks like we're stuck down the path of total adoption in California whether we like it or not.
Lighting can't exceed 0.5 watts per square foot of lit up space
Lights have to have individual dimming with at least 4 light levels. The third of these levels has to go up to 80%, meaning that 4 florescent lights in a fixture switched individually (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) doesn't satisfy the requirement. It would take a 5 bulb fixture to avoid having to dim florescents.
Lighting has to have an occupancy sensor.
Lighting has to have a photocell.
Lighting has to have 3 zones, plus emergency/ egress lighting
Each of the three zones has to be able to dim at a different level depending on proximity to skylights or windows.
Lighting must be able to be scaled down to 50% by the local utility company any time the state or county runs short on power.
Looks like we're stuck down the path of total adoption in California whether we like it or not.
What'd ya expect when you live in California? Not to be political, but the leaders in your state have their collective heads stuck up you know where. I have family in that state, and I don't know how they put up with it. California is a nice place to visit, and when I was down there for work two years ago in LA, I noticed that the local utility was using MH1000/M47 (GE floods) lighting in places and wondered how they got away with that, with all of the redundant California energy regulations. (Don't worry, my home state is right behind California in energy regulations.)
