I See The Light! Fluorescent Tube Bulbs to LED

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
Location
USA
We have a finished basement, don't spend much time there, but that's where our fireplace is and laundry room, etc. The main 'family room' has two fluorescent light fixtures recessed in the drop ceiling.

For months now, one of the fixtures gave very dim light. We replaced the bulbs, but it still didn't work right. Some days it would light normally, but most days just a dim glow. My husband was going to work on it this winter when he had time.

He saw some LED bulbs in our Costco ad, that replaced the old fluorescent tubes. He went out and bought some and replaced all the old fluorescent tubes in that room. It's so nice now, instant light and amazingly bright. Told him I'd have to get down there and do some cleaning. :p

They're Feit Electric LED tubes 4', 1700 lumens, cool white, 50,000 hours. $14 for two bulbs was the sale price. Every time I went downstairs today and flicked on the light, I instantly smiled. Nice to get such happiness from the little things! :sunglass:
 

I'll have to look for them. I have one of them in my basement that will be needing replacement soon. I cannot put them in myself, my son will have to do it for me. He doesn't have to stand on a ladder and can see better than me! Yes, I agree, sometimes the small things in life make us smile!
 
The two bulbs in the one fixture worked fine, but we switched them out with the new ones anyway. It's a whole different feel down there, not so gloomy. We have some books on bookcases and photo albums, etc. down there. I told my husband we can actually sit down there now if we wanted and read a book. I'm glad I had my husband to do it. I probably could have, but I'd have to be on a ladder, he just used a step stool, and it's tricky to get both sides in and replace the plastic cover afterwards. Glad you have your son to help out.
 

If you had one of the fluorescent fixtures that wouldn't fire the fluorescent tubes, the "Ballast" in that fixture is probably going bad, and not supplying enough voltage to fire the gas in the tube. The LED bulbs probably don't require as much voltage to work properly. But...If you start to have problems with the LED's in that fixture, replacing the Ballast should fix it right up....and that's a lot easier than replacing the entire fixture.
 
I think that's what my husband intended to do initially Don, but I'm so glad we found these bulbs instead, hopefully we won't have any issues but if we do he'll get on it. I never loved fluorescents anyway.
 
SeaBreeze said:
I think that's what my husband intended to do initially Don, but I'm so glad we found these bulbs instead, hopefully we won't have any issues but if we do he'll get on it. I never loved fluorescents anyway.
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I had a "intermittent" fluorescent fixture in the kitchen, and it appeared to be the ballast....so I bought one, and intended to replace it...but the thing appeared to "heal itself" before I got a chance to replace it....so I have a new ballast sitting in the basement....and that was about 5 years ago.
 
Nice when they heal themselves huh Don? :D Never hurts to have a spare I guess. We have the round fluorescent bulbs in our kitchen fixture, the small and large. So far so good, for around 35 yrs. now, only had to replace the bulbs. :apple:
 
I had no idea that fluorescent tubes could be replaced with LED lights. My basement is gloomy, and with 100-year old stone walls, it looks like a dungeon. I'm going to get some of the LED fixtures. I've already started replacing the bulbs in the rest of the house with LED -- my kitchen looks like bright daylight is in there now, and I can see everything clearly.

Thank you, SeaBreeze, for posting about this!
 
SeaBreeze said:
Nice when they heal themselves huh Don? :D Never hurts to have a spare I guess. We have the round fluorescent bulbs in our kitchen fixture, the small and large. So far so good, for around 35 yrs. now, only had to replace the bulbs. :apple:
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That seems to be the way my luck runs....if I have a spare part, I seldom need it. I have several CFL bulbs on hand, and when one of the old incandescents burn out, I put a CFL in its place. Now the move is towards LED, so I guess I'll start watching for sales on LED bulbs.
 
WheatenLover said:
I had no idea that fluorescent tubes could be replaced with LED lights. My basement is gloomy, and with 100-year old stone walls, it looks like a dungeon. I'm going to get some of the LED fixtures. I've already started replacing the bulbs in the rest of the house with LED -- my kitchen looks like bright daylight is in there now, and I can see everything clearly.

Thank you, SeaBreeze, for posting about this!
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I didn't know that either and I have a couple of places in the house that I'd love to swap out the fluorescent tubes. Cool Beans ..

Thank You !!
 
WheatenLover said:
I had no idea that fluorescent tubes could be replaced with LED lights. My basement is gloomy, and with 100-year old stone walls, it looks like a dungeon. I'm going to get some of the LED fixtures. I've already started replacing the bulbs in the rest of the house with LED -- my kitchen looks like bright daylight is in there now, and I can see everything clearly.

Thank you, SeaBreeze, for posting about this!
Click to expand...

That's how mine was, the nice thing is you don't have to replace the fixtures, the bulbs fit in the old fluorescent fixtures as is.
 
feit-electric-4ft-led-linear-tubes-2-pack-costco.jpg
 
I haven't seen these in the UK, but I expect they'll come along. Initially, you couldn't just change to LED, but I see no reason why it couldn't be done with modern electronics. I'd prefer a 'Warm white'- 'cool white' can look a bit harsh.

I have a camper van and the question often arises about changing the flourescent lights to LEDs. The case for 12V lights is rather different as
the light fittings contain a small high frequency inverter. Most people either remove the innards of the light fitting and put in LED bulbs, or replace the entire fitting.
 
We had three 4 foot fluorescent fixtures on top of a soffit in our kitchen and two in each bathroom in soffits. They were always a problem with bulbs that burned out, sometimes made a low buzzing sound or flickered. Each 2 bulb fixture had a ballast. I purchased some LED lights to replace the fluorescent and rewired the fixtures to bypass the ballasts and removed them. It's more economical to run them without ballasts and the bulbs last for something like 20 years. Instructions came with the bulbs for rewiring, but I watched several YouTube videos showing how to do it. I never attempted anything like this before but it was easy after the first one. It took about 10 minutes or less once I did one. I bought warm colored lights that are 3500 K and they're brighter than the old fluorescents, don't flicker or make any sounds and are instant on. We are replacing the rest of the bathroom lights this weekend. I purchased them from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YVGUZVS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
I'm going to the Costco in Kona (Hawaii) tomorrow - I gotta look for these! Laundry room and Garage.
 
My utility company asked if I wanted free bulbs, I said sure. Just received my sixteen 9W output equivalent 60W bulbs this week. The amount of light they are putting out in comparison to the old lights is remarkable. I have to say, I didn't like them as a replacement of the big round bulbs in my bathroom, but I think that's more due to the type of fixture. But, I imaging the life expectancy and overall savings for all my other fixtures will be pretty good, especially considering I received the bulbs complimentary.
 
SeaBreeze said:
We have a finished basement, don't spend much time there, but that's where our fireplace is and laundry room, etc. The main 'family room' has two fluorescent light fixtures recessed in the drop ceiling.

For months now, one of the fixtures gave very dim light. We replaced the bulbs, but it still didn't work right. Some days it would light normally, but most days just a dim glow. My husband was going to work on it this winter when he had time.

He saw some LED bulbs in our Costco ad, that replaced the old fluorescent tubes. He went out and bought some and replaced all the old fluorescent tubes in that room. It's so nice now, instant light and amazingly bright. Told him I'd have to get down there and do some cleaning. :p

They're Feit Electric LED tubes 4', 1700 lumens, cool white, 50,000 hours. $14 for two bulbs was the sale price. Every time I went downstairs today and flicked on the light, I instantly smiled. Nice to get such happiness from the little things! :sunglass:
Click to expand...


My husband was at Costco and bought some and replaced our fluorescent lights yesterday and it's amazing! I see the (bright) light! Instant on, no flickering! They're going to last longer than my husband and I!
 
You're right, there's a big difference. We've got 3 more doubl fixtures that we'll do this weekend. Amazon has them in a warm white color, similar to an incandescent. We got those because they're in bathrooms and in the kitchen and wanted a warmer glow.
 
keep in mind the rated hours on led lamps average hours in a lab under controlled conditions .

the 50,000 hour rating mean 1/2 of them already died along the way and 1/2 are still going .

rated hours is also far less once in a fixture because of heat and because of different numbers of on-off in a day .
be careful too as many led lamps can not be used in enclosed fixtures . led lamps are deceiving because the glass stays cool but they radiate quite a bit of heat from the heat sinks in the base
 
debbie in seattle said:
My husband was at Costco and bought some and replaced our fluorescent lights yesterday and it's amazing! I see the (bright) light! Instant on, no flickering! They're going to last longer than my husband and I!
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Good for you Debbie, I hated the dim light and flickering and hesitation. Going downstairs now is so much nicer, we already bought some replacement bulbs to have on hand when we need them, but we don't spend much time down there at all. You and hubby will be around when they need replacing. :love_heart:
 
This is how I removed the ballast from our fixtures and rewired them. We had red and blue wires coming from one side and yellow from the other. There was a jumper between the tombstones on each end. I didn't remove the fixtures to re-wire, just did it with them in place after turning off the power at the circuit breaker. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjpJNLT9xQc Getting rid of the ballast makes them more energy efficient and we don't have to worry about replacing ballasts when they burn out.
 
Remember when the whole country was guilted into switching out all our lightbulbs for those screw-shaped ones? I don't remember what those are called because I only tried one 2-pack before switching back to regular bulbs, which were a dime-a-dozen by then for the 4-pack. But anyway, now everywhere I look I'm reading that the LED lights are far and away a better thing to all mankind and the environment than the screw-shaped ones. One article said that the screwy ones are actually noxious.

I bought LED lights for my Christmas tree last year and didn't even realize it til I took them out of the package. Brightest Tree Ever!!!
 
anodyne said:
Remember when the whole country was guilted into switching out all our lightbulbs for those screw-shaped ones? I don't remember what those are called because I only tried one 2-pack before switching back to regular bulbs, which were a dime-a-dozen by then for the 4-pack. But anyway, now everywhere I look I'm reading that the LED lights are far and away a better thing to all mankind and the environment than the screw-shaped ones. One article said that the screwy ones are actually noxious.

I bought LED lights for my Christmas tree last year and didn't even realize it til I took them out of the package. Brightest Tree Ever!!!
Click to expand...

We switched to those "screw shaped ones" which are the fluorescent or compact fluorescents, several years ago, before LED was perfectected to the point they were bright enough. The early LED's were equivalent to about a 20 watt incandescent (the old bulbs). We still have a few of them in enclosed fixtures. LEDs run cooler than fluorescent or incandescent but all the heat they do produce is at the base in a small area. If there isn't enough air flow the base can get too hot which can shorten their lifespan.

You may have disliked the fluorescents because some of them produced kind of a green or weird color light. But ther were warmer ones available (2700 - 3000k) that were hard to tell the difference between them and an incandescent. But they and the LED's use about 10 to 20% of the electricity of an incandescent. And they run much cooler, something to think about in the hot summer months. Remember the old EZ Bake Ovens we had as kids? They used a couple incandescent light bulbs to bake the cakes.

We have mostly all LED now. They can last for 20 years or more depending on how much you used them. You're right about the Christmas tree lights. We have a meter that measures the voltage from plug in devices. When I had one of two trees converted to LED with over 1000 lights on each, the LED lit tree took only 10% of the electricity, were much brighter, and were cool to the touch. I love them.
 
I disliked them because when they were first introduced they were about $12 for two. I reasoned their 'lifespan' = same value, but I still disliked it, especially when they didn't last any longer than the incandescent bulbs. So it was a financial issue :p

I remember when a few casinos in Las Vegas changed their thousands of bulbs to the 'screwy ones'. The Flamingo was one. That was before the entire main strip was imploded and rebuilt. There are a lot of LED lights along there now, and the strip never looked brighter.
 

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