I'm finally fed up enough with the ballasts happily a'buzzing on the lights both in my shop and the garage I keep my bikes in, so I'm willing to replace them with LED bulbs. So far, so good - I know I need to change the wiring to remove the ballast, which I'm fine with. When I look on the 'zon, however, pretty much all of the replacement bulbs I can find (8ft T12s w/R17D sockets) are made by the usual randomized character companies and don't seem to have any ratings from labs like UL that I would recognise.
What are people favourite LED bulbs in this case? Cheapest one on Amazon or is there a go-to brand that's actually available and affordable?
BTW, I did have a look at LowesDepot's websites to see if they had anything, but it doesn't look like they have LED bulbs with that fit the R17D connector and I really, really don't want to change out the fixtures. Well - if I have to change out the fixtures I'm going to integrated units, not old fluorescent sockets.
What size are the existing bulbs ? I would stay away from big box stores and go to an electrical supply house. Some place like Capital Electric, Rexel, or somewhere similar. They can look at what you've got and get you the exact thing you need.
They're F96T12s with the aforementioned R17D connector from what I can tell. At least based on the offers on Amazon, not the most common bulb. Probably was when the house was built, or they were available cheaply then. A lot of materials in this house seem to fall into the "available cheaply when it was built" category.
I'll check if there is an eletrical supply house anywhere in reasonable distance from here.
So those have the plastic around the pins? That is an unusual bulb. I would definitely go to the supply house for that bulb.
In reply to rustyvw :
They do have the oblong plastic around the pins. First time I've seen bulb like that.
Looks like we have both a Capital Electric and a Rexel branch in Winchester VA so I should probably try to find my way down there at some point when the stores are open.
I have tried to switch to LED bulbs in flourescent fixtures. I purchased the correct LED bulbs according to the box. I drove home and installed them. Flipped the on switch and POOF they instantly burned out. So I jumped in my car and returned the burnt out LED bulbs and bought 5 new LED fixtures. I am thinking that it ended up cheaper to buy the new fixtures than to dink around with finding new LED bulbs.
Yes, replacing the fixtures completely might well be an option given that I have to work on the wiring anyway to remove the existing ballasts. I'll still have to ignore all the unknown Amazon speshul brands as usual.
I replaced my florescent fixtures with outlets, then plugged my Costco Feit LED fixtures into those. That way if they die, I can replace the fixture without having get back into the wiring.
I replaced all my 8' florescent tubes with these from the Amz. You need to do a simple rewire, bypassing the ballast, but it is a trivial task. Had them for going on three years now and haven't had one die yet. Nice bright white color and got rid of that nasty buzzing. I have eight two bulb fixtures in the shop.
8' F96T12 LED tubes
"You need to do a simple rewire, bypassing the ballast"
Maybe that is what the directions on the package forgot to add when I did the LED bulb change....
MyMiatas said:
"You need to do a simple rewire, bypassing the ballast"
Maybe that is what the directions on the package forgot to add when I did the LED bulb change....
How do you bypass the ballast ?
I have some LED bulb sticks that I never used because of that !
Thanks
I started replacing mine before that was a viable option, and replaced each 4 X 4 fl with 3 standard light socket bases, using the 23W CFL's. Now that LED bulbs are common and inexpensive I'm using those. No regrets. It was cheap, fast and easy. The bulbs last and the LED options now are almost unlimited
Easy-peazy. Most fixtures have two bulbs so there are four wires involved, not two as shown in this picture, but if you trace the wiring out inside the fixture and how they come and go from the ballast it is pretty obvious. I just cut the wires at the ballast and left the ballast inside the fixture, since I'm not sure of the proper way to dispose of them.
I used some Hyperikon bulbs (via Amazon) to replace my 4 foot florescent bulbs. Easy install and the web site had a detailed instruction on how to rewire the ballasts. I just had to cut a couple of wires and join them together with wire nuts.
The main issue I seem to run into is that the type of bulbs used in the fixtures I have is hard to find as an LED replacement, so it kinda makes sense to replace everything as I will have to do some wiring anyway. Plus that would allow me to space out the fixtures better for more even light.
The Barrinas look like what I need for my brand new house, both for the garage and unfinished basement workspace.
Your fixture is using HO lamps that use the R17D socket. You could swap out to the standard single pin socket like this
