Fluorescent to LED.

[miangus]

I have three fluorescent yard lights at the farm. It seems the bulbs have a rather short life. When I went to get a replacement at Home Depot, they didn't have any and the clerk referred me to a LED replacement. On the package it said in large print replaces large base fluorescents and sodium vapor. It came with a screw-on large base adaptor. I thought how this could be a bulb that works with both regular 120 volts and output from a ballast. I thought well with modern electronic wizardry they must have it figured out. Got up on a ladder and replaced the burned-out fluorescent with the new LED put my hat on the dawn to dusk eye and flipped the switch. Nothing, I then examined the package and noticed a warning printed near the bottom in very small print not for use with ballasted fixtures. I fished the directions from the package, and it contained instruction on how to remove and bypass the ballast. So, I took the fixture down and removed the ballast. Before I tried the LED bulb on the bypassed fixture I tried in a trouble light, it didn't work. I had purchased two bulbs, so I tried the second and it worked fine. Exposing the LED designed for 120 volts to the ballasted voltage destroys the LED. Back up the ladder with the spare LED to install the bulb and now all is well. So, I feel pretty stupid, but I hope you can learn from my ignorance.

 

[Russ from MN]

Thanks for the information!

 

[Geo-TH,In]

I use a Cob LED light from Menards.
I removed all the guts from mercury vapor light and only used the photo sensor.
Installed a new base to fit the Cob LED.

 

[chvet73]

I find this interesting. A few years ago I purchased 2 4 foot LED replacement tubes for an older fixture in my garage. They went right in with no ballast change. They have worked perfectly since the change.
The school district I worked for had every light changed to LED. The crew removed all of the ballast. Thousands of fixtures changed out in 10 schools.
What I wonder is why the tubes I got were able to be direct replacement?

 

[wore out]

When buying the LED replacements you need to look at the packaging and the datasheet or instructions.

There are some units on the market that allow the ballast to remain in place (seems silly to me as they use a certain amount of power, make heat, and are a failure point) and some units that REQUIRE the ballast to be removes from the circuit.

 

[4wdtom]

I too can't see why anyone would want to still run ballasts when changing to LEDs.

 

[caterpillar guy]

Unless they last longer than in semi trailers I would not waste my time on LED lights. Don't last that long as tail lights and will not melt the snow off them in winter though you can see them through quite a lot of snow. IF one diode is burnt out in a turn signal light they can write a ticket for that. As a tail light not so.

 

[ss55]

I have better results replacing the whole florescent fixture with a new LED fixture.

 

[wore out]

''Unless they last longer than in semi trailers I would not waste my time on LED lights.''

In my experience it's probably not the LED's themselves that fail, but it seems moisture and road salt get into the sealed units and eat up the circuit boards.

 

[wp6529]

(quoted from post at 13:42:20 09/23/23)

''Unless they last longer than in semi trailers I would not waste my time on LED lights.''

In my experience it's probably not the LED's themselves that fail, but it seems moisture and road salt get into the sealed units and eat up the circuit boards.

I'm going to say this is more likely down to the quality of the LED lights. For smaller trailers I have seen and used a lot of LED lights and the quality varies greatly. The better ones I've had for like 8 year and they still work fine.

 

[Texasmark]

I made the swap and the LEDs are short lived here in Texas purchased from the orange big box.. They do solve the diminished performance of fluorescent when its cold.