Current "good" 4' LED ballast bypass bulbs?

[American Locomotive]

Well the fancy Sylvania 941 T12 fluorescent tubes I have in the basement are finally just about cooked. They're about 8 years old, so I guess I can't be too mad at them.

Anyways, I'm looking to replace them with LED ballast-bypass bulbs. At my old company, we used drop-in Sylvania LED drop-in tubes, but that was ~8-9 years ago. What's the current go to "good" ballast bypass bulb? I'm not looking for cheapest, I'm looking for a good quality bulb, with good efficiency and good light quality, preferably from a name-brand.

I was looking at these bulbs: https://www.bulbconnection.com/product/20646-Sylvania-41587-LED15T8L48FGDIM841BFG2-15w-T-8

 

[Steve_P]

I have Halco that I bought at HD ~5 years ago. It looks like they don't really sell that brand anymore, but I don't recall ever changing out a bulb, and I have ~25 fixtures with 2 bulbs each. And I enter/exit the house thru the basement, so I'm switching them on/off multiple times a day. Previously I had the "drop in" LEDs with the ballast, I don't know the brand bulbs, and I was changing them out all the time. In addition, removing the ballast is more efficient, so regardless of the bulb brand, it's a win for me.

You will probably want to get some 18ga solid core wire for the rewiring. I looked locally and couldn't find it and ended up ordering it on Amazon.

 

[Bert_]

I've been using GE LED14BDT8/G4/840 for quite a few years. Have had a few dead ones right out of the box but otherwise no failures. I think the oldest ones I put in a hardware store probably 6 or so years ago. They are just over $6 from my electrical supplier. It's about the only thing that has repeatedly gone down in price the last 4 years. There is a 16 watt version also.

I bought a case of F40T10's a month ago for my lights at home. Not super cheap but they are pretty bright.

 

[Norcal]

I've been using GE LED14BDT8/G4/840 for quite a few years. Have had a few dead ones right out of the box but otherwise no failures. I think the oldest ones I put in a hardware store probably 6 or so years ago. They are just over $6 from my electrical supplier. It's about the only thing that has repeatedly gone down in price the last 4 years. There is a 16 watt version also.

I bought a case of F40T10's a month ago for my lights at home. Not super cheap but they are pretty bright.

Bum product right out of the box has been one of ,my gripes about GE lamps for years, even when they were still part of GE (Good Enough).

 

[u2slow]

I've had these over my bench for the last 2 months. Nice and bright. I deliberately wanted 4k colour... not a fan of the 5-6k blue tint.

https://a.co/d/dDA5Rms

 

[Bert_]

Bum product right out of the box has been one of ,my gripes about GE lamps for years, even when they were still part of GE (Good Enough).

I've probably had 3 or 4 dead out of 1000. I'm not complaining. I make a mistake once in a while too

 

[NakeDiesel]

I replaced all my fluorescent t8 bulbs in my shop with these, removed and rewired each one and very happy with them: led bulbs

you can see in this pic the difference between my old bulbs and the new leds:

 

[Norcal]

I've probably had 3 or 4 dead out of 1000. I'm not complaining. I make a mistake once in a while too

My complaint was 7 bum lamps out of a case of 24 or 30.

 

[American Locomotive]

I ended up ordering a slightly different Sylvania SKU. ~125 lumens/watt and 80 CRI vs the ~147and 82 CRI of the ones I linked. Mainly because the one I linked never seemed to be stocked and are factory order.

 

[CJ7VFR]

I have Halco that I bought at HD ~5 years ago. It looks like they don't really sell that brand anymore, but I don't recall ever changing out a bulb...

They do still sell the Halco LED Ballast Bypass 4 foot LED tubes at Home Depot. If you check out the Home Depot website they have them in four different temperature versions of the 4 foot LED tubes available: 3500K, 4000K, 5000K and 6500K.

Just like you did, I also bought and installed some of the Halco Ballast Bypass 4 foot tubes and put them in 6 fluorescent two tube fixtures in both my garage and basement. I purchased two 10 packs of the Halco LED ballast bypass tubes in the 5000K version for this. Home Depot currently sells the 10 packs in the 4000K and 5000K LED ballast bypass tubes for about $76 for the 10 pack. That is what I paid for my 10 packs a few years ago, so at least the price has not gone up.

Home Depot also sells the Halco LED ballast bypass tubes in the 3500K and 6500K versions but in packs of 25 tubes for about $280 or so per 25 pack. I don't personally like those two temperatures due to the colors being either too yellowish (3500K) or too blueish looking (6500K).

The Halco LED ballast bypass tubes are double ended which I prefer over single ended. To install them you cut out the old fluorescent ballast and wire up one end of the fixture for the line side (hot) and the other end for the neutral side. The LED tubes are marked at the ends with either an "L" or an "N" to let you know what side goes where.

My favorite part of doing the ballast bypass LED replacements is that my garage is not insulated and it can get to below freezing temperatures in there sometimes and the LED tubes work so much better than the old fluorescent tubes.

The fluorescent tubes would never come on when it was that cold, or if they did actually come on it would take a long time to get up to full brightness. Now, with the Halco LED ballast bypass tubes they come on to full brightness instantly no matter what the temperature is!

Jim

 

[Snapped-off]

I ended up with a box of Feit from Menards.

 

[walta]

I don’t see the point in saving the old fixtures. They are rusty yellow and ugly.

Buy new fixtures. I think you will get more lumens directed down at you work they will make more lumens per watt than the conversion tubes and likely last longer as the electronic are not crammed onto the smallest possible board pressed up against the hot LEDs inside the tube with zero air flow.

My guess is you will spend less time on a ladder replacing them than installing the conversion.

Walta

 

[CJ7VFR]

I don’t see the point in saving the old fixtures. They are rusty yellow and ugly.

Buy new fixtures. I think you will get more lumens directed down at you work they will make more lumens per watt than the conversion tubes and likely last longer as the electronic are not crammed onto the smallest possible board pressed up against the hot LEDs inside the tube with zero air flow.

My guess is you will spend less time on a ladder replacing them than installing the conversion.

Walta

No one mentioned anything about or posted any pictures of rusty yellow and ugly old fluorescent fixtures.

Where did you get the idea the old fixtures the OP is referring to were not worth re-tubing with ballast bypass tubes?

Jim

 

[American Locomotive]

They're just basic 2 bulb fixtures in the basement. Not yellowed, not rusty, not beat up. And looking at what's available on Home Depot, most of the 4' LED fixtures are well under the 125-150 lumens/watt of the replacement bulbs, and cost significantly more than the ~$17/fixture investment I'm making.

 

[mikegt4]

I returned to service about seven 4' shop lights that I had sitting around with bad ballasts. I used these LED bulbs that I got a deal on during Black Friday. There sure was a difference in quality between the light fixtures from the '70's and those only a few years old. I saw a car guy YouTube video on the conversion and he used and recommended these bulbs. It was an easy conversion to "no ballast", so far so good.

https://www.amazon.com/Parmida-LED-Equivalent-Dual-Ended-Shatterproof/dp/B077YV5J51?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[The Cobbler]

I am a proponent of converting fluorescent lamps to LED ballast by pass
A $10 bulb and 30 seconds a new lamp is installed when it fails vs tossing an entire fixture , rewiring it, being pissed off because you can't match the style etc etc.
oh, I forgot, they last forever ...

 

[American Locomotive]

Got the "standard" ~125lpw Sylvania bulbs installed tonight. Pleased with the light output and quality of light. Much brighter, well at least compared to the tired old fluorescents. For the intended purpose of being basement lights, I don't think it would have been worth going to the 150 lumen/watt ultra premium bulbs. Despite these bulbs being 80 CRI, I don't notice too much of a reduction in light quality compared to the old 90 CRI fluorescents.

I did keep one ballast and a handful of tubes just in case I ever come across an old vintage fixture that just speaks to me.

 

[u2slow]

The one advantage I sought with fixture replacement was how compact (in width) the daisy-chained 4' strips can be. It let me put a nice strip on the edge of an 8' high shelf that runs the length of my shop.

The rest of my LEDs are all ballast-bypass in old fluorescent fixtures.

 

[BroncoAZ]

I need more light in my 34x21 shop and garage, ceilings are 10’ high and finished. There are eight 48” T-8 fixtures in the shop, the main light switch controls six of them which is typically what I use. I’m not sure why the other two fixtures are on a separate switch, but it’s across the room so I typically don’t turn those on. The current bulbs are GE LED15ET8/G/4/480, so 15w 2200lm 4000K bulbs still using the ballasts. The garage is the same 34x21 size, but only has three fixtures spaced around the paint of 10’ wide garage doors. Generally there is enough light in the garage, but the shop needs more as I spend days in there mid winter when it’s gray all day and dark by 4 pm. The house was built in 2017 and the previous owner had a heck of a wood shop, so I would assume these bulbs have some hours on them. I’m going to focus on the shop lighting, but will do the same in the garage.

Option A: I was looking at removing the ballasts and direct wiring brighter bulbs in my existing fixtures. If my current shop lights are 2200 lumens each then I have 35,200 lumens with all eight fixtures on consuming 240 watts. I was looking at some 25 watt replacement tubes rated for 3000 lumens, so 16 bulbs would be 48,000 lumens consuming 400 watts. It would be a 25% improvement, but don’t know if that will really be enough for the space. Total cost is the box of bulbs and some wire nuts, so $220.

Bulbs: https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/230048/PLT-50334.html

Option B: I could change out the fixtures from two tube to four tube for $65 each and without much headache, so double the number of 17 watt 2200 lumen bulbs. I would end up with 32 bulbs, 70,400 lumens, and 544 watts. Cost would be $890 including the three fixtures for the garage.

Fixtures: https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/220087/PLT-20260.html

I’m also undecided on color temperature. I installed some cheap under cabinet lighting that is probably 6500K last week, I don’t love it. My current shop bulbs are 4000K. It seems like many of the threads here recommend 5000K for shop lights. I‘d like something good to work under for long periods of time that is also easy on the eyes. I may end up with the selectable color temperature bulbs so I can try different settings and settle on what I like.

 

[American Locomotive]

For whatever reason, the "acceptable ness" of color temp seems largely dependent on how much light you have. 6000k is pretty close to daylight, but you need an absolute ton of it for it to feel okay.

Most people tend to settle for around 5000k in a nice bright shop. 4100k is good for lower light settings like an office.

I definitely reccomend paying attention to CRI though. 80 CRI is the industry standard minimum. I definitely notice the difference between my new 80 CRI LEDs and the old 90 CRI fluorescents. The color quality just isn't quite as good.

 

[DG930]

I've had very good luck with the Parmida bulbs. Ballast bypass, type B. Not a single failure in 5 years, ran out and reordered recently and the quality had not changed. Multiple color temps to choose from, I went with 4000K.

$96 for a box of 20, free shipping

4FT LED T8 Tube - Ballast Bypass - Type B Installation - Clear Lens - 18W4000K (Cool White) / 20 Pack

Shop LED T8 Tubes with clear lens for brighter lighting. Easy installation and retrofitting with ballast bypass installation. These tube lights are energy-efficient and fully certified for safety, high-quality and affordable, perfect for any indoor commercial space. Each purchase comes with...

www.parmida.com

 

[BroncoAZ]

For whatever reason, the "acceptable ness" of color temp seems largely dependent on how much light you have. 6000k is pretty close to daylight, but you need an absolute ton of it for it to feel okay.

Most people tend to settle for around 5000k in a nice bright shop. 4100k is good for lower light settings like an office.

I definitely reccomend paying attention to CRI though. 80 CRI is the industry standard minimum. I definitely notice the difference between my new 80 CRI LEDs and the old 90 CRI fluorescents. The color quality just isn't quite as good.

I searched for some higher CRI LED’s, they are expensive at $40 per bulb and less lumens. Maybe a smaller array of those specifically over the workbench would be sufficient.

Next Generation LED Lighting | Waveform Lighting

Welcome to Waveform Lighting

www.waveformlighting.com

 

[BroncoAZ]

I've had very good luck with the Parmida bulbs. Ballast bypass, type B. Not a single failure in 5 years, ran out and reordered recently and the quality had not changed. Multiple color temps to choose from, I went with 4000K.

$96 for a box of 20, free shipping

4FT LED T8 Tube - Ballast Bypass - Type B Installation - Clear Lens - 18W4000K (Cool White) / 20 Pack

Shop LED T8 Tubes with clear lens for brighter lighting. Easy installation and retrofitting with ballast bypass installation. These tube lights are energy-efficient and fully certified for safety, high-quality and affordable, perfect for any indoor commercial space. Each purchase comes with...

www.parmida.com

These are 24 watts and 3200 lumens

4FT LED T8 Tube - Ballast Bypass - Type B Installation - Clear Lens - 24W5000K (Day Light) / 20 Pack

Download Product Specification Sheet Download Installation Manual The Parmida LED Technologies 4FT LED Direct Wire Type B T8 tube can be installed by a simple bypass of the ballast. This tube can be installed with a single-ended or dual-ended connection and it can install directly into your...

www.parmida.com

 

[American Locomotive]

I searched for some higher CRI LED’s, they are expensive at $40 per bulb and less lumens. Maybe a smaller array of those specifically over the workbench would be sufficient.

Next Generation LED Lighting | Waveform Lighting

Welcome to Waveform Lighting

www.waveformlighting.com

Sylvania 40898. 5000k, 90+ CRI

LEDVANCE Sylvania 4-ft 17W Natural LED T8 Bulb, Direct Line Voltage, Dual-End, G13, 120V-277V, 5000K (LEDVANCE Sylvania LED17T8/L48/FP/950TL/BF) | HomElectrical.com

Buy LEDVANCE Sylvania LED17T8/L48/FP/950TL/BF 4-ft 17W Natural LED T8 Bulb, Direct Line Voltage, Dual-End, G13, 120V-277V, 5000K on HomElectrical.com. FREE SHIPPING with minimum purchase of $75.

www.homelectrical.com

 

[Milton Shaw]

I upgraded all my lights with Hypericon from Amazon (no longer available) and have not had any of the 50 or so installed go bad. I cut the ballast out but left them in the fixture and wired around them as no dump around here will take ballast's. Big difference in light output and got stickers to place on all fixtures saying they were upgraded.

 

[PlanB]

I installed some GE's and at the 1 yr mark, so far so good. Was surprised that it took some effort to find ballast bypass locally.

 

[My Old Tools]

I just upgraded mine with new electronic ballast and used regular LED bulbs. Works great even in very cold weather.

 

[captaindiode]

I used the Toggled brand that Home Depot sells. The have worked good for me.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

My 2006 garage has 20 4 feet X 2 t-8 fixtures that were originally equipped with fluorescents. I don't recall the exact wattage but they ended up on 2 switches as it was more amps than one switch would carry. They are wired so every other fixture comes on with each switch. So, basically it gives me a DIM vs BRIGHT setting by turning on half of them or all of them.

Anyway....when they started to fail several years ago the direct replacement LED tubes were what I was able to find locally and I went that way for a while. Then after a few years I was able to procure some ballast bypass tubes and replacement tombstones to rewire the fixtures. It takes me about 15 minutes to take the fixture down (13-foot celling), remove the ballast, replace 2 of the tombstones, rehang, and reconnect the fixture to power. So it is more work than simply replacing the tubes.

HOWEVER, where I replaced the fluorescents with ballast-style LEDs, the ballasts are now failing. It makes little sense to replace the ballasts, so as that happens I'm having to rewire the fixtures.

Long story shorter....I now have a mixture of fluorescent tubes, ballast LED's, and rewired LEDs, along with spare tubes of each type. It's kind of a mess. I wish I would have done what the OP is doing. Just jump right to the ballast-less tubes rather than installing any of the direct replacement LEDs. Eventually that's how it'll end up anyway. I lost another ballast last week so Saturday I rewired another fixture. At some point I probably ought to bite-the-bullet and just rewire the remainder at the same time. It'd be more efficient. At least I have been making a small mark on rewired fixtures with a sharpie so I easily tell which ones are done and which ones still have ballasts.

 

[TriumphFan]

I'm tired of replacing failed ballasts in my 12 four-tube fixtures. Is there a tutorial to convert to non ballast?

 

[NakeDiesel]

My 2006 garage has 20 4 feet X 2 t-8 fixtures that were originally equipped with fluorescents. I don't recall the exact wattage but they ended up on 2 switches as it was more amps than one switch would carry. They are wired so every other fixture comes on with each switch. So, basically it gives me a DIM vs BRIGHT setting by turning on half of them or all of them.

Anyway....when they started to fail several years ago the direct replacement LED tubes were what I was able to find locally and I went that way for a while. Then after a few years I was able to procure some ballast bypass tubes and replacement tombstones to rewire the fixtures. It takes me about 15 minutes to take the fixture down (13-foot celling), remove the ballast, replace 2 of the tombstones, rehang, and reconnect the fixture to power. So it is more work than simply replacing the tubes.

HOWEVER, where I replaced the fluorescents with ballast-style LEDs, the ballasts are now failing. It makes little sense to replace the ballasts, so as that happens I'm having to rewire the fixtures.

Long story shorter....I now have a mixture of fluorescent tubes, ballast LED's, and rewired LEDs, along with spare tubes of each type. It's kind of a mess. I wish I would have done what the OP is doing. Just jump right to the ballast-less tubes rather than installing any of the direct replacement LEDs. Eventually that's how it'll end up anyway. I lost another ballast last week so Saturday I rewired another fixture. At some point I probably ought to bite-the-bullet and just rewire the remainder at the same time. It'd be more efficient. At least I have been making a small mark on rewired fixtures with a sharpie so I easily tell which ones are done and which ones still have ballasts.

I wanted to avoid going this route, I was starting to have ballast failures on one with others starting to show signs as well, so I just ordered a box of bulbs, changed my workbench two T-8 four bulb fixtures first to make sure it worked. What I went with, I didn't have to change the tombstones out, just direct wire them. Once I validated it worked and all was good, I ordered enough bulbs to do the 3 banks of switched lights, rented a lift and me and the boys spent an afternoon rewiring fixtures, moving stuff around and getting the whole shop converted over.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

I'm tired of replacing failed ballasts in my 12 four-tube fixtures. Is there a tutorial to convert to non ballast?

What I've done is buy these:

Amazon.com

1. Turn off the power
2. Take the old fixture down.
3. Cut the existing ballast wires and remove it.
4. Remove the tombstone(s) on one end if the fixture (one per tube). [THIS ASSUMES YOUR 2 TUBES ARE PARALLEL TO EACH OTHER!]
5. Install replacement non-shunted tombstones on that one end in place of the old one(s)
6. Reinstall the fixture. On the end with the old (non replaced tombstones) doesn't get wired to anything. The new tombstones get wired black to black and that goes to your incoming black wire. White gets nutted to white (assuming 2 tubes) and those get wired to your existing incoming white wire. Again....all this happens at one end of the fixture. The other end is unpowered from now on.
7. Don't forget to reinstall your ground from the house wiring to the fixture.
8. Mark the fixture "No Ballast" with a sharpie or such.
9. Install LED tubes. I like these:

Amazon.com

Turn it on and make sure it works.

 

[American Locomotive]

It's way easier to just get the "double ended" replacement LED tubes like the sylvanias I mentioned.

No need to replace tombstones. You just hook all the wires from the tombstones on end to hot, and all of the wires from the tombstones on the other end to neutral. Done. Takes like 3 minutes per fixture to do.

 

[NakeDiesel]

It's way easier to just get the "double ended" replacement LED tubes like the sylvanias I mentioned.

No need to replace tombstones. You just hook all the wires from the tombstones on end to hot, and all of the wires from the tombstones on the other end to neutral. Done. Takes like 3 minutes per fixture to do.

These worked the same way, not changing out tombstones: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJ3DDPP8?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[dave*99]

It's way easier to just get the "double ended" replacement LED tubes like the sylvanias I mentioned.

No need to replace tombstones. You just hook all the wires from the tombstones on end to hot, and all of the wires from the tombstones on the other end to neutral. Done. Takes like 3 minutes per fixture to do.

Yes, exactly. I did not change any tombstones. Double ended bulbs are easy.

 

[CJ7VFR]

I'm tired of replacing failed ballasts in my 12 four-tube fixtures. Is there a tutorial to convert to non ballast?

Most of the double ended 4 foot ballast bypass LED tubes that I have seen come with very simple instructions on how to remove the ballast from a fluorescent fixture and then wire the fixture for the LED tubes.

They even give you some stickers to place on the fixture to alert people that the fixture has been rewired to accept the double ended LED's and not to put fluorescent tubes into the fixtures.

What American Locomotive said in his post (number 33) is what I did with all of my old 4 foot fluorescent tube light fixtures. I used Halco brand double ended ballast bypass LED tubes that I bought at Home Depot for my fixtures.

It literally was as easy as American Locomotive and dave*99 said. No removing or replacing tombstones on the ends. Just cut out the ballast and wire the hot wires to the existing tombstones on one end and all the neutral wires to the existing tombstones on the other end. Depending on how much slack or extra wire is inside the old fixtures after removing the ballasts the old wires may not be long enough to connect together. The wires in a few of my old fixtures were not long enough after cutting out the ballasts so I had to add in a short section of white and black wires to connect them up. I used some extra wire I had on hand and used some Wago lever nuts instead of wire nuts to hook everything up.

The double ended LED tubes should also have markings on each end designating which side of the tubes goes to the hot (line) wires and which side goes to the neutral wires. If you put the LED tubes in backwards they either won't light up or they will be very dim letting you know to switch them around.

As an extra step I used a Sharpie to write the letter "L" on the hot side of the rewired fixtures and the letter "N" on the neutral side of the fixtures so that I could make sure I was putting the LED tubes in the right way.

When you do the conversion of the old fluorescent fixtures to ballast bypass LED's the first fixture will take you the longest because you will be taking your time and making sure you have done everything right and testing the fixture before you hang it back up. Once you get the first one done, and see how easy it was, the rest of them will take less time to do.

Jim

 

[codeadidas]

Sylvania 40898. 5000k, 90+ CRI

LEDVANCE Sylvania 4-ft 17W Natural LED T8 Bulb, Direct Line Voltage, Dual-End, G13, 120V-277V, 5000K (LEDVANCE Sylvania LED17T8/L48/FP/950TL/BF) | HomElectrical.com

Buy LEDVANCE Sylvania LED17T8/L48/FP/950TL/BF 4-ft 17W Natural LED T8 Bulb, Direct Line Voltage, Dual-End, G13, 120V-277V, 5000K on HomElectrical.com. FREE SHIPPING with minimum purchase of $75.

www.homelectrical.com

Any chance you have experience with these bulbs?

This is a very good option vs the Cree LS4 90 CRI lights I was considering. This would cut my expenses by nearly 75% if paired with TCP 88LT800045 fixtures. They won't be dimmable, but I prefer bulbs that can quickly swapped out.

 

[American Locomotive]

Any chance you have experience with these bulbs?

This is a very good option vs the Cree LS4 90 CRI lights I was considering. This would cut my expenses by nearly 75% if paired with TCP 88LT800045 fixtures. They won't be dimmable, but I prefer bulbs that can quickly swapped out.

I can't speak for those specific bulbs, but I have had no problems with the 80 CRI Sylvania/LEDVANCE bulbs I got. I think generally Sylvania/LEDVANCE caters to more commercial/industrial markets, so their products are generally okay. I'm sure someone with more experience in those fields could tell you more.