LED shop lights with Fluorescents?

[BFBOB]

I got a couple of 48" led shop lights from Home Despot - Commercial Electric 1001 698 107. 3000 lumens, cord and plug one end, outlet the other end, can daisy-chain up to 4. Slapped two on the ceiling, wired to an existing ceiling light so the wall switch will control all. They're only to light up a dark conrner, so I've left them turned off with their individual pull chains, and turn them on only when needed.
They worked great, LOTS of light, good color, not the sickly blue of old fluorescents.
After only a month, I left them on, turned all lights off with the wall switch. When I turned them back on, the next day, I heard a kind of "pop" from the vicinity of the new lights. The two 15W fluorescent ceiling fixtured came on as usual but the new LED's did not. I fiddled around with basic trouble shooting and determined the first LED in line was dead, dead, dead. The second (which was plugged into the first's link outlet) was fine. I took the dead one back to HD and they replaced it, no problem.

Here's the question: Did I somehow kill it by putting it on the same circuit whith two 50-year-old fluorescents?? They're so old they have starters! (yes, I tried mfr tech support, got tired of waiting)
I'm certain it's wired correctly, hooked in parallel with the fluorescent, definitely not downstream of the ballast.
It's possible the dead LED was just a bad unit, but I'd sure hate to have a recurrence. I haven't installed the new one yet.

 

[cybrdyke]

Here's the question: Did I somehow kill it by putting it on the same circuit whith two 50-year-old fluorescents?? They're so old they have starters! (yes, I tried mfr tech support, got tired of waiting)
I'm certain it's wired correctly, hooked in parallel with the fluorescent, definitely not downstream of the ballast.
It's possible the dead LED was just a bad unit, but I'd sure hate to have a recurrence. I haven't installed the new one yet.

No, you didn't kill those by putting them on that circuit. You likely just got a bad unit.
These lights are of the lowest quality possible and at the price point that they are sold, there is no room for quality control costs. But, they're probably fine for the kind of use that you intend. At least you got it taken care of.
CD

 

[Bert_]

Nothing to do with the other stuff on the circuit. You bought cheap lights and that's what you got, CHEAP lights. Failure shouldn't be a huge surprise.

I really like the old preheat fluorescent lights, especially with some good 3000+ lumen bulbs.

 

[GRB]

I had a customer buy 12 Commercial Electric LEDs. 15 months later, one third were dead.

 

[spudley]

So I am in the market for garage lightning, what should I consider?

Read the first post in the sticky "Best Light Fixture Ever".

 

[vavet]

Pretty sure I have that exact fixture in my garage. The builder installed 2 CFL bulbs on the ceiling for a 24x30 detached garage. At night, those bulbs provided enough light to be able to see the bulb in that space.

I added ~12 of those LED fixtures about 2 years ago. They've been great. I've had no issues with them.I have them plugged into an adapter that screws into the CFL light bulb base with a plug-in on each side and then have them daisy-chained from there.

 

[BFBOB]

Y'all are right about the flourescents. No problem mixing with LED's - I finally reached tech support, and he echoed what has been said here - right up to calling these fixtures "fragile"-! Said it might have had rough handling, be gentle installing. I did, and they work fine. Tested flipping all four, led's and flourescents on at the same time from the wall switch, no problem... so far.

As for the future, we'll see. And yes, at $25 apiece I guess I could be said to have cheaped out.

But, for now, the light they give is great!!