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Re lamp or replace
- Thread starter Jsf721
- Start date
nadogail
Well-known member
How many hours a week do you use the fixtures? If only a few, I would re lamp the one. Payback on the LED conversion depends on a lot of variables.
fourjeepin
Well-known member
Led fixtures are spendy. I had one of my 5 T8s go out last year and I replaced the ballast. Fast forward 6 months and another one craps out. Since they were all installed the same time, I know the rest are on borrowed time. I bought the bulbs recommended by Platonic in the sticky. It was easy to pull the ballasts and I get better light, almost half the power, and the bulbs should last decades.
exranger06
Well-known member
I have no problem mixing fluorescent tubes with LED tubes. I would remove the ballast and install some direct-wire LEDs in the existing fixture, and leave the other fixtures alone for now. Save the fluorescent tubes if they're still good and use them in the other fixtures. Once all of your spare fluorescent tubes are used up, start replacing them with LEDs as they burn out. You can buy hybrid LED tubes that can work both with or without a ballast, so you can mix LED with fluorescent in the same fixture and upgrade one tube at a time as they burn out. Then when the fixture is 100% LED and/or a ballast fails, you can remove the ballast. That's exactly what I did in my garage - I have one fixture that's all LED- the ballast failed, I removed it and direct-wired the LEDs. The other fixture is half fluorescent, half LED, and of course still has the ballast installed. The last fluorescent tubes will be replaced with LED as soon as they burn out, or when the ballast fails, whichever comes first.