When our hose was built at the turn of the century, it came with a number of florescent lights. In the kitchen, washroom and garage.
I don't know if that light in the washroom has ever been turned off. Saturday, it started flickering and I decided to do a ballast bypass and install LED lights. I found the breaker, turned it off, then climbed up on a ladder. After watching this video. If you are not afraid of basic wiring, it is easy. A set of diagonals, a good wire stripper and a couple of wire nuts. You are done.
One trick I learned when doing the wiring is to mark the end with the blue and red wires with a Sharpie marker. A simple L on that end of the fixture. Your LED tubes will be marked with an L on one end and an N on the other. I'm told it makes a difference, so I plug the L end of the tube into the socket marked L.
Easy-Peasy, about an hour, including the trip to the electrical store. It's a nice upgrade and I didn't have to change the fixture.
9 comments:
Best lighting move I've made is swapping out the 8' fluorescent tubes in the garage for LED tubes. No tubes in the house, but screw-in LED bulbs now that I've finally used up the old stuff.
I am a ham radio operator, since 1972, age 12. I am comfortable working on most electrical projects that I can find around home.
However, I bought a portable generator a few years ago, and of course in order to tie it into my house electrical panel, I had to simply install a manner to block the mains from accidentally being connected to the grid, possibly harming a worker who was trying to restore power to the neighborhood.
I knew how to do that, it is a relatively simply thing if you are comfortable working on your own home electrical circuits. But since it involved the possibility of causing harm or even death to another, I hired a certified electrician to do the work.
I did that in order to be absolutely certain that it was done correctly, plus to CYA. I just didn't want the possibility of me somehow making a mistake that could cause another harm. Even if I hurt someone and was not held accountable by the law, the thought that I had hurt or killed someone is simply unacceptable. My conscience would never have let me along.
As an aside, I worked in a trailer park for a couple of years after working for over 35 years making steel for the investment cast industry. Part of my job involved fixing old mobile homes including wiring, plumbing, etc. We even replaced water heaters. But I would not do the final connection to the chimney if they were gas powered. We let the gas company come out and do the final connection, just to remove any liability from us due to a faulty connection causing a CO leak, possibly causing a tragedy. They also would check all other connections before lighting the pilot light.
Like Clint Eastwood said, "A man has to know his own limitations".
Did you get the 4000K or 5000K color bulbs?
Personally I like the 4000K ones.
Bypassing ballasts for LED bulbs is a piece of cake.
I just changed out the entire assemblies... Easier for me to do.
I unfortunately have a few hanging fixtures in the basement I can't convert due to the sockets being part of the ballast at the end of the fixtures. All the others I did have worked very well and have been working without fail.
I have done a lot of these change overs. For fixtures in a dropped gridded ceiling it isn’t worth it. Throw out the old fixture and drop in a new LED one. 5000k is nice light with good color rendering. Much better than the seasick green tone of oldtime F40CW bulbs. The new fixtures are not expensive and they last for ages.
I changed out the fluorescent bulbs in my kitchen with led bulbs that can be used with the ballasts. They work great.
For plain old didn't stub your toe lighting it's fine. But if you're trying to have happy houseplants or start your garden plants in January you really need the UV that florescent lights emit. Which means mumbling and grumbling while you sign the check for new ballasts and bulbs. I tried some LED bulbs and discovered that my wife's plants were not satisfied. So, I redid them. All of them. Except for the one over the sink, the dishes didn't care.
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