Flourescent Tubes to LED Benefits

I just bought fluorescent tubes for the 3 foot bathroom fixture in the stick house. $25 for the pair. I wish I had bought LED.

The only real benefit of LED's over florescent fixtures is like I said, 1/2 the current for equivalent light and instant on, really noticeable in the cold weather we had the night before last. It was 23 degrees and the florescent lights took a long time getting up to nearly normal light.

Wow, great info but guess we will stick with the florescent tubes based on the cost vs benefit responses.

Thanks to all that responded.

I also found out to get the equivalent light to two F15t8 florescent bulb fixture, it still takes about 1/2 the current that the florescent light uses.

I changed my 18" florescent lights to LEDs. Couldn't be happier. One 18" LED replacement puts out more light than two florescent tubes and reduced my current draw from 2 1/2 amp per fixture to 7/8 amp per fixture. 810 lumens per LED. The draw back is price.
Star Lights - Revolution T8-18
You can buy from other manufactures for less but you won't get a defuser lens or quality white light.

Richard

Benefits of LED lighting..

1: Lower current consumption, Florescent are better than Incandescent but LED's are better still.

2: Less likelyhood of breakage, and far easier to clean up if they break (I'm not so much worried about the tiny amount of mercury as I am the coated glass. that stuff is nasty)

3: A good LED assembly will outlast you.. Florcesent's a couple years if you are lucky.

An idea....

Friend of mine (Brought me my computer when I was in Hospital).. Replaced the florcesent tubes in one of his Thin-Light brand twin tube fixtures with a surface mount LED back up light assembly from a store in MI,Oh,KY called Meijer's.. I suspect Wally World will have it and if not auto______ (almost any store with AUTO in it's name)

Till he pointed it I could not tell the difference.

And there is room for TWO of those back up lights in that housing, That would give you the option of a HIGH/LOW light level.

Fnally, YES you can dim florcesents, not easy though

You canalso DIM led's Much easier.

mlts22 wrote:
The difference going between CFLs or tubes and LEDs isn't as great as from incandescent bulbs to LEDs, but it does help, and LEDs tend to last longer. This is nice, as I've had some fluorescent bulb fixtures take some finesse to replace the bulb without breaking it.

true. best I can tell via current measurements from my conversion is that the gain from florescent to LED is about 2:1 vs the 10:1 for incandescent to LED, and I do end up with more light, not a lot, but noticeably more with LED's.

That said, since we boondock lot's I did convert the floerescents to LED using some LED strips in each fixture. Actually ended up brighter than the floerescent. And you don't have the warmup time or light output vs. temp issues with LED's.

the trick in the whole thing is to
a) make sure you get LED's that are driven by a current regulator. That will control the current, and most then pulse the LED's to get max brightness w/o exceeding LED junction temp for long life.
b) get LED strips that have a good lense and construction on the diode.
Done correctly, the light from LED's is extremely uniform with no hotspots, much better than an incandescent and very similar to the pattern from a florescent tube.

mlts22 wrote:
No mini Superfund site if a LED bulb breaks, as opposed to a thin glass fluorescent tube with mercury in it?

The difference going between CFLs or tubes and LEDs isn't as great as from incandescent bulbs to LEDs, but it does help, and LEDs tend to last longer. This is nice, as I've had some fluorescent bulb fixtures take some finesse to replace the bulb without breaking it.

The amount of Mercury in a fluorescent tube is so overblown it is silly, It would take hundreds or even thousands of fluorescent bulbs to find enough Mercury to fit on a head of a pin.

LEDs however are even LESS "environmentally friendly" since they are semiconductors which have been doped with extremely hazardous chemicals and lots of toxic heavy metals to boot. It in the end is no "cleaner" than any other lighting system when made AND at disposal time..

As far as LEDs being "better" as in efficiency compared to fluorescents THEY ARE NOT.

LEDS are improving but for the most part you can get MORE light in lumens from fluorescents. Pretty much the benchmark is 100 lumens per watt efficiency for Fluorescents including the ballast.

A lot of LED manufacturers CLAIM to get that level but in my own testing and research I have found that MOST IF NOT ALL LED manufacturers OVER RATE the efficiency of their products.

Not to mention in order to get higher brightness they trade off LIFE by driving the LEDS at 100% current level substantially reducing the life of the LEDS.

LEDs by their nature create a very bright spot in the middle of the beam, THAT is where the manufacturers make their measurements and THAT is the number they publish...

Here's a post about converting from Fluorescent to LED.

Maybe it will help you decide.

You gain a little over florescent, but as said the big bump is changing from incandescent. If you only boon dock a little, I wouldn't bother. If you have to change any lights out I'd certainly consider spending a couple dollars more for LED's. The first light I added was a florescent two tube and I left it in when I changed all others to LEDs; won't change it until it fails.

Doug