LED retrofit for fluorescent ceiling fixtures?

1. I have 32 of these panels sitting in front of me. They cost me $4.88 each

2. A diffuser panel simply KILLS the light output of an led panel.

3. The adhesive is suitable for a postage stamp not for a light panel. Use GOOP.

4. The lighting is DIRECTIONAL, far less so than a fluorescent tube fixture.

5. Directional lighting is wonderful for over a stove.

6. When I am cooking, I like to see rendered in sunlight grade color temperature. 3,500K yellow is wonderful to hide stains on the furniture, awful to cook with (IMHO)

7. With a single fixture over the stove I would like to have 3-4 panels lit in the fixture. With multiple fixtures of course fewer per fixture but equal in total count. Four total.

Some people function well under high pressure sodium grade amber lighting. I do not. When doing nothing at all but daydreaming or sipping cocktails 3,500K is excellent. But it helps to remember small fluorescent fixtures emit light in the 5,000K range.

MexicoWanderer, thanks for the response, but I am having trouble understanding what your message is.

It sounds like you might be saying:

1. Save yourself some money, buy the individual LED panels and wire them up yourself
2. Understand that the diffuser panels that are covering the fluorescent fixtures will degrade the LED output
3. If there are 3 fixtures over the stove, 4 LED panels per fixture may be excessive.
4. All that said, this is a good solution

Is that accurate or is your meaning something different???

Yes to all your questions.

The lamps you chose are not the color temperature I would desire for cooking or reading. Your choice. The light would be a lot more yellow than the fluorescent lighting you had.

These lights I have sitting in front of me are for a Mexican solar home. It has fluorescent lighting. Sames issues, same decision to go LED. In order to get things right we are going to dry-run the lighting. Try with one panel per fixture then add one-by-one until the owner is satisfied. "Enough Lighting" is a totally subjective decision. But 12 panels, kidding aside would provide emergency operating room intense lighting. It would hurt your eyes. We are thinking 4 panels per fixture for overall 4X4 meter room size at a ceiling height of around 2.5 meters. Augmentation will come from spot specific LED lamps. The newer breed of LEDs are far brighter than the old dome lens 3.5 mm LEDs. We did not go with voltage regulated modules because they like to listen to ranchera music at night at wish no static. When the lights get noticeably dim its time for them to charge the batteries :)

OP, since we both have 04 Monaco's I'm pretty sure we both have the same fixture. Not trying to be picky but mine take two 18" bulbs which are cool white with a temp of 6-7000... in LEDs that's called bright white.
Here is a post on how I replaced with LED panels. I like the warm white (3000 temp) or natural white and I would suggest putting in five panels/fixture ($17.50) plus drilling the holes so you can select how many fixtures you can use without taking the cover off. I do not see that much difference in the amount of light with it on or off.
These new cree panels look interesting and the cree chips are the future of LEDs, but they need to come down in price a lot before I'll try them ion the MH. I only buy cree LEDs for my home because the older style loose a lot of light output over time. I have 6-7 that I never turn off (cheaper than a divorce) and their output is 60-70% of new after several years of 24/7 use.

Ivylog wrote:
Not trying to be picky but mine take two 18" bulbs which are cool white with a temp of 6-7000... in LEDs that's called bright white.

Thanks for your input and links. I definitely want light that is equivalent in color to "cool white" fluorescent. But I assure you, I have purchased enough replacement bulbs for my ceiling fixture and had it apart enough times to be sure they are 12" bulbs. The wood frame is only 15".

Here it is after turning it on....




And after 3 "bumps" with my fist on the wooden frame... :R

Mine is 22.5" deep and looks much the same. I would suggest putting 4 (48/5050 panels/$14.00) which should fill the entire area up once you take the guts out of the fixture. Warm white in LED is a temp of 3000... cool white in LED (7000 temp) is called "bright white" and natural in LED (3000 temp) is "warm white"... not like I originally posted.

Ivylog wrote:
I would suggest putting 4 (48/5050 panels/$14.00) which should fill the entire area up once you take the guts out of the fixture. Warm white in LED is a temp of 3000... cool white in LED (7000 temp) is called "bright white" and natural in LED (3000 temp) is "warm white"...

OK, thanks again and pardon me for being a bit dense - this is all new to me and I don't want to make a mistake in what I might order.

So in that fixture I have 3 fluorescent fixtures with 2 bulbs each. Are you saying to put 4 of those panels in each fixture, or rip out the fixtures in their entirety and have a total of 4 of these panels up there? If 4 total, not sure how that would look based on the way the frame is made.

And, it sounds like I want "bright white" LED to produce the same color light as "cool white" fluorescent.

What I did was to buy LED strip lights with regulators. The good ones can be cut to length and wired directly to the 12V. So.... you can

1) use silicone adhesive and glue them to the tubes
2) remove the tubes and glue them to the housing.

either way, the light comes out much more like the floresent tube rather than using the rectangular arrays.

Like Mex says, over a stove, I prefer something in the 5000K range, not the 3500K range.

ktmrfs wrote:
What I did was to buy LED strip lights with regulators. The good ones can be cut to length and wired directly to the 12V. So.... you can

1) use silicone adhesive and glue them to the tubes
2) remove the tubes and glue them to the housing.

either way, the light comes out much more like the floresent tube rather than using the rectangular arrays.

Like Mex says, over a stove, I prefer something in the 5000K range, not the 3500K range.

Thanks. I kind of like that solution. Being dense again - what is the benefit of the regulators? And can you provide a link to an example of one that could be cut to length?

Also, In some of the other threads, the lights look SO BRIGHT! I am not looking for more light - just lights that come on when I turn them on. One of my spare 12" fluorescent bulbs says it puts out 400 lumens, so I think I would want the same amount of light out of LEDs. Sounds like I need to be careful and do some research.

I converted a fluorescent light to LED using LED strips. Although it wasn't the same as your light you could do the same.

Here is a link to my post describing the conversion.