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stevenal's avatar
stevenal
Nomad II
Dec 10, 2014

LED tube

LED tube

I bought one of these when one of my Thin-Lite inverter/ballasts was starting to fail. Cheaper than a new ballast and more light at half the power of the original. A bit of rewiring of the fixture is required. Might be buying a few more.

6 Replies

  • Check M4 Products for a replacement tube. I have some of their other LEDs which are regulated and work well. For their small puck light replacement bulb they advertised 90ma and I measured 80ma so reasonably close. The halogen bulb that it replaced was about 700ma.
  • Like I said, I measured it. Didn't check the voltage, so I can't be sure of the watts. Just wanted to compare it with a similar unconverted Thin-Lite fluorescent. LED was .19 A, fluorescent was .50 A. Converter was off line at the time with the battery fully charged, so voltage should have been on the high side of 12.
  • If you trust vendors claims with ANY standard other than milliamp draw with LED lighting, you are begging to get threaded. Lights that claim 10 watts consume 2.5 even CREE and Bridgelux vendors lie through their teeth. I have SHELVES of LED lamps that equal a laugh a minute. Do yourself a favor and get hard data from the manufacturer tegarding milliamp draw. A lamp that draws too many milliamps @ 12 volts has an extrodinarly short, unhappy life. To date I must have caught 30-40 vendors with the milliamp trick. Some of these guys are shiftier than a 15-speed Road Ranger.
  • 576 lumens to 420 is not really twice. Also I don't trust sticky tape much. Sure to melt loose in my AC free camper. I do see there are lots of choices now.

    Dollars per watt doesn't provide much info, since this measurement will reward the low cost inefficient battery killing incandescents. Suggest lumens per dollar and lumens per watt as the ratios that matter most.
  • Cabin Bright makes a LED assembly that will replace a 12 or 18"fluorescent... they're about the same price and 2x the wattage & lumens compared to the ones on Amazon.
    I just installed a pair (switched independently) of 18" 3200ºK Cabin Bright LEDs in the flouro' fixture over my dinette, they draw 750mA each and are at least as bright as the tubes they replaced.
    Cheers
    -Mark