Fluorescent to LED upgrade shenanigans

[@jam99]

Great vid, thanks. I didn't catch the LED colour temperature used. What was it, please? 6000K? Also, 1A 240V for 24 fittings doesn't seem to make sense for 36W LED tubes. What gives? Also, in my limited experience it is not usually the case that LED lamps go wrong quickly if they are going to go wrong. The electronics are typically crammed into such a small space that ambient temperature actually has a huge effect on lifespan because the components (particularly the capacitors) are working right near the top of their temperature range. This causes them to age quickly, which can often be the failure mode a year or whatever later. Just a different of 10'C ambient can make a huge difference to ageing. It would have been good to get a look inside one of the new tubes to see how much they have thought about heat dissipation from the driver electronics. Of course, your fittings were uncovered which is going to help a lot with driver cooling.

[@dsesuk]

The colour temp was 4000K. You raise an interesting point about the current - Ohms Law says it should be nearer 3.5A. We took the reading at face value, but I can't account for that error. I'm pretty sure we had all the lights on and the PEL monitoring all circuits concurrently, but there's a discrepancy there which we didn't catch on the day and really should have.

[@dsesuk]

I wonder if we had the 'CT Turn' option incorrectly set in the software? If we'd have used one wrap but told the software it was three, that would have reduced our displayed current by a third (I think). Trouble is it was two months ago and no way to check again without returning to Dewsbury - which might happen one day!

[@jam99]

@@dsesuk No worries. Almost certainly the tubes will have been using close to what they are rated at. LED tubes seem to use about 40% power of equivalent fluorescents from what I have seen.

[@ElectricityUnplugged]

I'll do another log when next in the office and post the results

[@ChauvinArnouxUK]

Thanks for helping with this one, David. 🙌 Your energy and knowledge are pleasantly infectious. May you strike this balance at every gig. 😄

[@dsesuk]

Thanks for showing me the sights, sounds and smells of Dewsbury and Wakefield! We must do it again sometime!

[@LindaTheLearner]

Thanks for well wishes .. they did the job. And thank you for standing in for me Kev, and for passing things to David. He was a lot more polite to you than he is to me !! 🤷‍♀️ … looking forward to seeing you at Elex on Thursday 👍

[@dsesuk]

You were much missed on this job! You'll have to make up for it by being extra entertaining at Elex!

[@ElectricityUnplugged]

Yes, see you at Elex

[@NaoPb]

I like that the old fixtures were reused. What I mainly notice about these LED replacing fluorescents is that the room starts feeling dark to me. As you mentioned this is probably because the ceiling is not lit as much because the LED light is more directional. I personally dislike that effect, and for personal use I am still using fluorescents for that reason. I will be looking for different LED lights that do light the ceiling as well and that make the room feel lit to me.

[@dlh190]

I read your post and put my fluorescents back in! I had believed what we were told a few years ago about using LEDs and hadn't appreciated until your comment that I was working in less light in my household garage. Obviously the work that took place at Chauvin was clearly beneficial, so I'm in no way saying that wasn't the right choice for them.

[@NaoPb]

​@@dlh190interesting to read that I am not the only one that has this experience. I personally use mainly e27 fixture and I've found that the led lamps with the filament style inner workings, do tend to light up the ceilings. And that there are frosted or white glass versions of them that are not so glary to the eyes. Maybe this is of help to you. I currently still have a large assortment of cfl light stock so I will be using those while I wait to see how led lighting develops.

[@dlh190]

In going back to the fluorescent lights I went fully old school, T12s with magnetic ballasts and argon starters! I appreciate it will cause a higher electricity usage, but I'm happy to pay the extra, because I prefer working under the light. Previously I didn't used to like these lights, but now I find the plink plink as they strike quite enjoyable. Then I went down the rabbit hole of watching frontsidebus and photonicinduction! With CFL's I can see myself revisiting them, I liked the early LED lamps because they weighed a lot due to all the heat sink in them (they were very expensive though), the modern ones are light in weight and obviously cheap in comparison@@NaoPb

[@DjResR]

@@dlh190 These LED tubes tend to be less reliable too as there's bad heat dissipation and the LED's often are cooked to death prematurely._

[@peterrobinson850]

Hi Dave, from and old spark from the 60’s. Another excellent detailed explained and informative video, I presume the Lux reading at desktop and not floor level is just for indication purposes only. I was also pondering why the power factor was so good considering the correction capacitors had diminished in value to such an extent, then it dawned on me the inductance is in parallel in each fitting so effectively halving the inductance load, so would match the reduced correction capacitance, otherwise I would expect an 8 micro farad to correct an inductance choke of 1.29 Henries which if I’m correct please correct me if I’m not would account for the good Power factor. Yet another excellent tutorial, keep them coming Dave, it’s nice to try and correlate theory with practice in the real world. Peter.

[@LordTechnopants]

What an illuminating presentation.

[@rlfvacslakenheath]

great video most informative. the company i used to work for had all there old florecents replaced with new intergrated fittings i priced up conversions 1 day but was undercut by another company who quoted ripping it all out and fitting new they fiited some no name stuff. it took them 4 days and they left all the old fittings behind. so i nabbed them converted them and fitted them into some projects i was working on. so not all bad.

[@dsesuk]

It had more information, but the audio was so bad in parts that I've had to butcher it!

[@robinvince616]

Could the better than expected power factor on the original fluorescents, despite their ageing capacitors, be down to the capacitors in the failed fittings providing some additional compensation?

[@tombickerton5909]

Excellent video Dave . Think I’ll be purchasing some of that lovely test equipment

[@TestGearJunkie.]

I wanted one of those PEL51s after I saw Dave's video, but at a grand I think I'll pass.

[@ElectricityUnplugged]

Was a great project all round and converting our 8 foot fittings to leds was definitely the greenest way to go. Also great to showcase some ofnour Chauvin Arnoux products too.

[@dsesuk]

You'll be seeing more of that lux meter going forward. Definitely a must-have bit of kit these days.

[@RaithUK]

Not bad for your first semi solo, interesting to see the results of all that change. Ow and the toys were nice too!

[@martyclarke969]

Ffs David, the old bbc intro made me spew tea all over me telly. You mad man. Fkn best laugh I’ve had all day 😅😅😅

[@dsesuk]

I assure you, I wasn't laughing when I reviewed the day's footage.

[@martyclarke969]

😂

[@JC-jv5xw]

I wonder how many commercial installations, like my office, have in recent years converted all their light fittings to shiny new HF/T5 fittings with fancy building management controls. Only to find that they will be obsolete before the first set of replacement tubes are (not) fitted due to a premature ban. In contrast I have a twin 8ft Fitzgerald fitting still happily working in our community space (and some spare tubes) - the choke is dated 1979.........

[@mikeselectricstuff]

I wonder if the F rating assumes leaving a magnetic ballast and PFC cap in place

[@sdgelectronics]

The late 2022 scale is a lot more stringent. From what I've seen, you need decent heatsinking to keep the die temperature down or to run the LEDs at a lower current where they're more efficient.

[@Richardincancale]

Get well soon Linda!! Need to see you with Dave again :-)

[@stuartdavis8327]

Great video...I assume the fuse will also protect against the scenario where little old man maintaining the community centre accidentally fits an old stock fluorescent tube he had in the cupboard to replace the LED now without ballast...

[@dsesuk]

Hm. I wonder what effect that would have. The heating elements in the tube would fire up, but would they just glow or would they blow? I might have to try that.

[@stuartdavis8327]

I remember as a kid being at a holiday camp and one of the fluorescents exploding...it was left dangling by its bayonet caps over a dining table...assumed that the ballast had shorted...

[@alanwalton5735]

My thoughts when the down fall of the tube was announced. Was get in early and go to LED. Or buy bulk tubes to last you.until the rush of LED replacement was over, then change to LEd when prices was came down. It is always down to price. The client must take the gamble.

[@chrisc8537]

The Wife has too put her fingers in her ears if your on ,so i just leave you on , the quiet is amazing 😂

[@dsesuk]

She not a fan of my dulcet tones?

[@chrisc8537]

@dsesuk Haha 😄 love your sense of humour, but it is probably because I am old too 😄

[@chrisc8537]

But to be perfectly honest 😮 your fault finding knowledge is far better than the wife's and indeed mine so I bow to your superior knowledge and thank you indeed !!

[@JC-jv5xw]

12:00. The fittings had two ballast inductors in SERIES, surely? Probably 2x 60W ballasts from their 5ft fittings - the original T12 8ft tubes were 125w.

[@dsesuk]

The wiring diagram is correct, they were in parallel. I guess that makes sense as each provides the inductive kick directly into the tube, otherwise one ballast would be firing into the second ballast as that shoots off into the tube. The two ballasts weren't identical; they had slightly different part numbers. One was, as you say, probably a stock part probably used in smaller fittings, the other was an add-on companion part that I think was just for the larger fitting and made to work with their stock choke.

[@JC-jv5xw]

@@dsesuk Thanks, David. Weird. As Inductance combines like resistance, they use two inductors that are too large instead of one smaller one! It must have been using up some old stock as I guess they were starting to introduce HF ballasts about this time.

[@jamesosborne4132]

Excellent - and well presented.

[@billdoodson4232]

Its probably worth taking out the ballasts for scrap these days. Steels going for £0.30 per kg, it soon mounts up.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Sell 'em, there's a market amongst collectors.

[@sstorholm]

I did some testing 5 years ago with these LED tubes, and I found that leaving the chokes in but removing the capacitor gave you the best power factor possible, however the margins are so small it really doesn’t make sense to leave them in, especially since they’re worth a few bob at the scrap merchants. BTW, in my test fixture from the 70s the pf with fluorescent tubes was 0.44. 😂

[@peterrobinson850]

Hi , Old spark from the 60's. I wonder if it's because the LED drivers are more prone towards to have a current leading PF and the inductance has a correcting effect opposite to the capacitor correction? Just a thought? Peter.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Ballasts..? Sell 'em, they're in demand amongst lighting collectors. As long as you don't fall foul of the common eBay practice of inflating prices through the roof, they'll sell. You'd get £15-£20 a time for 'em easy.

[@jamesthew800]

Interesting, while watching this in a room lit with x2 60 watt incandescent lamps 😅

[@yorkshireoz9416]

OMG you're a legend Mr Savery.

[@dancrawford2690]

Love that r2 lead got a link mate,I will do a search now but I doubt I will find it

[@ElectricityUnplugged]

The lead is a CA 6011 if you google that should find someone selling it, dave also featured it in more detail in a recent video.

[@maiyannah]

Replacement Nige looks a bit round, did you feed him after midnight?

[@kevvywevvywoo]

After watching this I replaced my workshop 8fts with retrofit 4000K fluorescent tubes, but I'm seeing annoying strobe effects on moving objects. DO all retrofit led tubes do this? I've removed the mag ballasts and PFC caps and am feeding them from one end as per the instructions.

[@bendowne001]

What's happening with the high bay discharge fitting above the loading bay?

[@happymadison1978]

On the job for 23 years, can't blame them for being a little flaccid.You'd expect them to be innies at that point.

[@acelectricalsecurity]

A lot more eco than binning a perfectly good fitting, which a lot of these companies are doing. Is fusion a manufacturer, or an importer like so many of these companies posing as manufacturers.

[@dsesuk]

I'm not sure with Fusion - they're exclusive to CEF. I expect they just import and rebadge rather than having their own manufacturing facilities which is fine so long as the quality control of what they import is to a high standard and they'll put their money where their mouths are with a warranty.

[@Me1234utube]

David, how about replacing the lighting on your community centre and selling it to them on a subscription 🙂; it’s the modern way 😂

[@jamesmoon5632]

This is the best solution and shame we cant buy basic battens that we can fit led tubes… simples

[@dsesuk]

Fitzgerald were selling LED battens some years ago - just the empty enclosure with the tombstones wired out. I don't know if they still do them.

[@kellymarieangeljohnson114]

I totally agree with testgear junky bloody LEDisease strikes again

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Thanks, not seen you on LG for ages 😥

[@ten-bob-note]

Morning Dave, Excellent and informative content, as ever. What did you use to produce the moggy's voice-over, pray tell? Thanks.

[@sergiofernandez3725]

Good stuff David and Kevin.

[@ef7480]

Great stuff as per usual! Are the end fittings on the original batten shunted?

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Well I have to say this was probably the saddest video we've seen in a long time. We love those wonderful old T12 tubes, they had *_soul_* unlike this LED crap 😪 We still love you though Dave, but something a little more cheerful next time, please 💖 Nice to see the pussycat though, even if she didn't read out our name 😻

[@dsesuk]

I think fluorescent is being phased out too early and still has plenty to offer. Sorry about the cat - she's a complete diva. She'd only say a few names before stomping off to poo on the wife's courgettes.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

@@dsesuk Sounds about right, she is a naughty tortie after all 😸

[@TheChipmunk2008]

LMFAO love the warning

[@AndyK.1]

I assumed the fuse was there if it was fitted to a fluorescent fitting or a tube fitted to a converted one

[@dsesuk]

I think the fuse is more for a lazy 'conversion' where the starter needs replacing but the ballast is left in place. Makes sense to install it though.

[@ptaylor7310]

What were the brand of rechargeable batteries you use Dave. I remember seing it on one of your vids but I can't be arsed to go through em all to find it.

[@ElectricityUnplugged]

Panasonic eneloop pros are the best

[@ptaylor7310]

Thanks

[@danielelise7348]

Sounds like you both squeezed into a public toilet cubicle...eeck, there's a picture!😆

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Thanks so much for that, I won't be able to get that image out of my head for days now 🤮

[@danielelise7348]

@@TestGearJunkie. Well if it makes you feel any better,they are in there to retrofit a fluorescent battern & take lux measurements ok? 😁

[@sdgelectronics]

The insta360 one is at least capable of not overheating in 15 minutes like the GoPro 11 that I regret buying.

[@dsesuk]

I've only had it give up on video once, but audio... my God!

[@oninbridders]

The studio ending made up for the audio issues. I wouldn't have noticed anyway

[@petehiggins33]

If these LED tubes are used in a modern luminaire does the tube have to be fitted the right way round to prevent the mains being shorted by the link in the dead end of the tube?

[@dsesuk]

It depends on the batten wiring. The off-the-shelf Luceco EcoClimate range shown in the Lousy LED Lighting video is only wired at one end so you have to get the tubes the right way around, but these have been wired so that a LED tube can be orientated either way around.

[@petehiggins33]

@@dsesuk Thanks. I guess as a last resort we'll just have to read the instructions.

[@TestGearJunkie.]

@@petehiggins33 Typical bloke, only read the instructions as a last resort 🙄 🤣

[@petehiggins33]

@@dsesuk I've just taken a look at a fusion LED tube that I recently used to replace a fluorescent tube and it has the text "AC INPUT" in tiny print at one end which would be very easy to miss. I didn't notice it at the time although I was aware that it didn't matter which way round I fitted it.

[@tazzy3469]

Hi Dave, great video and relevant to me. I'm a big Dave fan but not a sparky... i run a village hall in the depths of hobbit land where most hires are for 6 fingered yokels... CEF came out and quoted a million pound for lighting surveys but I dismissed that 😂 what would you say a good colour frequency is for LED replacements in this situation? Thx 👍👍

[@JC-jv5xw]

For colour temperature most standard white fluorescents are 3500K. Good LEDs will be 3000K (warm white, cosy) or 4000K (cool white, clinical). Avoid anything higher than 4000K, it will feel dim and eerie with normal lighting levels. The "Daylight whites" need to be much more powerful (like , erm, daylight) to feel natural.

[@tazzy3469]

@@JC-jv5xw fankooo 👍👍👍

[@JC-jv5xw]

For a community space like this take Dave's advice and fit LED replacement tubes. You can try different ones before you commit. And when eventually they start failing you or your caretaker/handyman can swap them just like the old tubes - no need to call an electrician. Buy a couple of spares so any early failures match. When it comes time for the next total replacement there will be even better ones available. Less landfill and much greener.

[@redsnappa7837]

Thanks for another interesting video David, now you're free of the farting Nigel. I'm sure I speak [type?] for many of your viewers when I say you should have blagged some of those CA t-shirts to give away

[@ElectricityUnplugged]

We've not actually gone down the route of CA merch yet, but if it something people want then let me know in the comments

[@Deanodisco1]

Massive energy saving but not a completely accurate comparison because believe it or all those fittings that weren't working actually draw more power than when they are . Not true for the newer electronic ballasts but the inductive type did .

[@ericthekingthekingtheking4842]

So cant led tubes and starters go straight into existing fluorecent fittings,? I thought you just swap em over

[@dsesuk]

Supposedly they can, but leaving the ballast powered would reduce efficiency. I might have a play with that and see what happens for another video...

[@ericthekingthekingtheking4842]

@@dsesuk Please do Dave, iv got a load to change over in a student accomodation, i was looking at a straight swap to LED👍

[@FrontSideBus]

LED downgrade maybe...

[@TestGearJunkie.]

Ain't that the truth 😿

[@anthonybragg]

Wgat if you have an emergency fitting?

[@dsesuk]

We've another similar job coming up where one of them is an emergency fitting. Rather than prat about with it, my plan is to install a self contained emergency bulkhead adjacent to it so that the fluorescent batten can be a straightforward conversion.

[@anthonybragg]

@@dsesuk I have not come across one of these tubes that can be retrofitted into an emergency fitting.

[@Apex180]

Sunny Dewsbury, hahahahaha yeah not what i would call it :D Not that you asked but always rated the sony action cams even if they are discontinued now, should be plenty for sale 2nd hand.

[@ef7480]

It was baking hot at the 'Sharkfest' the other month..............

[@TheChipmunk2008]

shallow end =saxby

[@elminster8149]

Just down the road from me in 'lovely' Dewsbury. If you're round this neck of the woods again, may ask you to EICR my new house. 🤣

[@AndyK.1]

You got a sponsor? 😂 almost

[@dsesuk]

Well, not to make the video, but I got paid to do some actual work on their lighting!

[@g7eit]

I have no words….

[@dsesuk]

That's not like you old chum.

[@g7eit]

@@dsesuk I know. I normally come out with some bullshit or wanker comment, but I’m just not feeling it. Is this what being sober is like?….. I’ve got a hybrid solar installation coming up. That should fire up the twat cells in my brain.

[@supersparks9466]

Great video and content but I’m missing the profanity, bring back Nigel ,he was my favourite

[@AnnoyDroid]

Sorry I've not been able to contribute but the NHS merger my contract will end soon and so I have to save as much as I can to pay my bills till I get another job. I was sorry to hear the big man has left but it can only get better now. I'm glad you've made another video.

[@dsesuk]

Your presence in the comments is reward enough old chap. Good luck with the contract hunting!

[@dead.format]

You're alright for a boring old b***ard Savery.