The Home Machinist!

Replaced almost all the fluorescent in the house with LED's. Ballast bypass type. Electric bill is down 18% per the Electric Company. Seems lower than that. Winter bills were $72-$75 a month. We just had the lowest for winter $56. $140 investment wad due to pay for itself in 4 years. Seems We are ahead of schedule. Bulbs were around $3.

For the record, mine are all ballast bypass as well. Can't comment on savings. Not sure why others seem to have such good luck when I've had an unacceptable failure rate. Maybe I just got unlucky. I've still got maybe 10 or so new in the box awaiting either their brethren or other fluorescents to die. But if I've got just tubes dying, and I can still get tubes, I'll be keeping tubes until ballasts die, and maybe the subsequent LED tubes will get better over that time.

Same here, Russ. I bought a case and will eventually go thru them. Maybe worth mentioning that the incandescent bulbs were replaced by those spiral fluorescent bulbs . Mercury, hazmat. We need the light but not the heat. The LED bulbs have come a long way to where the base doesn't get as hot to the older wiring. I mean; I twisted out a lit LED bulb and felt it all around. It was still hot at the base and center. A newer LED bulb is shorter with less ceramic stem but is cooler. So. The long lived LED bulbs go into the ceramic bases in the newer wired basement or shops. The cooler ones address the older fixtures.

I just removed a newer LED bulb. It has been steady on for months, The socket thread and contact are warm but not hot. Unless there was another path to further degrade older wiring by higher voltage spikes, I think it is a fine bulb. I would see this since I sit under that bulb .
The name is Great Value for damp locations- do not use with dimmers!. GVA6050NDE4 UL listed etc.
Model A196027 120V 60Hz LED LAMP 9 W 0.12A 5000K 800Lm 1937212.

Most of the heat produced in an LED lamp comes from the LED device itself deep inside the lamp. Therefor those devices are always the hottest points. The hotter those devices are the faster they wear out, so it's important to keep them cool. Unfortunately, it's also hard to get heat out of bulbs because they are so compact. They will tend to last longer out in the open where air can flow over them.

No LED lamp will get hot enough to damage the wiring in any fixture. That was designed to withstand the much higher temperatures produced by incandescents.

When this conversation started, I took apart a T12 lamp, bypassed the ballast, inserted an LED bulb and it was really bright for about 2 nanoseconds. I put it all back together with the ballast and fluorescent tubes. Then I bought fixtures from Costco.
Just my EI experience.
--earlgo

earlgo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:37 am When this conversation started, I took apart a T12 lamp, bypassed the ballast, inserted an LED bulb and it was really bright for about 2 nanoseconds. I put it all back together with the ballast and fluorescent tubes. Then I bought fixtures from Costco.
Just my EI experience.
--earlgo

Maybe you had LED tube which requires a ballast?
They are available as direct replacements, and ballast bypass.

earlgo wrote: ↑Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:37 am When this conversation started, I took apart a T12 lamp, bypassed the ballast, inserted an LED bulb and it was really bright for about 2 nanoseconds. I put it all back together with the ballast and fluorescent tubes. Then I bought fixtures from Costco.
Just my EI experience.
--earlgo

That lamp was one designed as a direct replacement for a fluorescent. They rely on the ballast to limit the current.

Harold_V wrote: ↑Sat Feb 15, 2020 8:04 amOn the subject of failures

I put 8' flourescents in when I built my shop in 1992. They cost a bit more than 4' shop lights, but the bulbs used spring-loaded "toilet paper roll" mounts; push, angle, release, and the bulb is in, much better than trying to twist 4' bulbs into positon while wobbling on a 10-foot ladder.

The problem was, the ballasts in the lights die after a couple of years, and replacement ballasts cost more than a whole fixture, and *good* replacement ballasts cost a *lot* more than a whole fixture...

I'm fed up with the whole "ballast" thing.

I've been fortunate in that I have experienced no ballast failures. Some are noisy, though.

H

When I was the Maintenance Manager for the Seattle Center Monorail system, we were constantly replacing fluorescent tubes and ballasts at both stations. Literally several per week. After I retired, they had the rest of the transportation system under control enough to address those lights. They are now all LED tubes, with a very small failure rate. Nice to see continued improvements in that historic system.
RussN

I assume the Kwh rates will climb to cover the reduction of Kwh used by LED fixtures. Since the actual cost of the power is negligible, we are primarily paying for the labor and parts maintenance of the grid. I would think unless you cut the lineman's wages, the per Kwh price will have to go up. If I recall correctly, our rates in our county PUD went up about 8% in the past two years to cover delivery costs.

I predict this is just a temporary $ savings and the bills will recover to the old amounts.