How To Convert T8 Fluorescent Lights to LED ● Explained in Simple Terms

hey everybody today we're gonna swap out the fluorescent bulbs in the crystal tap studio for some new LEDs so I started out by doing a search for a retrofit LED bulbs and I found this site called thousand bulbs calm so I contacted the company and discussed what type of bulbs I need and they were nice enough to send me some as a sample and just so you know this is not a paid advertisement for thousand bulbs calm so they sent me two types of bulbs once a 5,000 K once 4,100 K and when we're finished we'll try them both out to see which one is better for a workshop and before I forget everything that we discussed today will be in the description below so first we'll take the bulbs out of this picture and we'll take it down and we'll have a look inside [Music] another reason why I don't like fluorescent bulbs so when you shop for LEDs there's gonna be two types there's gonna be plug and play and there's gonna be retrofit so here's my fluorescent fixture I'm gonna be retrofitting five of these to LED but you know something let me explain it to you in a simple way what's going on because it can be a little confusing so I spread this out on the table here to show you so this is a florescent setup so here's your ballast your power comes in goes over to that contact down the length of the bulb across to the other side and then back down back into the ballast and then back to neutral so if you decide to go with LED plug and plate all you're gonna do is take out the fluorescent bulb and replace it with the plug and play so that's really easy to do but there's two things to consider so when you use plug and play you're using more power because you have to power up the ballasts and you have to power up the bulb and the second thing is is if the ballast ever goes you still have to get up in there and replace it and when you do a retrofit you're gonna remove the ballast and the connectors at the end because you don't need those anymore now it's just to explain a bit further these connectors here are called shunted they've got one wire going in and they go to both of the little terminals in there you're gonna replace them with these these are called non shunted and they've got a circuit that goes to each side to each of the terminals in there and the reason for that is is because these new LED retrofit bulbs only have power at the one end and then the other end of the bulbs you just want to take the pair of snips and snip that wire right there and cap them off because there's no more hydro down at this end of the fixture and when you're finished this is what it should look like and another nice feature of these bulbs is that they're plastic and they're shatter resistant so let's get going and swap out all five of these [Music] okay so now this one is ready to go so the ballast is gone we've taken the wires and just wired it into each one looped it over to that side and that's what's going to power that end of the LED line in neutral and at this end we have snipped the wire earlier so we're good to go [Music] tada oh wow that is sweet that is quite an improvement I went from eight fluorescence to eight LEDs and there is a market improvement I'd have to say these are 5000 K and I'd have to estimate that's probably about a 20% improvement over my Phillips 32 watt t8 natural daylight bulbs that were in here this is I I'm really I'm impressed needless to say I'm very happy with the results they are nice and bright so what I ended up doing was I put the 5000 K in for two days and I put the 4100 in for two days and I tried them both out I found that after a few days it was hard to tell him apart they both provide a great task lighting I really can't say one is better than the other because they were both good of course the 4100 K it has more of a softer warmer feel to it the other one is more like a daylight I think you'd be happy with either one well I hope this video has helped if it did hit the like button and subscribe to my channel and we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Chris Notap

Views: 2,757,026

Keywords: led retrofit, led retrofitting, led bulbs, led fluorescent, led florescent, led flourescent, cfl bulbs, convert over, switch over, convert to led, fluorescent to led, flourescent to led, florescent to led, t8 bulbs, flourescent t8 bulbs, t8 replacement, how to, diy, do it yourself, rewiring led bulbs, led replacement bulbs, 1000 bulbs.com, 1000 bulbs, replce tombstones, how to rewire t8 led bulbs, plug and play led, plug and play, t8, t12

Id: mmR5iEEP9q8

Length: 5min 19sec (319 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2018