LED vs Fluorescent

[neil_ev]

Hi all,

I have been asked by a local community centre for some advice changing some faulty 6ft strip lights to LED. As far as I can see 6ft LED tubes are Twice as expensive as replacing a ballast and tube but half the wattage (i.e. half the running costs).

does anyone have any experience with these?

thanks

Neil

 

[iamelectric]

i would replace them with fluorescent T5 fittings instead , LED ones are not reliable enough yet

 

[neil_ev]

it's the ceiling of a sports hall, so i'm not sure if a T5 tube would give off enough light?

 

[Marvo]

You get some extremely high output T5's. I just installed over a thousand T8-T5 retrofit converters and the 3 ft T5 tubes were 54watt 6400 Kelvin

 

[Tiny Spark]

This may not be applicable to you but its a interesting point.
Some time ago we tried some 20W LED tubes to replace our existing 36W 4ft flourys.
Now although there is not a huge difference between 36W and 20W they should of been slightly cheaper to run but when we clamped them they were actually pulling fractionally more than the standard tube!

However back to the point in my local sports hall the have LED flood lights and they are fantastic Give off a nice clean white light but not overly bright.

If you do go down LED though I suggest you trial a few first just to see.

 

[richy3333]

Ask your wholesaler to do the maths about running costs and get one of the lighting companies in to design an installation

 

[HandySparks]

This may not be applicable to you but its a interesting point.
Some time ago we tried some 20W LED tubes to replace our existing 36W 4ft flourys.
Now although there is not a huge difference between 36W and 20W they should of been slightly cheaper to run but when we clamped them they were actually pulling fractionally more than the standard tube!

If you didn't measure the real power (or the power factor), you won't know how much the LED lights cost to run. It's perfectly possible for the current to go up, but the real power to go down if the power factor is lower. Of course, this assumes that the supplier doesn't charge for poor power factor.

 

[iamelectric]

we used twin 80w t5 fittings , the light output is extremely good for 160w a fitting plus we find the higher we fit them the better , my local sports hall use t5 modules , you will be asking for trouble fitting led tubes , we tried them and had nothing but bother

 

[Tiny Spark]

If you didn't measure the real power (or the power factor), you won't know how much the LED lights cost to run. It's perfectly possible for the current to go up, but the real power to go down if the power factor is lower. Of course, this assumes that the supplier doesn't charge for poor power factor.

We did not take the PF into account.
But it would of became irrelevant once you added up the cost of the tubes and the light fittings all for the sakes of 16w plus whatever for PF.
Just would never of paid for itself even if they did come out at what they were supposed to.