T8 Fluorescents - question

Poorle · Jun 18, 2013

Hi,

Been asked to sort out some 'mood' lighting for a customer's beauty salon place. They have 2 x T8 florries at current, which of course can't be controlled by dimmer switches. Was thinking about replacing the tubes with dimmable LEDs but dimmable T8 LED tubes are £74 each which seems too pricey.

I thought about installing another circuit of wall lights (LEDs) and adding a trailing edge dimmer switch next to the current one gang light switch but having trouble finding cheap(ish) nice looking LED wall lights - could do with 4 altogether, any suggestions?

Or.. can you buy surface mounted ceiling LED lights anywhere? I can't find any!

Would love some help on this please?!
Thanks

Poorle

Thefailsafe2012 · Jun 18, 2013

What about LED tape? That stuff can be pretty moody, there's colour changing kits and all sorts!

Richard Burns · Jun 18, 2013

What about fitting dimmable ballasts to the fluorescents?

Poorle · Jun 18, 2013

Thank Richard - are they reliable? Will have a scout around for some.

Thefailsafe- thanks for reply. That the same as LED strips that you can cut to length?

Thefailsafe2012 · Jun 18, 2013

Yep, there's absolutely shed loads of different products and you can achieve some really good effects with the stuff.

But all depends on the job and what they want, could be as easy as Mr Burns suggested and getting dimmable ballasts.

If finding cheap ish LED wall lights proves difficult, whack some standard fittings up and just retrofit LED lamps?

EnergySaveLight · Nov 4, 2013

I think that T8 tubes are not the best option for creating a nice mood light, and as you said the dimmable options are more expensive.

LED ceiling mounted panels are a nice idea and they are available in a few different sizes depending on the fitting that you are replacing them with. They should be able to just replace the existing fittings of the T8 tubes. They are however more expensive than your T8 tube version,

Have you thought about maybe replacing them with fire rated downlights? The units are cheaper (around £10 each) and LED GU10 lamps from about the same.