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I want to install some good bright LED lights in a shop. I have access to some nice fluorescent-type fixtures for cheap or free (two 4-ft T8 tubes), so I want to just use them with LED replacement tubes. I'm wondering what the pros and cons are of the kind of tube that works with the fluorescent ballast or the kind that requires you to re-wire the fixture to supply 120vac directly to the tube. I lean towards the latter, since the re-wiring should be very little trouble and I'm perfectly comfortable doing it myself, and it seems silly to have a piece of electronics (the ballast) in there that isn't needed. And I seriously doubt I'll ever want to switch back to actual fluorescent tubes.

RustyShackleford
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2 Answers2

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Direct wire. Worst case you have to change a lampholder.

Plug-n-play doesn't allow a ballast, it requires a ballast! And of a specific type - if the fixture has the wrong type, you would have the ignominious task of buying a new ballast and also possibly change lampholders too. It's one more thing to maintain.

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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My tubes came from eBay, and no mention was made about plug-n-play.

I use end to end wiring. (No LED driver required).

Either prong on each end will work - they are wired together at each end.

Since I had two tubes in my fixture I wired them in parallel.

Removed my ballast entirely.

Now instead of 2x 40 Watts, the two-tube fixture draws about 37 Watts.

SDsolar
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