Ray Heavican
New member
- Location
- Lincoln, NE. U.S.A.
Does anyone have pros and cons for ballast by-pass vs. using a ballast when using LED replacement lamps? Our line voltage is 277.
Ballast by-pass type T8 LED tubes
- Thread starter Ray Heavican
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JFletcher
Senior Member
- Location
- Williamsburg, VA
James L
Senior Member
- Location
- Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
- Occupation
- Electrician
One CON for bypassing ballast is that there are multiple wiring shemes to do so. Single or double end feed. Is it bypass ballast to a driver or direct feed to tombstones? I've not looked into 277v direct feed tubes.
I'm soon to try Plilips Instantfit 4000k in a school. I was planning to use an external driver until I discovered the shunted tombstones - they would have to be replaced in order to feed a single end.
It might not seem like much of a CON when choosing for install, but think of the guy who's gonna maintain it after the current guy. I started thinking about a handyman trying to figure out which lamps to purchase if a tube goes out. Leave the ballasts in and you just simplified it, imo
I'm soon to try Plilips Instantfit 4000k in a school. I was planning to use an external driver until I discovered the shunted tombstones - they would have to be replaced in order to feed a single end.
It might not seem like much of a CON when choosing for install, but think of the guy who's gonna maintain it after the current guy. I started thinking about a handyman trying to figure out which lamps to purchase if a tube goes out. Leave the ballasts in and you just simplified it, imo
- Location
- Tennessee NEC:2017
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrician
From what customers are asking me, they are wanting something that doesn't require as much maintaining. IOW, they don't want to have to replace the ballast every couple of years. Now I don't know how long a ballast will last running an LED but it will still be running and subject to needing replacing, possibly before the LED tubes wear out.
JFletcher
Senior Member
- Location
- Williamsburg, VA
I think it would be easier to leave a note re: proper bulb replacements than have a handyman/maintenance deal with failing ballasts, tho really a handyman *should* be able to do either.
How hard it is to get to the bulbs/ballasts? If a guy has to get a manlift in place and spend the better part of an hour to change a ballast, bypass it completely now and go for the more reliable system. As a former maintenance guy, if I spend all day fixing super common/preventable failures, I get no real maintenance done. Maintaining lighting was a substantial chunk of time.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
It is already confusing enough for many of those maintenance guys before we throw the LED's in the mix. Especially if you have a facility that still has T12 ballasts that haven't been replaced yet. Then throw in existing HID luminaires and you find guys that have no clue what lamp to put where.
Had a guy at a plant replace a ballast in a 175 watt MH fixture (had spare unused fixture and robbed ballast from that). Only lasted a minute or so from what I was told by production employees and smoked up the room. My guess is he didn't pay attention to input voltage as these were quad ballasts and I believe were operating at 208 - he probably either connected to 120 or the default setup of 277, IDK. He must have figured that out though and replaced that ballast but finally came to me when it wouldn't light the lamp. I looked at it and determined he had a 70 watt lamp installed, found right lamp and it worked fine.
I have found many mix and match T8 and T12 lamps and ballasts in places that are only switching to T8 as the T12 ballasts fail.
the blur
Senior Member
- Location
- cyberspace
We just did our factory floor. T8 to LED tubes. 80% of the ballasts had to be changed out. The only ballasts that worked with the LED were the newer ones. Any thing older than 10 years old would not light 4 LED tubes. Had I known most of the ballasts had to be changed out, I would have just replaced every pan with a low bay LED.
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