4ft 2 light bulb conversions to LED?

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I have a client who wants to convert all their bulbs from 4 ft fluorescent t8 to line voltage led tubes. two bulbs per fixture with reflective shield. This requires changing out two sockets out for non-shunted ones and line siding them. the opposite sockets get disconnected from the ballast and terminated. Fixtures get marked line voltage. the rooms are full cubicles and work stations that i will have to work over. approximately 300 fixtures to start. probably another 300 down the road. They want a per fixture price to get approval from board.. What range would you be in per fixture? they want to pay $16 per fixture. i feel like no matter what because of the obstacles i am going to be killed on time.. location south jersey..
 

LEO2854

Esteemed Member
Location
Ma
I have a client who wants to convert all their bulbs from 4 ft fluorescent t8 to line voltage led tubes. two bulbs per fixture with reflective shield. This requires changing out two sockets out for non-shunted ones and line siding them. the opposite sockets get disconnected from the ballast and terminated. Fixtures get marked line voltage. the rooms are full cubicles and work stations that i will have to work over. approximately 300 fixtures to start. probably another 300 down the road. They want a per fixture price to get approval from board.. What range would you be in per fixture? they want to pay $16 per fixture. i feel like no matter what because of the obstacles i am going to be killed on time.. location south jersey..
:blink:At $16 per-fixture Run fast and don't look back.

You must strip the ballasts and rewire the sockets, get rid of the ballasts and lamps then clean up the mess, along with installing reflectors....

They should be at $46 per fixture----then you might make a few bucks..otherwise run.

Also take into account all the call backs when the lights do not live up to their word, I've had a few call backs already:happyno:
 

John120/240

Senior Member
Location
Olathe, Kansas
Have you looked in to the cost of comparable NEW Led fixtures designed for the application ? Do a cost/benefit calculation of new vs rework the old fixtures ? With new fixtures no need to rewire the tombstones, or dispose of the ballast.
 

Electric-Light

Senior Member
I have a client who wants to convert all their bulbs from 4 ft fluorescent t8 to line voltage led tubes. two bulbs per fixture with reflective shield. This requires changing out two sockets out for non-shunted ones and line siding them. the opposite sockets get disconnected from the ballast and terminated. Fixtures get marked line voltage. the rooms are full cubicles and work stations that i will have to work over. approximately 300 fixtures to start. probably another 300 down the road. They want a per fixture price to get approval from board.. What range would you be in per fixture? they want to pay $16 per fixture. i feel like no matter what because of the obstacles i am going to be killed on time.. location south jersey..

I think LED retrofits to T8 is a :roll: idea, but, hey some people insist on them. Modification retrofits are even worse idea especially wiring up line directly to sockets. Would you wire up a standard 120v outlet to 240v and put up a label that reads "240v"? I think not. Accident is bound to happen. Some lamps apply line voltage at one end. Some apply on both ends. It's not a standard setup. If it's the type that applies power directly to one side, expect to see what you would see if you were to run a flash light light bulb on 277v in the event a fluorescent lamp is fitted.

Open a few up and take a look at the ballast and note the model number and date code.
CREE, Philips and Osram Sylvania all offer drop-in lamps, but you need to check compatibility with your ballast. Those drop-ins are a direct match to 25W 48" T8 in a fixture in good conditions. If the optics are fouled, cleaning them will take more time than the relamp.

Does the customer know that the types that require alterations take substantially more work?
 
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I would consider offering to do a pilot program say maybe 10 fixtures on Time and Material basis to give both of you a better Idea of what you will be getting into and the amount of Time and Effort. It would be easier to negotiate a fair Price once both sides have a good idea of the Actual cost and time Required. if you find you can make your Profit at 16.oo then Great but after the Pilot if you see it need to be more like 30-50 per fixture then negotiate from the Power of knowledge and dont be afraid to walk away. also make sure the Pilot group is typical of the install as a whole. and they didnt cherry pic a bunch of easy ones to make the job seem easier.
 

Electric-Light

Senior Member
I would consider offering to do a pilot program say maybe 10 fixtures on Time and Material basis to give both of you a better Idea of what you will be getting into and the amount of Time and Effort.

This is a great idea, so customer can get a sense of how they like the decoration LEDs. The quantity should be just enough to let them try out LEDs for a month or two. Better they find out then than have huge trouble how LE Decorations suck after you put in 300 fixtures.
 

Electric-Light

Senior Member
Who are you working for?

If your customer is junk factory who solicits bids on install cost for "our Made in CHINA retrofit crap products", its different from installing for the site where you may have some influence on what lamps to use.
 

rick5280

Senior Member
Retrofitting with LED tubes

Retrofitting with LED tubes

If you use the "quality" tubes, the directions say to leave the ballasts in place, just cut the wires short so they can't be reused. Their reasoning is that the screws holes left over after removing a ballast will create an open hole in the enclosure, which creates a hazard.

For just a little more $$ per lamp, you can get a LED tube that works off the existing ballast, so you don't have to rewire, just relamp.

I just did a retrofit of around 500 lamps, and used the tubes with enclosed drivers, so rewiring was required.

I had around 15 trouffers that had an internal backup battery system for emergency lighting, and found out there are no battery backup units (120vac to 120vac) for use in trouffers. For these, I am using the type of tubes that will work on existing ballasts and battery backups.

Make sure to apply a label on each fixture indicating that they are converted to LEDs, and can NOT be used for fluorescents.

You will need to dispose of the old T8s.

If anyone needs manufacturer's numbers or links, email me.

Rick Miell
 

Electric-Light

Senior Member
Insist on a product that can satisfy both of these:
Percent flicker 10% or less
Flicker index 0.02 or less

I would drop it to 5% & 0.01 if you expect comparable peformance to T8 electronic ballast in terms of being flicker free.

Rewire types were more common in the past. Many of them are built like an AC LED module or Christmas lights and quite a few of them use pathetic garbage driver that cause them to produce inferior quality light with far more flicker than F40T12/CW on magnetic ballast.
 
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iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts

Electric-Light

Senior Member
I agree with Electric-Light, those replacements kind of suck.

I have recently been installing these and I like them much better.

http://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-73108-Retrofit-Replacing-Fluorescent/dp/B00KA855WU

https://www.sylvania.com/en-us/prod.../ULTRA-HE-T8-LED-Lamps-and-Retrofit-Kits.aspx

Those appear to be one of the most efficient retrofits, but you need to make sure that replacement modules are available for at least 10 years or stock up about 5% of install in service parts. Philips made such a kit too, but it's been discontinued and now getting either the lamp or the driver is a special order.

You should have a look at 25 and 28W super T8, but, if...

The customer insists on L E D.
Temperature regularly fall below 60F where those lamps don't work.
There's a plan on adding aggressive energy management using occupancy sensors.
fixtures are in terrible conditions.

Then, drop-in LEDs maybe the right solution if the existing ballasts are compatible and have plenty of time left.

The efficiency should surpass the efficiency of T8 system slightly when it is brand new, but the mean LPW is inferior to T8 fluorescent.
https://assets.sylvania.com/assets/Documents/LED417.ac8824e1-3f0b-4310-9fc2-34d64766e5e8.pdf
 

Electric-Light

Senior Member
LED purchase risk management

LED purchase risk management

I have a client who wants to convert all their bulbs from 4 ft fluorescent t8 to line voltage led tubes. two bulbs per fixture with reflective shield. This requires changing out two sockets out for non-shunted ones and line siding them. the opposite sockets get disconnected from the ballast and terminated. Fixtures get marked line voltage. the rooms are full cubicles and work stations that i will have to work over. approximately 300 fixtures to start. probably another 300 down the road. They want a per fixture price to get approval from board.. What range would you be in per fixture? they want to pay $16 per fixture. i feel like no matter what because of the obstacles i am going to be killed on time.. location south jersey..

Take a look at it from their point of view. LEDs are extremely expensive and savings over super T8 alternative is so little that there's only a hair to go around for labor to have the necessary rate of return. LED retrofits are a high risk investment and requires a proportionately high rate of return.

Would you invest $300,000 on something that gives the same reward as buying bonds(which is pretty much zero risk), but has a fairly high risk of loss? Investors in LED technology and such would not even consider it.

My numbers suggest they've only got about $93 total to spend per fixture. Parts, labor, and any out of warranty expenses incurred by them over the eight years. we're talking about proprietary LEDs, so safety inventory of about 5% is needed and that has to come out of that budget too.

Fudging some numbers here.

Give the LEDs a generous credit of 20W saving per fixture (59W/fixture F32T8 to two T8 TLED that can meet arguably acceptable performance level) 11c/kWh energy + $20/kW demand.

Estimate usage at 5,500 annual hours.
2,760kWh/month and 6kW demand reduction.
Let's assume a generous 8 year useful life.
LEDs have a sell sheet rated life of 50-100K hours.
I stuck in 10% as required rate of return. Inflation eats about 3% of that.

LEDs are a riskier investment than other alternatives and require a higher rate of return and here's why:

Useful lifetime of 8 years if all goes accordingly to the plan. We have no evidence of long term reliability of LEDs in lighting use. Only speculations. We have proven record of LEDs going over 100,000 hours for things like indicators and alarm clocks, but they're not driven hard and they do not use phosphors.

LED parts warranty is usually way less than 8 years and it expires at the end of the warranty period or the demise of the vendor, whichever comes first. The latter is a very significant risk for "re-wire LEDs" as they're often sold by start-ups that may not exist in a few years.

Warranty usually excludes labor and color shifting. Furthermore, some warranty may exclude excess lumen loss. Fluorescent technology existed long enough to have statistically predictable life span.

So, compared to something like a 28W super T8 retrofit, LED is a riskier investment and requires a higher rate of return to make sense. You'll then realize how little saving there is in ripping out perfectly functional lamp-ballast systems. Forecast of 50,000 hour life is about as good as a used car salesman telling you how the car you're gong to buy will go another 100,000 miles just to make the sale.

Currently, my opinion is that LEDs should not be purchased. They should be leased for monthly payments somewhat less than utility savings. If they fail early, that's selling dealer's problem, but LED and green sales companies don't work like that. They want all the money now, then make it the customer's problem.
 
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