Dimmable Replacement

ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
My former bookkeeper is wanting to dim the lights in her office. I thought this was taken care of a year or so ago. They have Sylvania Octron 32W 4100K, FO32/V41/ECO lamps. Correct me, but are they dimmable?

Do they even make replacement LED that are dimmable? Removing the ballast, would be my guess.
 
ptonsparky said:
My former bookkeeper is wanting to dim the lights in her office. I thought this was taken care of a year or so ago. They have Sylvania Octron 32W 4100K, FO32/V41/ECO lamps. Correct me, but are they dimmable?

Do they even make replacement LED that are dimmable? Removing the ballast, would be my guess.
Click to expand...
Those old florescent tubes are not dimmable. You can get ballast bypass LED tubes that are dimmable. Don't expect them to dim like an incandescent bulb.

Another option would be to just use fewer LED tubes in the lights. With direct wiring, it doesn't matter is you have 1, or 4, tubes. That might help if she thinks she has too much light.
 
Little Bill said:
Those old florescent tubes are not dimmable. You can get ballast bypass LED tubes that are dimmable. Don't expect them to dim like an incandescent bulb.

Another option would be to just use fewer LED tubes in the lights. With direct wiring, it doesn't matter is you have 1, or 4, tubes. That might help if she thinks she has too much light.
Click to expand...
IDK if I talked them into replacing fixtures instead.
 
ptonsparky said:
IDK if I talked them into replacing fixtures instead.
Click to expand...
Sometimes it's better to just bypass the ballast and rewire the tombstones. That's because the new fixture will most likely have a different footprint on the ceiling than the old fixture. Then either there will be an ugly spot on the ceiling, or painting will need to be done.
Likely cheaper as well.
 
ptonsparky said:
My former bookkeeper is wanting to dim the lights in her office. I thought this was taken care of a year or so ago. They have Sylvania Octron 32W 4100K, FO32/V41/ECO lamps. Correct me, but are they dimmable?

Do they even make replacement LED that are dimmable? Removing the ballast, would be my guess.
Click to expand...

All linear fluorescent lamps are dimmable. They can go down as 0.5% with the right ballast. The power consumption will never drop below 25% of full output and dimming ballasts are expensive, but not prohibitively so.

There are plenty of dimmable self-ballasted 4' "ballast bypass lamps". They're electrically equivalent to screw-in LED bulbs and are more or less stick-shaped light bulb. How many lamps are you talking about? If it's more than a few, do plan on buying some service spares for spot re-lamping. If you spot re-lamp a self-ballasted LED lamp bulb with a different model, the throttle response will not match the other lamps and you're gonna be in the situation of digging through various dimmable tubes in the junk bin and trial-and-erroring.

Fluorescent lamps wire-in like a metal halide lamp through an external ballast.
self-ballasted LED sticks wire like a light bulb, direct to power source.
 
kwired said:
That what I was thinking. To dim them you needed a ballast with dimming capability. I would guess that many LED direct replacement lamps likely work with those dimming ballasts as well?
Click to expand...

LED drop-ins specifically meant for fluorescent dimming ballasts and retain dimming capability are not intended to be used such that you install with new dimming ballasts. They're meant to be for maintenance/service so maintenance personnel can legally do it without being a licensed person. These are what you would use in A/V equipped classrooms and such that were setup with dimming ballasts and T8 lamps when it comes the time to relamp them.

"ballast bypass dimmable LED TLEDS" are more or less your average household LED lightbulbs assembled into a stick shape; or what's called an "integral ballast LED lamp" and the ballast is concealed in the lampholder(s) or somewhere within the tube where it doesn't get in the way of optical path. They're paired with a wall box dimmer that can work over a standard two wire cabling.

All LED lighting have ballast in one form or another regardless of how it's presented by sales and marketing.
 
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