LED tube replacement problem

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ammklq143

Senior Member
Location
Iowa
Occupation
Electrician
I have a customer that bypassed his ballasts and replaced his fluorescent tubes with LED's about 6 months ago. I don't know where he got them but they were working so I assume they're ballast bypass tubes. There are two on the circuit that are still fluorescent.

A couple of weeks ago, he called and said they all went out except the fluorescent ones. They're all on the same switch, so why all of the LED's went out and the fluorescent stayed on is a mystery. The two fluorescent ones are in the middle of one of the rows that he converted. He hasn't converted them yet because he can't get to them. So, they all went out except those two. A little while later, he said he turned the heater on and they all came on. I sent a few of my tubes with him to try. He hadn't put them in yet but tonight he called and said they went out again. A little later he said he replaced two of his tubes with two that I sent him and one worked and the other one didn't but the rest of the lights came on.

Anyone ever hear of anything like this?

Thanks.
 
I would look at the voltage range of the LED tubes and fluorescent ballasts.

I had a job where I installed some flo strips and bypassed the ballasts with LED tubes.

At one point while I was still working there, all of the LEDs started strobing. Nothing else was acting up, as far as I knew. There were high bays fed from the same panel, doing fine.

Turned out there was a fuse blown in a disconnect feeding that panel, and voltage on the 3 legs was was 65v, 160v, 135v

Those LEDs were on the circuit that had only 65v and it was under the threshold. Found fuse and replaced, all was well.

If you had a similar scenario, and maybe had 120v tubes on a circuit that had 160v, maybe they might not work at all (from over-voltage). But if that same circuit had 120-277v flo ballasts, they could still work fine
 
I believe I would go and check if..............
He has bypass tubes
Has the sockets wired correctly
check for shunted sockets
Has truly bypassed the ballast
 
I stopped at this site this afternoon. There's a row of 4 lights on one switch and a row of 6 on the other switch. Both are fed from the same circuit breaker. He bypassed the last fluorescent and replaced the tubes with LED's. I turned the lights off and back on. The row of 6 stayed off. The row of 4 had 3 out of the 4 come back on. I turned the thermostat up so the 120 volt gas heater would kick on and all of the lights came back on. I did this several times and each time it was the same result. In the breaker panel, the lights were on L1 and the heater was on L2. I moved the breakers so the heater was on L1 and the LED lights were on L2. Turned the lights off and back on and they all worked fine. They are ballast bypass tubes. I checked the voltage on the load side of the light switches when the lights were acting up and it was around 122 volts, so it doesn't appear that it's a voltage problem. They have so far worked when the breaker was switched to L2 so it doesn't appear that it would be a neutral problem. Anyone know if line noise ever an issue for LED's?
 
Have you checked the load center's feeder lugs? Perhaps the L1 connection is loose or corroded creating a voltage drop on L1. Or the bad connection may be at the service entrance.
 
Jon456 said:
Have you checked the load center's feeder lugs? Perhaps the L1 connection is loose or corroded creating a voltage drop on L1. Or the bad connection may be at the service entrance.
Click to expand...

I did check all of the lugs in the panel. Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
ammklq143 said:
I checked the voltage on the load side of the light switches when the lights were acting up and it was around 122 volts, so it doesn't appear that it's a voltage problem. They have so far worked when the breaker was switched to L2 so it doesn't appear that it would be a neutral problem. Anyone know if line noise ever an issue for LED's?
Click to expand...

I still think you have a power problem. Put the circuit back on L1 and let it mess up and check the power at one of the fixtures that's not working.
 
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