Looking for a 2-lamp, instant start, LINEAR ballast. Do they even exist?

[dshorthouse]

I'm a longtime residential electrican who was recently put in charge of facilities at a large commercial building. I've been asked to upgrade all of our light fixtures to LED. I dislike integrated LED lights—I consider them terribly wasteful. I'd rather just use LED lamps in an old-fashioned fixture, thank you very much. I'm willing to do some retrofitting if I need to.

So I thought the best way to upgrade the fluorescent lights (which are, importantly, wired in series) would be to install instant-start ballasts and use LED tubes. Only problem is, I cannot find any ballasts that match the three criteria in the title: 2 lamp, instant start, and linear. I can find them in any combination of two of those three characteristics.

I could swear when I worked at Lowe's a few years ago we sold those. Am I misremembering, or do they not make them anymore? Or has my Google-fu atrophied too much?

 

[hbiss]

LED tubes do not require ballasts.

-Hal

 

[hillbilly1]

I'm a longtime residential electrican who was recently put in charge of facilities at a large commercial building. I've been asked to upgrade all of our light fixtures to LED. I dislike integrated LED lights—I consider them terribly wasteful. I'd rather just use LED lamps in an old-fashioned fixture, thank you very much. I'm willing to do some retrofitting if I need to.

So I thought the best way to upgrade the fluorescent lights (which are, importantly, wired in series) would be to install instant-start ballasts and use LED tubes. Only problem is, I cannot find any ballasts that match the three criteria in the title: 2 lamp, instant start, and linear. I can find them in any combination of two of those three characteristics.

I could swear when I worked at Lowe's a few years ago we sold those. Am I misremembering, or do they not make them anymore? Or has my Google-fu atrophied too much?

You do not want to use ballast driven (direct replacement) LED lamps. They have a much shorter life span than direct wire lamps, plus you have wasted energy with the ballast.

 

[Seven-Delta-FortyOne]

LED bypass bulbs. Only way to go IMO.

Every time I get a call to go fix florescent or LED fixtures with a bad ballast, the ballast goes and the fixture gets re-wired for bypass bulbs.

 

[electrofelon]

. I dislike integrated LED lights—I consider them terribly wasteful. I'd rather just use LED lamps in an old-fashioned fixture, thank you very much. I'm willing to do some retrofitting if I need to.

I fully agree, this is an absolutely horrible direction the industry is going in with all this monotron LED stuff. Not only does the whole thing go in the trash when it stops working, you have to physically remove the entire damn thing and good luck finding a matching replacement. Im not a fan of making many things illegal or getting the govt involved, but they should ban this crap.

 

[LED LIGHTING SOLUTION]

I'm a longtime residential electrican who was recently put in charge of facilities at a large commercial building. I've been asked to upgrade all of our light fixtures to LED. I dislike integrated LED lights—I consider them terribly wasteful. I'd rather just use LED lamps in an old-fashioned fixture, thank you very much. I'm willing to do some retrofitting if I need to.

So I thought the best way to upgrade the fluorescent lights (which are, importantly, wired in series) would be to install instant-start ballasts and use LED tubes. Only problem is, I cannot find any ballasts that match the three criteria in the title: 2 lamp, instant start, and linear. I can find them in any combination of two of those three characteristics.

I could swear when I worked at Lowe's a few years ago we sold those. Am I misremembering, or do they not make them anymore? Or has my Google-fu atrophied too much?

I would suggest the same as other gentlemen suggested here to replace with LED T8 Bulbs,