1 50W Fluro sufficient?
- Thread starter Kmurphy
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The 58W 5 foot fluorescent comes in many flavours, there are three main things which change the output.
1) Tube used, the coatings change some are better than others and some have built in reflectors.
2) The ballast used, the magnetic ballast does not work as well as the HF ballast.
3) The defuser used, if any, it will spread light which can be good, it can also reflect light specially required with old cathode ray monitors but can also reduce the light.
So in the main good quality fluorescent gives out around 95 lumen per watt, but this could be reduced to 70 lumen per watt with old lamp, dirty lamp, and magnet ballast. The LED replacement new is slightly better at 100 lumen per watt but often a 5 foot LED tube is only 2400 lumen compared with 5000 lumen from the fluorescent so to get same output the LED fitting needs twin tubes.
However the LED does have some other advantages, in the main a 24W tube will use 24 watt be the input voltage 200 or 250 volt. The HF ballast is similar voltage is not that important. But with a magnetic ballast at 200 volt likely it will fail to strike, and at 250 volt likely using 75W not 58W and tube life will also be reduced. So away from main house either use a HF fitting or LED. Avoid the old magnetic ballast as they are so dependent on getting correct voltage.
1) Tube used, the coatings change some are better than others and some have built in reflectors.
2) The ballast used, the magnetic ballast does not work as well as the HF ballast.
3) The defuser used, if any, it will spread light which can be good, it can also reflect light specially required with old cathode ray monitors but can also reduce the light.
So in the main good quality fluorescent gives out around 95 lumen per watt, but this could be reduced to 70 lumen per watt with old lamp, dirty lamp, and magnet ballast. The LED replacement new is slightly better at 100 lumen per watt but often a 5 foot LED tube is only 2400 lumen compared with 5000 lumen from the fluorescent so to get same output the LED fitting needs twin tubes.
However the LED does have some other advantages, in the main a 24W tube will use 24 watt be the input voltage 200 or 250 volt. The HF ballast is similar voltage is not that important. But with a magnetic ballast at 200 volt likely it will fail to strike, and at 250 volt likely using 75W not 58W and tube life will also be reduced. So away from main house either use a HF fitting or LED. Avoid the old magnetic ballast as they are so dependent on getting correct voltage.
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