kitchen under cabinet lighting

[ih]

Hi
with couple of tubes not working am looking at the options. current set up is inter link system with individual option on/0ff.I have 2 lights L8w/535 (approx length 300mm) 2lights L8w/535 (length approx600mm) and 2 lights L30w/535 (approx length 900mm)
1.Do I just replace the burnt ones
2.Do I replace them with led ? if so what is involved
3.Do I look at upgrading to led with new set up if so which one?
thanking in advance for all advise &help

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

Well choice is really yours.
Replacing tubes with LED, will just be a matter of purchasing the LED equivalent tube.

 

[ericmark]

I have not looked at straight small tubes as it seems the only LED replacement is for 12 volt as used in caravans and the like. It would seem the question is all about the control gear used rather than the tube, and it seems the 12 VDC control gear wasted a lot of power. Early types would use a transformer giving a no load voltage of 7 - 150 - 7 volts and once fired up it would drop to 2 - 40 - 2 volt the 2 volt was wasted as once fired up did not need the heaters. Latter ones did not use the heaters at all, but were cheaply made and did not control the current like the 230 volt electronic ballast units. So these 12 volt units gave the fluorescent a bad name.

As we move to 230 volt there are two types of control gear the electronic type results is tubes lasting longer, firing up quicker, and using a stable amount of power in spite of voltage variations so are typically 20% more efficient than simple wire wound ballast type. However the problem is the lumen per watt for a fluorescent is given for the wire wound ballast so for an electronic ballast it's a bit of guess work. However looking at a 5 foot tube it would seem with electronic ballast the tube life LED to fluorescent is about the same, the LED is around 100 lumen per watt with fluorescent around 95 lumen per watt so really again very little in it.

So LED v Fluorescent it would seem.
LED is about twice the price of Fluorescent to install.
LED is about 10 times the price to replace at end of life.
So on economic basis LED is out.
Waste Fluorescent has mercury but LED also has rare metals and often arsenic so not real advantage.
Also like Fluorescent LED depends on control gear and although a PWM controller can get 100 lumen per watt some cheaper ones are down to 60 lumen per watt.
However on the gain side the LED starts quicker. And the LED has not got a fixed output per meter, with fluorescent a 5 foot tube is around 58 watt and 5600 lumen where a 5 foot LED may be 24 watt and just 2400 lumen and if you only need 2400 lumen then there is a gain.

LED strips are in the main very poor as to lumen per watt can be as low as 30 lumen per watt, but you can vary the colour and brightness which the fluorescent has not a hope of doing. In the main moving from fluorescent to LED means less efficient but it gives more control when used for under counter lighting. One can make meats look redder etc which may be good for selling but I want to use colour to recognise when something is off so I want the same colour what ever that colour is.

I have found folded fluorescent are no where near as good as straight tubes, so with a bulb, swapping an 8W CFL for a 5W LED makes sense, because the CFL is so poor to start with, but with straight tubes, in the main fluorescent is cheaper to maintain, and run, only real advantage of the LED is no delay in it coming on.

Does that help.

 

[JohnW2]

LED is about twice the price of Fluorescent to install.
LED is about 10 times the price to replace at end of life.

Could you help me to understand that?

Kind Regards, John

 

[ih]

Ericmark thank you very much for the detailed information i am sure it will benefit many.

 

[333rocky333]

If you know what make they are see if the maker does an led version with the same plug and socket.
other makes tend to use different plugs, so whereas you can replace the link leads easy enough the first supply lead in some cases could be harder to replace

 

[333rocky333]

LED is about twice the price of Fluorescent to install.
LED is about 10 times the price to replace at end of life.

Could you help me to understand that?

Kind Regards, John

At a quess when fleurescent lamp dies cost £1
when led dies, usually irrepairable, new fitting cost a tenner

 

[333rocky333]

Reading the post again
what thickness tubes are these and do they have starters
Sounds too me like you have 8watt T5 tubes 5/8 ths of an inch diameter.
though im strugling with the 3ft one which seems odd as thats a T8 inch diameter usually
If so easiest option is replace tubes and starters

 

[JohnW2]

LED is about twice the price of Fluorescent to install. LED is about 10 times the price to replace at end of life.

Could you help me to understand that?

At a quess when fleurescent lamp dies cost £1 .... when led dies, usually irrepairable, new fitting cost a tenner

Hmmm - I think I must be having a dim evening. If an LED costs about £2 (twice the £1 for fluorescent) to install, when it comes to the end of it's life, why can't one 'install it again', for another £2, rather than £10? [and I'm not at all sure how realistic these prices are, either!].

Kind Regards, John

 

[333rocky333]

when the fleurescents new its about £5 including the £1 tube
When the tube dies a £1 tube hopefully fixes it

when the led is new its about £10 including usually a fixed led element
Hence, as per eric, twice the cost to install.

When led dies, its irepareable so another £10 unit is needed
Hence, as per eric, ten times the cost to replace.

realistically only eric knows what eric meant bless him

 

[JohnW2]

realistically only eric knows what eric meant bless him

Ah, yes, you're probably right that he is essentially just saying that (when light ceases to emanate from the fitting!) one can replace just the fluorescent tube, but usually/often has to replace the whole LED fitting.

... but, of course, at least in theory, an LED 'ought' to last a lot longer than a fluorescent tube, so the suggested cost comparison is not really valid!

Kind Regards, John

 

[Iggifer]

Or, just do what lots of people seem to be doing now, and just use LED tape. OK the driver needs to go somewhere, but it's all cheap as chips.

 

[ih]

Hi 333rocky333
1.t5 short with 16mm diameter
2.t5 with 28mm diameter
3.t8 with 28mm diameter
Fyi the control /linking box is fitzerald
Yes they do have starters.

 

[333rocky333]

2lights L8w/535 (length approx600mm)

2.t5 with 28mm diameter

Dont get them bits sorry

They were fairly bullet proof fittings, are they actually burnt out or are the lamps just failed, as you have 2 of each you could swop both tube and starter over to test.
How involved do you want to get, led are nice, but youd basically need to strip out and start again, nothing i know on the market takes them large plugs nowadays.
If the fittings are good id just opt for a total relamp
It seems to me you want
2 x 8 watt T5 300mm 1 foot
2 x 18 watt T8 600mm 2 foot ??
2 x 30 watt T8 900mm 3 foot
As for colour stick to 835 if you liked what you had, your unlikely to get 535 easily, if you want brighter then opt for 840
In each fitting fit a new FSU type starter so 6 x FSU starters
Total cost under 40 quid, id quess

 

[ericmark]

LED is about twice the price of Fluorescent to install. LED is about 10 times the price to replace at end of life.

Could you help me to understand that?

At a quess when fleurescent lamp dies cost £1 .... when led dies, usually irrepairable, new fitting cost a tenner

Hmmm - I think I must be having a dim evening. If an LED costs about £2 (twice the £1 for fluorescent) to install, when it comes to the end of it's life, why can't one 'install it again', for another £2, rather than £10? [and I'm not at all sure how realistic these prices are, either!].

Kind Regards, John

To fit an LED costs the price of the LED and control gear so in the example I fitted which was 5 foot then cost £17 for the tube and should I have been buying the fitting then to get same light it would require a double fitting so total was around £36 compare with a single fluorescent with a HF ballast at around £18 it cost about double for original fitting to fit LED with the same lumen output i.e. compare like for like.

At replacement time LED will cost £34 to replace and the fluorescent £3.4 actually likely fluorescent will cost less than that. Simply as with fluorescent your not replacing control gear and with LED you are.

Now not included in this is the fact that the HF ballast contains capacitors so will also have a life it will as some time fail, also one may not need the 5300 lumen from the fluorescent tube so fitting LED tubes may not require doubles the 2400 lumen may be enough. In which case no need to double up on the tubes. I think in the main the advantage of LED is light is coming from same area as with fluorescent so no shadows cast and you can use less output it did not need the massive output of the fluorescent. But I was comparing like for like in lumen output.

I did say to start with I have not looked at the output of the 8W tubes for me these are only fitted in a caravan which as I have said uses a very cheap inverter and it is the inverter which is not economical not the tube.

In real terms one would not replace a under counter fluorescent with LED tubes one would use the LED tape which also has issues. Using white LED's and a proper driver you can get 100 lumen per watt, but in the main they use a 12 volt power supply and resistors to limit current instead of a driver and those resistors mean instead of a 100 lumen per watt you get around 40 lumen per watt. So in real terms the LED is not any better than the fluorescent in theroy it could be in practice it is not. So only reason to change is to use some of the extra features that LED lighting offers. Be it dimming or colour changing.

Starting from scratch yes I would fit LED as easier, but can't see much of an advantage where the fluorescent already exists. At the computer I am using now I have a folded fluorescent lamp just a single fold not electronic with an output of 90 lumen per watt it is 11W and really I am unlikely to find a LED lamp which is any better. But as a ceiling lamp I have replaced the 8W folded fluorescent bulb with a 5W LED bulb and the LED is far better mainly because the 8W folded fluorescent was so bad. The tungsten bulb at around 10 lumen per watt was easy replaced by a folded fluorescent at 40 lumen per watt showing the fluorescent as being a huge improvement so the LED even at 60 lumen per watt seems to outshine the fluorescent when made into a bulb format. However in a tube format the fluorescent still takes some beating. Going from 90 to 100 lumen per watt is simply not worth the change specially when price is looked at. Going from 40 to 75 lumen per watt in the bulb format however there is some real gains. Plus the folded tube fluorescent did have a very poor life compared with straight tubes.