I acquired 8 × Philips HF-R 254 T5 EII 220-240V 50/60Hz electronic ballasts and 16 × Philips MASTER TL5 HO 90 De Luxe 54W/950 115cm fluorescent lamps for free. The ballast is a dimmable model that uses 1-10V analog dimming; and the lamps T5 tubes with a comfortably close-to-sun 5200K color temp and bit over 90 CRI.
With 85% percent efficiency, I calculated, this would be ~ 1000 W system and at 15 hours a day with current price of electricity where I live ~ 50€ a month. Considering I probably will not need all of them to light up my 23 m² apartment, this to probably be within my budget.
I now want to set these up as a lighting system. I know that I need “fixtures, luminaires, wirings and other things” and need to be somewhat careful about this, maybe buy safety gloves and some way to ground myself, plus try to model the heat and make it mostly impossible to cover the thing with a towel or any other item.
I want to know what else do I need to know and what components I exactly need to proceed.
Thanks in advance for any useful comments and pms.
The risk of electrocution, and then burning the building down later if you Really don’t know what you’re doing… and liability especially if it doesn’t meet building code.
Even better, throw them away and get LED tubes, and cheap fixtures, And then have the fixtures professionally wired. The cost is minimal especially considering you’ll pay like 1 tenth to power them for a lot longer life span.
I am kind of with AK… If you did not get the fixtures with them, it will cost more than getting completely new LED fixtures. With a good energy savings. You can buy new tombstones (sockets ) for the bulbs. But without the fixture it will be hard to mount them. Then bare bulbs may look pretty tacky. (Unless you are into steam punk.)
Wiring directions should be on the ballast. Just remember the ballast usually steps up the voltage. So be careful messing with them. 300 to 400 volts IIRC.
But for some information… Almost all of the fixtures I have seen, that use ballasts, are installed in a metal fixture. I just got done upgrading about 100 fixtures. I measured them out, If you replace florescent tubes with LEDs and use the ballast, you do not save any money. If you do a ballast bypass, you save a good 80%+.
Also if you do get everything to work out well, the fluorescent bulbs may be extinct in a few years and back to replacing them as they burn out.
Some of the bulbs I used have a switch on them to adjust the color 4k, 5k, or 6k. I stuck them all on whitest.
Buy a bunch of power cords and make standalone lights.
it’d cost a small fortune to redo all the fixtures, even with “free” lights/ballasts. Moreso to do it properly with an electrician, vs DIYing it and creating a fire hazard.
I replaced a bunch of fluorescents (straight tubes and a circular) with LED equivalents. The “universal” ones don’t even require disconnecting/rewiring the ballasts, as they truly just drop in. A quarter of the power drawn, and the same if not more light.
And at least one fixture (basement) had something weird going on, as one bulb dimmed to the point of barely glowing, so I replace it with a new tube, which worked fine… for a week, until it, too dimmed to the point of being unusable.
The LED replacement has been on 24/7 for well over a year, if only to help keep the spiders away. Still some spinning their webs and being annoyances, but if it were all dark 99% of the time, it’d be like a horror movie.
One of the “universal” LED bulbs wasn’t. I didn’t read the fine print well enough, as it required live 120V on both ends or something. So one tombstone on a base piece of wood, another supported alongside the tube itself, and now I got a portable vertical-stick of a LED light.
I should redo it to make it sturdier, but it works fine just sitting in a corner not being manhandled.
Not trying to make waves. I put an ammeter on one of the fluorescent fixtures I use in the garage to confirm. The fixtures uses 3- 4 foot bulbs. With the fluorescent bulbs it drew about 1 amp. With Type “A” bulbs (going through ballast) It still took 1 amp of power. With a Type “B” LED bulb with the ballast removed it used maybe 20% of the power. (Way at the bottom of my meter.) So removing (bypassing) a ballast makes a substantial difference. Bulbs may use less power, but the ballast still draws about the same power.
Absolutely, and there are plenty of yootoob videos recommending same, but when you have sealed fixtures or you don’t see any way of easily dismantling them (ie, without risking ripping off part of the ceiling), you can at least leave them alone and just replace the bulb.
In the basement, I had 2 bulbs, 1 old and 1 brand new, go dim enough as to be used only as nightlights, but the LED replacement is still working 100% after well over a year of 24/7.
The ballasts, especially the magnetic ones, still suck down power if powered but unused. So yeah, if you can, disconnect them, but if not, you can still use the fixture.
