Replacing fluorescents with LEDs?

[Manitou]

I have just begun my research on this one, but really feel I need to do something. The lower power draw is a nice bonus, but really.. Those fluorescents are just so harsh.. Gotta go.

[Blue~Go]

I agree with you on fluorescents. Rather power hungry and I don't like the light quality anyway.
I'd be happy to post about how I converted mine to LED. I'm on my way out the door right now, plus I haven't yet figured out how to add photos, but as soon as I do I'll add a post here with info.

So far I have done the one over the kitchen and the one by the door. Figured I'd do those first as they are the two I tend to use. I now have parts on order to do the one over the couch and the one over the table. The two on the main room ceiling I'm not going to change, as I use them very, very infrequently. And hey, I'll have spare bulbs for them now (the ones from the long fixture over the table).

[Manitou]

That would be great if you posted up how you did yours. I think this forum restricts people from posting pictures until they've posts a few times first (3-4?). I'll see about getting that restriction off your account now though. I'm still learning this system.

[Blue~Go]

I'm really glad you tackled starting up a phpBB forum. The Yahoo! group has a great history and so much information, plus great mods, but.... I really dislike a number of things about Yahoo! (not the mods fault at all) and cannot view photos there. Plus it's just very clunky for me to type out a long post. I know forums are hard to move, so I can understand being reluctant to put the time/effort in. But... boy is it nice to be able to post on a bulletin board. So thank you for tackling this.

So, LED "fluorescent" lights. Most of the conversions I have seen have involved using the rolls of adhesive LED "strips," and sticking them up into the shell of the fixture, and then either doing a little soldering or, as I understand it, buying some connectors instead. I think this is by far the cheapest way to go. My issue with it is that I didn't want to have to guess at the "color" of the light. Most of the roll type LED's I have seen are sort of "eBay from China and you get what you get." Some folks are very happy with them, but I have another friend who ended up with a really "yellow" roll (was supposed to be soft white) so then later ordered a "bluer" white roll and put in one strip of each in each fixture to balance the color. I really just wanted to do it once and be done with it, and I wanted to know exactly what I was getting. Maybe there is a way to do that with the strips... I just didn't know for sure and so kept putting it off.

There is a nifty company that makes LED lights for boating (and other) use. I had ordered bulbs from them in the past (boat) and been very satisfied. They have a different approach to the Thin-Lite type fluorescent lights (which are also found on many boats). They made up a bulb that looks just like a fluorescent tube, and fits into the fixture just like one. The full electrical description and benefits is out of my league, but I knew it would be plug and play once I converted the fixture. They also had bulbs in a clearly delineated choice of "whites" (2900K = warm white; 4000K = neutral white; 6150K = cool white) and red (night vision). I ordered two of the warm white for starters, intending to just do the kitchen fixture to see how I liked them (at around $35 each/$66 for a pair, I wanted to be sure!)

They have a few videos that show how to convert the fixture. Basically you clip all the wires to the ballast (no longer needed; can remove it if you want to), and then use a few of the wires to rewire things (I used crimp connectors). Then you just snap in the bulbs in and away you go. I did have to write to them to find out how to do a two-bulb fixture, as it was not obvious to me (the video and printed instructions show a one-bulb fixture), but once I knew how to go about that it was easy. Once it was re-wired, I put the two bulbs in, fired the light up, and WHOA... BRIGHT! It was a very nice light quality (warm white but not yellowish; and also not bluish, which I really dislike and wanted to avoid). In fact, it was so bright that I decided to try the fixture with only one bulb in it (no need to change the re-wiring for that, you can use either one or two bulbs in the fixture). Turns out one bulb per fixture is just perfect for me. Side benefit was that I could now convert the hall/door fixture too (with the second bulb), and it also works great with only one bulb. So hey, now it's only $33 per fixture

I subsequently ordered one bulb for the fixture over the couch, and another one for the one over the table - plus a different one for the light over the stove (in the hood). I held off on the bathroom one because I may put in a Fantastic Fan and separate light. I think I will also LED-ize the rope lights behind the valances (which I use a lot) and the ones in the cupboards (which I don't use that much, but have the habit of accidentally leaving open during the day, hence the lights can stay on for hours; LED will lower the draw). I haven't decided what to use for that yet though.

I'm not going to convert the two lights on the "fuzzy" part of the ceiling in the main room because I only very (very) rarely use them.

Here is a link to Marine Beam, where I got the bulbs:
http://store.marinebeam.com/

Here is a direct link to their "fluorescent" bulbs. The 12" bulbs go in the smaller fixtures in my rig (above sink, above couch, and hallway by door), and the 21" ones go in the one over the table (and the ones on the fuzzy ceiling in the main room, although I don't plan to convert them).
http://store.marinebeam.com/led-fluorescent.html

Video showing how to convert fixture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_F-c6lb918

Photos of my conversion (Thin-Lite two-bulb fixture).

This first one shows the re-wire, after I had removed the ballast (this is optional - you can just leave it there doing nothing). I connected it in reverse of what they show (but electrically it works the same) because the lengths of the wires just worked better that way. The photo is upside down just to keep it consistent with the orientation they show in the video (switch to left, ballast to right).

The connections with the yellow crimps are the ones going back into the ceiling (actually the upper cabinet wire chase area above the kitchen sink). They have "extra" wires because those wires continue on to more light fixtures. The light by the door is an "end of the line" one, thus only has two wires coming out of the ceiling.

Bulbs in, white cover plate back on, ready to re-fasten to overhead (there are four Robertson drive screws, one in each corner).

I'm very happy with the way these worked out, and especially so because I can use only one bulb and find the light to be just right. That makes it a bit less "ouchy," financially, plus saves half the power over using two bulbs. These bulbs are very bright (many lumens) so still take a bit of power to run even though they are LED. The 12-inchers are .35 amp per bulb, and the 21-inchers .5 amp per bulb. When I ordered the additional bulbs, I thought about getting the 12-incher in the "neutral white," and then whichever one (warm or neutral) I liked less could go in the hallway (vs. the kitchen, which I use more). But I like the warm white so much I just couldn't see wanting it any whiter (if it had seemed at all "yellow" to me, I would probably have ordered the neutral white this time around), so that's what I ordered again.

For over the stove, it's a "912" wedge-based bulb. Marine beam has these in several form factors. The idea is that LED bulbs are much more directional than incandescent, so you buy whichever style bulb will "throw" the light in the direction you want it. Neither of the fixed orientation bulbs looked like they would work that well over the stove (the light in the range hood, which I like to use) because the base angles the bulb in an "odd" direction, so I got the third type of bulb which is a flat, stick on unit that then has a short bit of wire and a base that plugs into the old base. This way I figured I could stick it up in such a way that it would aim where I want it to. I haven't received this bulb yet, but it's the "Constellation" style at the bottom of this page:

http://store.marinebeam.com/wetybuledre.html

I got the one that turns on red and then a second flip of the switch makes it white (normal brightness and draw). Time will tell if that gets old, but I thought the red might be nice to leave on for a super-low-draw night light.

[Blue~Go]

Perhaps this warrants a separate thread, but while I had the light covers off, I decided to do something about the "walnut" (fake) strips down the center of each Thin-Lite lens (I think this was eliminated in later years). The "walnut" was just an imprinted area in the center of the lens. I had seen where you could get replacement lenses that had white centers, but IIRC they were somewhat pricey, and worse, I don't think I was able to find them for both of the fixture sizes in my rig. So I decided to tweak the ones I had. I considered just running a strip of tape down the center of each one, which probably would have been fine, especially with cooler LED bulbs, but instead decided to spray paint them.

Here is the "before," Thin-Lite fixture with the "walnut" center strip (I don't normally have them sitting on gravel, but this was on the way into the shop for prep/painting):

I scuffed the "walnut" strip with a Scotch-Brite pad until there was no gloss, then wiped them down with denatured alcohol. Next I used Blue tape and paper scraps to mask off everything but the center strip (burnished the tape edge with a fingernail to avoid edge bleeding). Then I painted them all with Krylon Fusion gloss white spray paint, which is meant for painting plastic. I did several light coats until they were uniform and lightly glossy. Then I pulled the tape and, voila!, no more "walnut." Here is the kitchen fixture, after converting to LED and with the white center strip after painting:

[Manitou]

Finally did the first light. 1 down, 900 to go! (Haha).
I had a hard time with rivets holding the ballast cover on. A drill to drill them out would be easier. I used a pair of dikes and just worked on them till I got 1 side free. Also, I mount the strips facing outwards instead of down. I liked the idea of indirect lighting. Hopefully I like it in practice too.

[Manitou]

Did the fridge light too for the heck of it. The stock one got surprisingly hot surprisingly quickly. (Really hot to the touch after only being on a few seconds to remove it)

[Blue~Go]

Can you say what type of LED's you used and what the process was for converting them?

How would you describe the light quality? (It looks blue in the photo, but maybe that is a trick of the lens.)

I'd like to hear how you like the sideways pointing ones. LED is supposedly really directional. I'm thinking of changing the valance lights, and might be interested in aiming them to the side, depending on how yours work.

[Manitou]

They do seem to have a little blue tint, but not nearly what the picture looks like. They are pure white before the cover goes on. Though the cover doesn't look to have any blue either. Not sure what's going on. I changed them to point directly down now. The sideways hit me in the eyes while standing.

[Manitou]

There's several videos on how to do this process. Here's a link to the one that helped me most.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SAMPQrAu0aI