LED replacement ideas for a F30T8 36" Thin-lite?

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John Canfield

John Canfield

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We have a bad ballast in one of our seven year old 36" Thin-Lites and instead of replacing the ballast, I would love to convert all of the overhead salon fixtures to LED like I did our 18" Thin-Lite.

I have looked and looked but I cannot find a replacement LED 36" bulb and I'm now thinking I'll have to install some LED panels/strips (or whatever you call them) on the fixture housing. 

Looking for ideas here...
 
This link might have them. :)  Hope you and your bride are doing well at the "ranch".

http://www.ledliquidatorsinc.com/led_fluorescent_lights.php
 
jc2 said:
This link might have them. :)  Hope you and your bride are doing well at the "ranch".  http://www.ledliquidatorsinc.com/led_fluorescent_lights.php
Click to expand...

Yup - thanks, doing quite well!!  We getting ready to head West for Thanksgiving for about a month to go 4-wheelin'.  That link (thanks) was for a 120V replacement - drats.

afchap said:
Check out jirahled.com.  I have used some of theirs and they are just a bit brighter than the original bulbs.
Click to expand...

Sent them an email, thanks Paul!
 
Have you thought about running a pair of 18's in series?. Once the ballast is out it's a clean slate with a rivet gun
 
Jeff - yeah, I was looking into that.  While searching around the web last night, I discovered Thin-Lite has an entire line of LED lights, guess they are on-board with the LED trend.  I was also looking at 18" strip lights as a possible solution.

We are leaving next Thursday for about three weeks, so I think I'll button the light up and deal with a replacement when we return.
 
What is the tube diameter? T12? T8? T5?

I haven't seen any 30" tube replacements, but 24" and 48" are available. To get 30", you are probably going to have to mount your own led strips, or parallel a couple smaller units (easy enough to do).

As an alternative, why not make a decorative wood replacement for the old fixture and mount some led puck lights in it, as many as you think you need. That gives you the option to position the lighting for best effect, and to put in some switches so you can have some or all on at one time, i.e. full light for working and maybe only a couple for mood or night lighting. Use your imagination.
 
Gary - F30 T8 36".

The florescence fixture (two Thin-Lite P198s) is trimmed with solid cherry molding and is very attractive, so I don't want to alter that.  If it had a standard  plastic bezel, then it would be ripe for improvement.

A T8 in 36" replacement LED tube is fairly easy to find, but unfortunately only in 120V  :mad: .
 
John,

Talk to the manufacturer of the LED to see if the LEDs will work on a modified Sine power supply.  I know the rewiring will be a bit much but a thought for a solution.

OR sounds to me like you need a small sine inverter tucked in the ceiling close to the light fixture.
 
Jim Godward said:
John,

Talk to the manufacturer of the LED to see if the LEDs will work on a modified Sine power supply.  I know the rewiring will be a bit much but a thought for a solution.

OR sounds to me like you need a small sine inverter tucked in the ceiling close to the light fixture.
Click to expand...
why?
 
Jeff - probably the idea there was to use a small inverter to create 120V to power 120V replacement tubes.  I thought about buying one of the 120V tubes to see if it was possible to kludge it up to run on 12V.  Maybe the easiest upgrade is the 18" LED strips....

Now we have another ballast gone in the forward light  ::) .
 
Actually, the 12v ballast you already have is an inverter of sorts. Fluorescent tubes run an alternating current anyway.  The problem is that the leds made for 120v operation have built in circuitry to rectify high voltage ac and step it down to low voltage dc for the leds to function. If you start with a 120v led, you would be buying circuitry to don't need and can't use.
 
How about two of the F15T8 led tubes in parallel? 1600 lumens if you get the brightest ones, but there are some lower-lumen models too.

http://www.rvledbulbs.com/product-p/18-0125.htm

I just ordered a 48" led "tube" from Amazon to replace a fluorescent in the kitchen at home.  One of the several fluorescent lights seems to burn out rapidly, even after replacing the ballast, so I'm hoping the led "tube" will eliminate this irritation.
 
I am going to be using these strips I am just going to place where the bulb was.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/hardware/page.aspx?cat=3,70322&p=70323
 
Be aware that the ribbon strips are often very voltage sensitive - they typically don't have much in the way of power regulation. Brightness may vary with voltage and/or some leds in the strip may fail to light. It's not just low voltage either - even slightly high voltage can make them act weird or cause a strip to dim.

Presumably the dimmable models have at least some power regulation (leds are not inherently dimmable like an incandescent bulb), so hopefully they are less susceptible to this sort of problem.
 
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