# LED conversions



## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

Shockdoc said:


> Is there really any money in this?


In my neck of the woods, most medium to large scale lighting upgrades are done by contractors that specialize exclusively in it. They buy material by the tractor trailer load and they work very closely with the poco as far as all the paperwork and certification goes. They are all about speed and not about quality. One company in particular pays an hourly bonus for performance (ie - the more ballasts and fixtures you install or retrofit, the better you do) so there is no incentive to do a good job. 

I have seen this company take down old high bay lights and replace them with T5's that were hard wired to the old j-boxes with rubber cord, and other hack stuff like that. Bottom line is it's not worth trying to compete with them.


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## duque00 (Sep 11, 2008)

A) Are your customers just looking for Savings on their electric bill??

OR

B) Are do they want a one-stop shop where you (Doc) do all the work including the paperwork/rebates and all that Tom Foolery?

If it is "A' - get in and get out - they yeah it is worth it.

I got some links saved somewhere on some of the LED conversions for the 2x2 and 2x4.

The LED Conversions are from Leviton and some other manufacturer. 

Let me know if you are interested.


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## Fred_W (Jul 3, 2015)

By the way, do the customers buy directly from the contractors or from Amazon?


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## Shockdoc (Mar 4, 2010)

duque00 said:


> A) Are your customers just looking for Savings on their electric bill??
> 
> OR
> 
> ...


It a local bodyshop back in 02' and 05' i rewired two sections and installed 400watt low bays. Sometime a couple years ago a door to door salesman installed a T5 lowbay. So the owner got online and ordered a bunch to replace the lowbays.. the last ones where the buffing garage and paint area that had industrial 2light 96 rows. This time he ordered LED units. 
I have one area to go, the spray booth. Each contained unit is a 5 light 5' HO unit. Im thinking about LED strips to retrofit these pans.


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## duque00 (Sep 11, 2008)

Something along the lines of these:


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

duque00 said:


> Something along the lines of these:


That LED ballast looks like a cheap power adapter you can buy from eBay for consumer electronics for $7 including shipping from China.

The cheap junk are often not designed to the same standards as reputable, continuous duty ballasts, such as component selection and wiggle room in capacity. A 50W laptop adapter that comes with the computer is likely designed to handle 50W continuously at 90v input. Laptop bricks usually live in people comfort temperature, away from heat generated by load, yet the eBay ones are more hit and miss than OEM ones. 

The cheap one might be fine at 30W load with 120v input but might not have the reserve capacity and can fail after a few minutes at full load under low input voltage that is still considered within limits for a factory adapter. 





A high quality two lamp T8 ballast costs more wholesale than what a whole el cheapo Chinese made two lamp T8 shop light sells for at Home Depot. T5 and LED ballasts cost even more. I'm afraid that many LED kits come with a ballast of the quality used in those shop lights. This could be a downgrade if they start failing or constantly throttle down to prevent self destruction.


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## duque00 (Sep 11, 2008)

EL - I hear what you're saying. These pics are generic ones I found on the Internet. Some DIY from an Average Joe. The OP was saying he was thinking about going this route.

I just grab the 2 pics to post - nothing more, nothing less. There are various kits all over the net - Ebay, Amazon, etc. - that come piece-meal or as a complete package.

It's up to the OP whether he can get the material at a low price, mark it up, and add a labor cost to it - then sell it to the client.

I like the output of light and it could be a big seller depending on material costs.....


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## sbrn33 (Mar 15, 2007)

Your going to have a very hard time replacing the T5's with LED. At least on a 1 to 1 basis. 
I feel an unhappy customer in your future if you take light away from him.


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## billn (Aug 31, 2011)

There is also the concern about color rendition. Objects do not look the same under LEDs as they do under fluorescents - even if they are supposedly the same color temperature.


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

*Definitely not wroth it w/o 5+ year parts and labor warranty*



Shockdoc said:


> It a local bodyshop back in 02' and 05' i rewired two sections and installed 400watt low bays. Sometime a couple years ago a door to door salesman installed a T5 lowbay. So the owner got online and ordered a bunch to replace the lowbays.. the last ones where the buffing garage and paint area that had industrial 2light 96 rows. This time he ordered LED units. I have one area to go, the spray booth. Each contained unit is a 5 light 5' HO unit. Im thinking about LED strips to retrofit these pans.


When their warranty is like consumer products, its totally one sided where they get to charge market price now, invest the money and don't take responsibility for the product in a way they portray. They only end up taking responsibility for pennies the dollar if they fail a year or two later. The warranty terms allow them tor require you to send the failed lamp back (at an expense close to what it costs you to buy a new one...). 

So, only a small fraction will make a claim, and to them, they may send you a voucher to redeem at a store(so that they don't have to physically ship an item at their expense). The requirement to send in the failed product isn't just to deter fraud. It's a way to deter making warranty claims all together. 

They already got you to pay $30/ea for an earlier LED with promises of 10 year life, already invested the money and if they fail a year or two later, the warranty terms say you're on the hook for sending it on, wait several weeks effectively deterring warranty claims. 

When they're just trying to gain market share, many brand names exercise discretion in providing quality warranty service to maintain market relationship for market growth, and they want the failed latest and newest products back for failure analysis. 

They're probably not going to do that for you when your 1st generation CREE LED with 10 year warranty from 2013 have issues in 2018. 

LEDs require a ballast and when the ballast is built to the same quality, it is still quite expensive and like-for-like they're still not competitive with fluorescent. 

Only the most expensive of architectural LED products match fluorescent system warranty.Since LEDs claim to not burn out, it is fair to hold them to the ballast warranty standard and this is parts + labor warranty, or on-site service. Most LED product warranties are consumer product like, such as strictly parts only, or even worse, pro-rated like tires and parts only.

Let me say that, money saving claims or how long they last and all the other wonderful claims means nothing if they don't stand behind it with equally powerful warranty with good likelihood that they're not going to be out of business during this time (imported goods installed and warranted by a 3 year old start up A Green Energy Service Retrofit LLC is much more likely to go out of business and make good on warranty compared to factory warranty through GE or Sylvania) 

This is FLUORESCENT warranty. 
http://assets.sylvania.com/assets/D...S140.f5cd63f4-f4b2-44ef-b6d3-957896033c3c.pdf

2,500hr/yr 10 year parts+labor ballast warranty for schools:

http://assets.sylvania.com/assets/D...7 15.a253e1a3-d63a-4dba-9c58-b8c73d625af4.pdf



duque00 said:


> EL - I hear what you're saying. These pics are generic ones I found on the Internet. Some DIY from an Average Joe. The OP was saying he was thinking about going this route.
> 
> I just grab the 2 pics to post - nothing more, nothing less. There are various kits all over the net - Ebay, Amazon, etc. - that come piece-meal or as a complete package.
> 
> ...





sbrn33 said:


> Your going to have a very hard time replacing the T5's with LED. At least on a 1 to 1 basis.
> I feel an unhappy customer in your future if you take light away from him.


I have yet to find LED system solution that can offer performance advantage and maintain a system warranty comparable to fluorescent systems at a comparable cost. Even LED sales companies don't trust it enough and know they're going to get majorly hurt if they have to foot the labor bill to fix them. If they happen to last, they use it as a cherry picked testimonial. If they fail after 2 years, they don't talk about it. 

Even if the labor allowance is only $15/fixture, when there's a mass failure like 75% of 100 fixtures they sold to a gas station fails 4 years later, that's $1,125 + replacement products. Some pro-rate LEDs like tires and batteries because they know darn well its an experimental product at best. 

For tires and batteries, it is understandable as they're wear items and the wear depends significantly on driving habits and vehicle. Would you buy a boring ordinary car that gets somewhat higher mpg but only comes with a 36,000 mile 3 year prorated warranty? If your transmission fails after 24,000 miles, you are responsible for 2/3 of the repair cost. 



billn said:


> There is also the concern about color rendition. Objects do not look the same under LEDs as they do under fluorescents - even if they are supposedly the same color temperature.


LEDs these days can have acceptable light quality comparable with T8 lamps right out of the box but. . . they tend to fade differently so lamps that get 12hrs/day may gradually develop objectionable color change compared to lights installed along side that only gets 2-3 hours a day. 

LEDs are expensive, so be sure to probe into warranty conditions and labor allowance.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

I'd like to sell more of these jobs, I think that they are the future of lighting and eventually, everything will be moving in that direction.

Good work, IMO.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

MTW said:


> In my neck of the woods, most medium to large scale lighting upgrades are done by contractors that specialize exclusively in it. They buy material by the tractor trailer load and they work very closely with the poco as far as all the paperwork and certification goes. They are all about speed and not about quality. One company in particular pays an hourly bonus for performance (ie - the more ballasts and fixtures you install or retrofit, the better you do) so there is no incentive to do a good job.
> 
> I have seen this company take down old high bay lights and replace them with T5's that were hard wired to the old j-boxes with rubber cord, and other hack stuff like that. Bottom line is it's not worth trying to compete with them.


Your post is pretty accurate, at least in my experience.

I worked for a lighting company that pushed us to get jobs done fast. Faster than I felt comfortable, but not much different than anywhere else I worked at.

To me, lighting jobs always paid great. Both as a sub, and as an employee. I just was not compatible with living a life out on the road, as I am a family man. Otherwise, the money was there.

I like to push these jobs in my local area because they sell themselves. The biggest hurdle I seem to run into, is finding customers that are ready to drop thousands of $$$ on changing their lights. Even if you can add up all the wattages, and show them what they will be saving, its when you add up your price per fixture and times it by all their fixtures, you always end up with a BIG number. They need to be ready to spend some money.

When the old fixtures are torn out and the new ones are up and burning -- the customers are amazed and happy. At that point the job has sold itself.

Lighting is a very small part of our work, and most of it is maintenance (changing ballasts & lamps). I am always eager to give someone a price on a lighting retrofit, I'm just not to best at closing the deal. Hopefully, this will improve and we will see more of these jobs in the future.


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

MHElectric said:


> The biggest hurdle I seem to run into, is finding customers that are ready to drop thousands of $$$ on changing their lights. Even if you can add up all the wattages, and show them what they will be saving, its when you add up your price per fixture and times it by all their fixtures, you always end up with a BIG number. They need to be ready to spend some money.


There are usually major flaws in LED sales people's calculation. 

-The finances are completely out of touch with reality. If you want them to spend $10,000, it needs to offer a better return on investment than leaving it in the bank. Many retrofit proposals also ruin the system design as they give up performance to achieve watt savings. 

-LEDs have no/minimal advantages where linear fluorescent lamps are usable and LEDs are always more expensive. 

-Compared to MH, Many advantages of standard and solid state type(LED) fluorescent systems are in common. Such as constant power regulation over a wide range of voltage and instant restrike. Fluorescent lamps are not mercury free, but offer dramatic reduction in mercury usage from MH, so further reduction offered by LEDs is small. (from 500mg HID to 20mg in fluorescent lamps vs none for LED) 

-Rare earth materials needed to produce fluorescent lamps boiled over in late 2011, but it plummeted and the prices are about 1/4 of what they were in 2011.

Just to help you guys visualize... 
You're getting 10 mpg now 

option A is 30 mpg for $25,000.. good warranty, economic repair (premium T8) 
option B is 37 mpg for $40,000.. questionable warranty, expensive repairs. (super expensive LED) 

Both options are justifiable compared to the 10 mpg, but when both options are presented, the B does not offer the added $15,000 worth of value. The salesman tasked to tout option B simply don't announce about option A. If you already have electronic T8 system, then maybe your existing efficiency is around 22 mpg, although LED salesman who earns commission on selling option B could sweet talk and cause business owner to close on something that isn't a good deal just because they weren't aware of option A.


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

ElectricLight,how about helping Hax with his exit light problem........


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Electric_Light said:


> There are usually major flaws in LED sales people's calculation.
> 
> -The finances are completely out of touch with reality. If you want them to spend $10,000, it needs to offer a better return on investment than leaving it in the bank. Many retrofit proposals also ruin the system design as they give up performance to achieve watt savings.
> 
> ...


Dude! It's the future of lighting. And at the rate we're going, there will be something that takes the place of LED in the near future. Like it or leave it. LED IS only going to get better.

Do you really work in the lighting retro industry and not do LED jobs? That sounds crazy. Only so many people could possibly still be wanting t-8 and T-5 retros. Seems like everybody is asking what we think about LED. Heck, check the lighting section here - every other thread is about LEds.

I like reading you're posts, and you seem like your very knowledgeable about what you talk about. But you can't possibly be so scared of everything new that comes out, because sooner or later your going to find yourself obsolete and left behind.


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## randolph333 (Feb 10, 2015)

They're asking about LEDs…until prices are quoted and then it's only the high-end clients that stick. 

It depends. One hospital facilities manager I know is very happy with Philips EvoKit troffer refurbishing kits. What she's spending on installation and the kits themselves she's getting back in reduced maintenance costs, but a hospital is a large building with a lot of luminaires.

For one small residential client's kitchen I recommended high-CRI 2700°K tubes fluorescent tubes on cost and I'd probably do that again. For small clients, the long term savings don't justify the upfront costs unless there are other advantages—longevity, toughness, spectrum, or what-have-you. One issue to watch out for: you won't get good dimming performance unless you also replace the dimmer and make sure to match it to the LED driver. Some residential users really like very dim settings for middle-of-the-night uses and that requires fairly expensive drivers and controls.


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## sbrn33 (Mar 15, 2007)

macmikeman said:


> ElectricLight,how about helping Hax with his exit light problem........


Who is hax?


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

randolph333 said:


> They're asking about LEDs…until prices are quoted and then it's only the high-end clients that stick.


Yes. LEDs are expensive. The revolving door sale at Home Depot with different brands on sale every day don't represent the real cost. Those are what interests people and aware them about LEDs. The high-end clients are buying them for aesthetic or decorative reasons. An 800 lm LED (13W CFL equiv) costs $8... when they're not on sale. when a single pack costs less than a four pack... you know something's up 



> It depends. One hospital facilities manager I know is very happy with Philips EvoKit troffer refurbishing kits. What she's spending on installation and the kits themselves she's getting back in reduced maintenance costs, but a hospital is a large building with a lot of luminaires.


Do they ever group re-lamp or chase after dead lamps perpetually? 
I checked out the kit. The cost per million lumens of output is considerably higher than fluorescent retrofits. 



> For one small residential client's kitchen I recommended high-CRI 2700°K tubes fluorescent tubes on cost and I'd probably do that again. For small clients, the long term savings don't justify the upfront costs unless there are other advantages—longevity, toughness, spectrum, or what-have-you. One issue to watch out for: you won't get good dimming performance unless you also replace the dimmer and make sure to match it to the LED driver. Some residential users really like very dim settings for middle-of-the-night uses and that requires fairly expensive drivers and controls.


Any dimming below 10% is for aesthetics.


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

MHElectric said:


> Dude! It's the future of lighting. And at the rate we're going, there will be something that takes the place of LED in the near future. Like it or leave it. LED IS only going to get better.


At what rate? When you compare high efficiency T5 and T8 systems with reasonably available high-end LEDs, the energy reduction relative to T8 is low while cost is much higher. 



MHElectric said:


> *Only so many people could possibly still be wanting t-8 and T-5 retros.* Seems like everybody is asking what we think about LED. Heck, check the lighting section here - every other thread is about LEds.


Perhaps people who have been presented rational side by side options like the example below:

As an example, we'll look at a four lamp fixture running moderately aged "735" 2,600 mean lamp lumens in a fixture only achieving 60-65%: 5,500-6,000 lumens per 112W: 

3 options:

T8:85% reflector kit with 28W lamps 5,700 lumens for 72W 
T8:85% reflector kit with 25W lamps 5,200 lumens for 65W 
LED kit: 5,700 lumen for 63W @ double price. 

36% vs 44% energy saving. 

The LED kit may provide 100 LM/W initially, but it does not stay at initial lumen forever. I used mean lumens for everything in above examples. Too many LED retrofit projects fail to deliver original performance due to under-delivering light. 

The output of existing fixtures can not be reliably measured, so you BS it in your favor, I mean... estimate. 

I understand your point. LED is the trendy thing to have. It's a fashion statement. If you're not promoting it, you're not drinking the Kool-Aid. 
Many LED sales people don't understand T5 or T8 and lighting suppliers that only deal with LEDs don't want Super T8 to appear as side-by-side competition to LEDs. 

Many threads are about residential where things like kW/million lumens and $/ML is not part of the issue. T5 and T8 systems can provide total output efficacy level of 80-90 LPW and with your baseline is at this level, further gain is hard to materialize savings.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Electric_Light said:


> At what rate? When you compare high efficiency T5 and T8 systems with reasonably available high-end LEDs, the energy reduction relative to T8 is low while cost is much higher.
> Perhaps people who have been presented rational side by side options like the example below:
> As an example, we'll look at a four lamp fixture running moderately aged "735" 2,600 mean lamp lumens in a fixture only achieving 60-65%: 5,500-6,000 lumens per 112W:
> 3 options:
> ...


Do you really sound like this when the customer wants an LED bid?

I've got to say, I've done a lot of T8 retrofits and the customers are never disappointed. They bring the power bills down and they put out plenty of light. There's no argument here.

But fluorescents are yesterday's lights. They are not getting better. At least not at the same rate that LEDs are. EVENTUALLY, it will be all LED or something else. See how they have phased out all the t12s? See all these new energy codes that everybody's adopting? One of my suppliers doesn't even want to quote me t8 retrofits anymore, it's either t5s or leds.

I don't think fluorescent lighting is a bad choice, I've just chosen to keep moving forward with the flow of things and not get left behind.


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

MHElectric said:


> Do you really sound like this when the customer wants an LED bid?


If you manufacture furniture for someone and a customer orders a big batch of furniture in the dumbest color imaginable, you wouldn't argue how stupid you think it looks  

My point is that those involved should decide on technical specs and know what's out there rather than thoughtlessly letting "shall be LEDs" get set in stone. Asking if it's L90 vs L70 rated would weed out some LED proposals. Specifications are everything and that's why you see one brand of T8 lamps showing 2700 and another showing 2725. 

For high-end stuff, as long as it complies with the law, the selection of light fixtures become interior decoration shopping and sky's the limit. 



MHElectric said:


> I've got to say, I've done a lot of T8 retrofits and the customers are never disappointed. They bring the power bills down and they put out plenty of light. There's no argument here. But fluorescents are yesterday's lights.


Like bicycles and gasoline engines? Those are so yestercentury's techs. 

735 and 741 lamps were by far the volume leader even though the cost difference per million lumens of lighting between 700 series and Super T8 is not even remotely close to what LEDs cost over Super T8. The diminishing return has already flattened quite a bit since the change to first generation T8. Situations are utility rate dependent. Places like Southern CA, New England region and HI drives up the national average rate to look rather high. 

Raising maintained system LPW from 85 to 105 yields less savings than you may realize. Only about $2,000 per ML per year at 10c/kWh with around the clock operation even though the hardware cost difference can be over $20,000/ML in comparison to super T8. 

Many commercial & industrial rates are lower than 10c/kWh 



> They are not getting better. At least not at the same rate that LEDs are. EVENTUALLY, it will be all LED or something else. See how they have phased out all the t12s? See all these new energy codes that everybody's adopting? One of my suppliers doesn't even want to quote me t8 retrofits anymore, it's either t5s or leds.


They're not getting better? Super T8 Long Life today lasts about four times longer than first generation T8 lamps and about 20% higher efficacy. 

Have you not noticed LEDs stalling too? In LED land, did you not see CREE downgrade their LED bulb? Their older one got 800 lm for 8.5W, but the newest one is 815 lm per 11W. In a way, LEDs are struggling in getting past the specs of increasing durability of T8 systems while keeping $/million lumens except in luxury fixtures. I remember seeing high-bays rated at 140-150 LPW in catalog (I recall $1,200 for 15 or 18K lm model) which have since disappeared and they're to 120LPW, and maybe 125LPW for 5,500K 70 CRI non diffuser glare cannons. 



> I don't think fluorescent lighting is a bad choice, I've just chosen to keep moving forward with the flow of things and not get left behind.


LEDs are not at the point where they can provide low enough cost/ML of installed capacity at 6-10c/kWh industrial and commercial rates. LED sales brochures are constantly getting updated, but the fluorescent lamp included for comparison purpose is not kept up to date. 

Maintenance savings are hard to put into numbers. Many LED sales claims assume 100% reliability on LED systems and ignore that they're much more likely to require multiple trips to repair and longer downtime due to their nature of non-standard ballast.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Electric_Light said:


> If you manufacture furniture for someone and a customer orders a big batch of furniture in the dumbest color imaginable, you wouldn't argue how stupid you think it looks
> My point is that those involved should decide on technical specs and know what's out there rather than thoughtlessly letting "shall be LEDs" get set in stone. Asking if it's L90 vs L70 rated would weed out some LED proposals. Specifications are everything and that's why you see one brand of T8 lamps showing 2700 and another showing 2725.
> 
> For high-end stuff, as long as it complies with the law, the selection of light fixtures become interior decoration shopping and sky's the limit.
> ...


I can't argue with you when you use all these numbers and percentage in your posts -- I'm just an electrician, my sales rep at the supply house understands all that stuff. I just install what they sell me.

How can you travel the country and do all these lighting jobs and hate LED so much, and then watch all of your competitors install them every day without any problems? Don't you think if the ROI was really that bad, then nobody would be buying these jobs? And how come you don't ever talk about all the cheap ballasts and fluorescent lamps that go bad 10 days out of the box, and we've got to come back and fix?


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## daveEM (Nov 18, 2012)

I'm actually going to recommend long life T8s to a customer. Parkade lighting and I just can;t see sucking in the customer to LEDs. Running 24/7 that's almost 9,000 hours a year.

Five years another rebuild? New fixtures?

Sylvania has some long lifers at $5 ... Last 50 - 60 - 84,000 hours. 

Led type T8s at $34. Big difference. Similar light output.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

daveEM said:


> I'm actually going to recommend long life T8s to a customer. Parkade lighting and I just can;t see sucking in the customer to LEDs. Running 24/7 that's almost 9,000 hours a year.
> 
> Five years another rebuild? New fixtures?
> 
> ...


My bro in law works at a Lighting company, and they just re-lamped an entire parking structure with LED type t8s. About 5000 lamps. 

That's a nice chunk of change.


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

MHElectric said:


> I can't argue with you when you use all these numbers and percentage in your posts -- I'm just an electrician, my sales rep at the supply house understands all that stuff. I just install what they sell me.
> 
> How can you travel the country and do all these lighting jobs and hate LED so much, and then watch all of your competitors install them every day without any problems?


When an order for 1,000 hot pink cars is submitted, it's going to cause those cars to get customized to order and delivered. Some buying agent putting together spec requirements using vendor suggested specs or accepting LED proposals are key steps that lead to LED installations become scheduled. 



MHElectric said:


> Don't you think if the ROI was really that bad, then nobody would be buying these jobs? And how come you don't ever talk about all the cheap ballasts and fluorescent lamps that go bad 10 days out of the box, and we've got to come back and fix?


Only the Government can afford to consider a 10 year simple payback as a break even. I don't talk about garbage products, because it's not exclusive to fluorescent. For savings to become fruitful, the inefficiency of existing systems is essential. If you're currently getting 8 mpg, an overpriced 35 mpg can produce a positive ROI, but if you introduce a much cheaper 30 mpg vehicle as one of the possible choices(that salesman did not talk about...), you may never recover the price difference between the additional savings that you get by going to 35 instead of 30. 

LEDs are marketed differently, because they use their initial lumen and assume that it stays the same during lifetime, but many degrade 30% by the time they reach it. It wasn't until the last few months that life rating using more reasonable 10-20% depreciation became more common. 

Ask your supply house sales rep the best life, best efficiency for best T8. My instinct is that he'll give you something really low. Truth about fluorescent systems could affect the sales volume of LED fixtures that yield them much higher dollar profit per unit sold. 

These don't make the market easy for cost driven boring industrious looking fixtures when this one gets 95-99.8%, all in downlight. No uplight. 
It's got 7,080 lumen delivered out of the fixture on two lamps using high BF ballast using 74W. 

http://www.cooperindustries.com/con...cuments/metalux/spec_sheets/070947_mbf_t8.pdf




daveEM said:


> I'm actually going to recommend long life T8s to a customer. Parkade lighting and I just can;t see sucking in the customer to LEDs. Running 24/7 that's almost 9,000 hours a year.
> 
> Five years another rebuild? New fixtures?
> 
> ...


25 and 28W lamps are not meant for outdoors. They don't like the cold. 
You'll have to go with 32W and it's only available in 50,000. 
Fixture enclosed? 

Yep, LEDs are EXPENSIVE



MHElectric said:


> My bro in law works at a Lighting company, and they just re-lamped an entire parking structure with LED type t8s. About 5000 lamps.
> That's a nice chunk of change.


What's the climate and were they enclosed fixtures? If they were open and you're in a cold climate, I don't disapprove. 32W T8 loses 50% at 32F.


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## daveEM (Nov 18, 2012)

Electric_Light said:


> 25 and 28W lamps are not meant for outdoors. They don't like the cold.
> You'll have to go with 32W and it's only available in 50,000.
> Fixture enclosed?


Heated parkade. Not that huge a job but currently open 2 lamp strip lights T12s with a wire guard.

I'm waiting to discuss this with the Sylvania rep on my options.


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

daveEM said:


> Heated parkade. Not that huge a job but currently open 2 lamp strip lights T12s with a wire guard.
> 
> I'm waiting to discuss this with the Sylvania rep on my options.


https://assets.sylvania.com/assets/Documents/FL083R5.00f41d36-53cd-4480-a4f4-c309fdc0e382.pdf

see note 2 on page 1. 
The longest life ones are only available in 28 and 25W.These are like F34T12 and do not support reliable starting below 60F as well as suffer output. Ballast label will often read 0 or -20F for F32T8, but 60F starting for Saver lamps. 

52,000 hour one is available for 32W though. 

YMMV depending on brand, but this general pattern is the same for all three brands.


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## daveEM (Nov 18, 2012)

^^ Yeah that tube was my original plan. I did a post on an 84,000 hour bulb.

I agree tho 50,000 hours. On their Ultra HE LED retrofit KIt which uses the T8 LED Tube rather than the one we speak of above they warranty that tube/system for 5 years or 43,800 hours if run 24 hours a day.

^^ That's what I be doing. Turn them on and walk away.

1. So an electronic ballast ($12.00) two long life 800Xp/XL fluorescent tubes ($10.00) or...

2. The LED retrofit kit (driver ? $32.00) and a couple of LED tubes ($70.00)

Same light, same hours, $22 parts or $102.00 parts per fixture.

What do you think? The board going to LED so they can say they are trendy. Besides I'm thinking the electronic ballast will also run the LED tubes 5 years down the road whereas the driver won't run the fluorescent T8s.


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

daveEM said:


> ^^ Yeah that tube was my original plan. I did a post on an 84,000 hour bulb.


Who's the LED hater you had on mind? :jester:



daveEM said:


> I agree tho 50,000 hours. On their Ultra HE LED retrofit KIt which uses the T8 LED Tube rather than the one we speak of above they warranty that tube/system for 5 years or 43,800 hours if run 24 hours a day.


Honestly, kits that use specialized ballasts are slated to be discontinued. Stay away. Philips had the same deal that requires a matching lamp + ballast module a few years ago and they're already gone. Ballasts do not last forever and I think they're targeting systems with ballasts nearing end of life. You're going to run into issues when the proprietary ballasts fail later. 



> 1. So an electronic ballast ($12.00) two long life 800Xp/XL fluorescent tubes ($10.00) or...
> 
> 2. The LED retrofit kit (driver ? $32.00) and a couple of LED tubes ($70.00)
> 
> ...


If you get Sylvania lamps with Sylvania ballasts, you can register the whole thing for Quick 60 System warranty. 

There are already several T8 LED drop-in lamps specifically meant to operate on T8 ballasts. They cost $20-30 a lamp. The output is about the same as 25W T8, so they rely on existing fixtures being terrible to have reasonable performance. Cree just had a recal on theirs for melting/catching fire. . .


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## daveEM (Nov 18, 2012)

I just checked some prices at the wholesale. Sylvania t8 LED tubes show discontinued. They have 40 in stock tho. 

LED stuff is fluid.


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## dmxtothemax (Jun 15, 2010)

I am not in any hurry to use LED tubes yet !
In most cases the numbers just don't stack up
The light output is not the same as a standard floro
And ususlly the prices are high
Still a novelty for the cashed up yuppy set.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

I'm not ready to let this thread die just yet...
Back to the original question - Is there really any money in this (LED conversions)?

Yes. People are buying them, products are getting better, LED is becoming more affordable, and this is only going to continue. LED appears to be on the brink of an explosion of work. Be prepared and move forward with it. :thumbsup:

Like MTW said, the large commercial/industrial jobs are better left to the lighting companies. They have guys that eat/breathe/sleep retrofits -- there's no competing here with them IMO. They make electricians look like turtles. If you want to break into this type of work my suggestion would be to go work for a lighting company FIRST, and then try your hand at it.

BUT!!!!...There's a whole world full of fluorescent lights that are ready to be retrofitted, and the large commercial market is only one part of a huge arena of work. Your picture looks like it's in a small auto garage (?? Maybe??), places like this are prefect for the picking. No lighting company is going to be fighting you over stuff like this, they're more worried about landing contracts for 30 fast food restaurants, not mom & pop businesses. This is where small electrical companies can thrive with LED conversions.

LED retrofits, LED fixtures, LED tubes....LED LED LED!!!! If you are any kind of a betting man, go with this! It's the direction that lighting is heading in, it's a part of the energy efficient snowball, and it's where people are starting to spend considerable amounts of money.


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