Which do you use, LED tubes or LED fixtures? The LED tube is a self-contained light. Depending on the type, these can be run with or without a ballast or both. The LED integrated troffer has the diode lighting strips and circuitry permanently attached inside the fixture/troffer or panel light. Whether it’s replacing T5, T8, or T12 fluorescent lamps, two choices emerge.

The two products compared are based on what your actual needs look like. If you need a contemporary design, then an LED troffer may be a likely candidate. However, if an LED diode strip literally goes out, the entire fixture will need to be replaced. Some manufactures have access panels to an external driver as these can break down. The LED tube light has a mini-driver within each tube light. If that goes out, you just replace the tube light, not the entire fixture.

The energy company also puts a cap, a limit, on the incentive amount when using LED fixtures. Hence, this cap can extend the ROI up to 50% over a tube replacement.

To get the best of both worlds is to use a traditional fluorescent fixture that fits and do a simple conversion on it. Some manufactures are providing fixtures wired for LED tube lights. A diagram of the direct-wire options can be found at https://www.crslight.com/t8_led_tube_light.htm.

If you have fluorescent fixtures already in place, then it may worth considering a fixture conversion. This option eliminates the ballast and involves wiring up the LED tubes direct. Reducing the number of lamps is a viable consideration as the quality of LED’s can add additional foot-candles and brightness. In pre-lamped areas such as storage rooms or low use hallways, reduced lamping can save money— the cost of the lamp and energy usage.

This thinking is key if you are after kilowatt savings, a faster ROI, and a way to increase the incentive check issued from the energy company. The energy company’s incentive offering is all about bringing down kilowatt usage.

If some of the fixtures are in need of replacement, not to fret. You’ll find that most of the traditional fixtures are repairable or replaceable. If you have a few faded plastic lenses, these can be replaced, even the wrap around lenses are still manufactured. The rare broken receptacle can be easily replaced as well. You can learn more about this at the above CRS Light link. This strategy is also very green as it saves on trash handling and recycling energy. Just replacing bulbs will not create the dust of replacing an entire fixture as ceilings can have lots of dust and construction debris. If you have animals or small children about as in a veterinery clinic or childcare center, this switch will have to be managed extremely carefully.

Another benefit of using a replaceable LED tube is that it can allow for taking advantage of future technology. We have seen over the last ten years manufactures leap-frogging one another in the lumens-per-watt ratio arena, lamp life and additional color temperature offerings. So buying into an 8-10 year solution now may permit use of what’s new and better later.

We are just now starting to see “yesterday’s” LED’s being replaced by today’s LED’s.

In short, once you get past a fixture conversion, you are good to go for the long haul in using LED tube lights. If you have any questions feel free to contact us.

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