pardon this non solar issue, i need about 30 warm/cool daylight 4ft 18/24 watt led tubes to replace existing ones - any ideas as to decent price per unit?
regards
gabriel
See there.
While on the topic: I need LED lighting that is extremely reliable. Does anyone have an idea where to look?
Background: Iâve been tasked with replacing the lighting for the local squash courts. Every time we need to replace a light fixture or tube we need to put up scaffolding, and this is becoming ridiculously expensive.
We put in new LED lighting about 4 years ago and already about a quarter have failed, which is not good enough. We are willing to pay a significant premium for lighting that will last a decade or more.
Opple brand, if you can find, seems to last exceptionally.
Other than good quality globes, and I stand to be corrected, but has anyone considered adding protection between Eskom/Generator and the bulbs, like say a UPS or some such to ensure perfect power 24/7/365 ⌠also catering for LS âaccidentallyâ.
Just wondering.
This is something I have come across before.
The same thing happens when it is a helluva job to change light bulbs on a high ceiling, like in a power station.
This is the strategy that was developed to deal with it:
Firstly, you have more lights than you need.
Secondly, you decide on the fraction of lights you can do without.
Thirdly, you replace every bulb when you hit that number of blown bulbs, whether working or not.
In this scenario, bulbs that are at staggered stages of their life cycle is no good.
Otherwise youâll be up and down scaffolding like a brideâs nightie.
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Weâve been doing something similar at our courts where we only replace when many tubes have broken. The nice thing with the LED tubes are that they are much brighter than the normal tubes they replace, so we populate only about 2/3rds of the brackets. I was tinkering with the idea to populate the rest as well but wire them up using a seperate wire that we can switch on at a later stage when many of the existing tubes have expired.
Strangely, we have not really lost tubes to failure, but mostly from player destruction.
I have seen that the Strand club mounted their lights on the sides of the courts which would be easier to reach to replace which I though is an novel idea. According to the rules the lights donât need to be above, it only has to have a minimum luminence on the court.
Great suggestions. The first two weâve already been doing to an extent. I will definitely be pushing for the third.
We have considered following their example, but the concern is that in order to get comparable illumination you have to install many more tubes. I play there quite frequently and I do struggle a bit (but it could just be my eyes).
This is what the lights currently look like:
Those lights are of the kind that require the entire fitting to be replaced if it fails.
Iâm currently leaning towards installing standard tube light fittings on the rafters, but close enough to the side walls to be able to get to them with a ladder leaning against the wall. Itâs still going to be quite scary to get up there though.
A novel idea that Iâve been toying with is to have two lights circuits for each court, each with sufficient fittings to illuminate the court. So we start off using circuit A, and when its light output is insufficient we switch to circuit B. Once both circuit A and B both produce insufficient light we turn them both on at the same time. This way weâre getting 3x the lifespan at twice the initial cost. I donât know if the committee will buy into it though, itâs a bit outlandish.
You need to buy reputable gear. Philips and Osram are still available. I have Osram LED tubes and they havenât failed. I also expect them to last way longer than their florescent predecessorsâŚ
If youâre in CT give Plumstead Electrical a callâŚ
I havenât had great luck with Osram lately. I mean, it probably depends on what you are expecting, but I also find that one or two years is about what I get out of them.
Drove past the old Philips building in Eindhoven last week. I wonder what it looked like in its hey-day. Now itâs just a slightly dirty old building.
I accept that trying to buy a reputable brand light fitting is a challenge given that all lighting is now LED. You need to forget everything you ever knew about this topic. Thatâs fine because LED lighting is superior in almost every department (besides emulating a âback bodyâ)
Osram has sold off itâs light fitting business to Ledvance which presumably is going to maintain the standards 
(Osram now only manufactures LED chips)
But you will always be better off buying a branded product that has a reputation in that business than a no name brandâŚ
PS: Philips managed to make so many business mistakes that itâs now a classic example of how not to do things.
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thanks guys, yes, quality stuff is always an investment⌠the prices differ significantly not only between brands but also the colour of the lights as expressed in Kelvin. so for instance a near blue-white of 6000k is ok for certain commercial and manufacturing areas but far to bright for a bedroom where <3000k will be warmer and more inducive of getting sort of mellow and sleepy. i found that getting the âwarmerâ bulbs will cost more, it obviously is directly related to demand. thanks for all the info, i have ordered some 4000K and some 2700K bulbs and paid approx R38 and R59 per 1200mm T8 respectively, as you might guess not the reputable stuff mentioned in some comments⌠but then my 1st ordinary neon tubes started âblowingâ after 8 years of daily use i anticipate these to last even longer and use at least 50% less electricity and the next question would be if i can do anything worthwile with all the balasts 
A scrapyard will pay you good money for these for both the copper and iron⌠(I donât know how to separate these two myself however⌠)
If two metals not separated they will pay what they call âmixed metalsâ price which is pretty low.
I once stripped a 2kW Outback inverter to itâs respective metals, took most of the day. And it ended up as a paltry R600. Geniune. Even Alu is split between machined and cast as well.
The heavy transformer coil consisted of thin ,metal plates and copper wiring. Wiring ended up as a handfull and plates filled a rectangular potato crate. And thin metal plates is paid on the lowest scale
In my humble opinion, Not worth any effort to strip the ballasts, just take what they give for the sake of the recycling machine.
A lower renumerated mortal ends up doing the splittingâŚ
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I have a local scrap metal depot near me. Itâs the most interesting place. They have a large open bin that the steel scrap gets thrown into. I look into it to see what has been thrown away and buy stuff if I think I can use it⌠Also plenty of LA batteries which I avoid buying no matter what⌠
being slightly dyslexic myself I tend to believe that you actually refer to remunerate⌠welcome to the NAD - the National Dyslexia Association 
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I also havenât done well with Osram. They particularly donât seem to like voltage fluctuations.
I wish I knew what brand to recommend. I have heard good things about Phillips, but have never been able to find them. I do know that not all LED bulbs are equal. Some last longer, some struggle more if the voltage drops (which was a problem in my neck of the woods a while back).
To come back to the original question, go to Liteglo in Randburg if youâre in that neck of the wood. They are specialists in lighting (though they are now branching into load shedding solutions) and Iâve always had good product and good service from them.
If youâre replacing tubes then there seem to be two ways to do it
- Just take the fluorescent out and put the LED tube in.
- Remove (or by pass) the ballast, starters etc. Then you will find that you have to supply power to the âhotâ end of the tube, but for me this is small detail because Iâve removed all that other stuff that goes wrong and can leave you (or at least me) scratching my head as to what has failed.
indeed the name is hardly the name anymore, take nokia - i had nokia mobiles way back, also siemens, they were actually manufactured in germany and finland, yes there is a town called nokia [61.48096303217017, 23.501116935173442] but in the last decades many products with good names have come fom the PRC, good quality names & products like crescent, beretta and stahlwille are still made in the us/italy/germany⌠but then again we all spoke of âjapcrapâ way back in the 60âs, try to buy a makita now⌠
The Chinese are capable of making excellent products. Only by branding will their products be compelled to maintain that standard.
Ledvance are making an effort: Africa | LEDVANCE
Give them a callâŚ
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