Matching ANSI codes guarantees that the ballast you chose can be used with your lamp. In a fluorescent light, the bulbs (“tubes”) often go bad first, although leaving a burned-out tube in a fixture without replacing it for a long period of time might eventually cause the ballast to go bad. BallastShop has everything you need to convert to T5 including ballasts, socket adapters, and T5 tubes at great prices. One primary difference between T8 and T12 fluorescent tubes is the size of the tubes and their bases. ), base type, and wattage are usually the most helpful information. Keep in mind not all T12 ballast will act nicely with T8 tubes. If the multimeter gives a resistance reading when the second probe touches any one of the colored wires, the ballast is bad and needs replacement. I tried replacing the bulbs and it continued to do the same thing. Need a large quantity? Most people find that the T8 lamp also provides better color rendering and you will notice a difference on that as well. Ballast-compatible, "plug and play," or "direct drop-in" LED tubes make upgrading to cost-saving, long-life LED technology easy: simply take the fluorescent tubes out of your fixture and put the LED tubes in. T5 lamps are 40% smaller than T8 fixtures, but are capable of containing just as much and sometimes more light in a smaller area. So simple retrofit of that existing type of fixture that goes back decades can still be a viable type of lighting now in and into the future. Locate your ballast. The other thing that’s changed is that color temperatures became more precise over time. The other common lamps are the larger T8 (eight eighths inch = 1") and T12 (twelve eights inch = 1½" tubes). Now that you know what type of tubes you have, the next key is to understand the type of ballast. F96T12 – 8 foot length. ANSI Code. Now the changes coming with many LED tubes replacing even the T8’s. LED equivalents typically use only 50 watts, 71% less energy per fixture. That’s another indication that you have a lamp that is more updated, the designation for color. Like the T5, the T8 tube creates light through advanced electronic circuits and are available in standard 2, 3, 4, and 5 foot lengths. T8 lamps have a 1-inch diameter and T12 lamps are 1.5 inches in diameter. So as much as people will differentiate between the size of a bulb, it’s just as important as to all the characteristics that you get from one type of lighting to another. That led to the development of different kinds of ballasts to accommodate this newer type of 1-inch diameter tube. The Ballast is an electronic, Rapid Start. (1 1/2" for those of you who prefer the simplest form) That would then make the T8 smaller, and the T5 smaller yet. For what it's worth, I just replaced the ballast in a 96" T12-60W single pin 2-lamp fixture. The type of existing lamps, the following are some examples: F40T12 – 4 foot length. These are the basic different characteristics of each different fluorescent lamp type that is most commonly used in offices and … When considering a ballast for your lamp, make sure they have corresponding ANSI (American National Standards Institute) codes. This will reveal a lot about your current fluorescent tube and usually indicate if the bulb is T8 or T12. This combined with the T5 bulb's ability to provide more light (lumen) than the other bulbs means long-term cost savings on your commercial and residential projects. Although the newest T5 lights generally cost more than T8 models, they are lower maintenance than other fluorescent bulbs. I looked at the T8 ballasts and T12, and they both just convert 120v to 277v. Always double check with your lighting specialist or the lamp manufacturer to know what sockets you need. In other words, more T8 fixtures are needed to produced the same amount of light generated by significantly fewer high output T5 bulbs. So it's more than just energy efficiency, it's also the effect that it has. And there were some cases where people had to change out fixtures completely because what they had was so old. For more on this, check out our post, "Shunted vs. non-shunted sockets: How to tell … The ballast is what regulates the current to the fluorescent lamps and provides sufficient voltage to start the lamps A modern, electronic ballast drives the lamp at a much higher frequency, and a picture of these lamps will be clearly different, without such bands. Quite simply, "T" is the diameter of the tube in the lamp. A Quick Way to Determine If Your Fluorescent Fixtures Will Work with Direct Drop-in LED Tubes. When posing the question can a t8 light work on a t12 … It is for a 2 bulb T12 or T8 fixture. Don't worry: the tombstone replacements, like the ballast rewiring in the first place, is a quick, simple task. A t12 ballast is a reference that essentially refers to the size of the tube of the florescent bulb that is being used. A 48-inch T8 lamp produces 2,600 design lumens using 32 watts, while the same size T12 lamp produces 2,520 design lumens using 40 watts. I have read lots of people say you need to replace the ballast. Now with the advent of LED T8 bulbs, people can now move into something that’s even more energy-efficient and won’t have to have a ballast anymore if they don’t want it. This is a question we often get asked and the answer is very simple. It took a very long time but finally back in the mid-80s, T8 lamp technology was introduced and became the new standard for energy efficiency and people began moving to that type of lighting. T12 fluorescent tubes T12 tubes are the largest fluorescent tubes available, but they’re being phased out in favour of T8 tubes, which are smaller and more energy efficient. The good news is that the sockets that are being used today in T8 light fixtures, can be used for the LED T8’s that are coming out on the market all the time. Another way to differentiate the tubes is by knowing the diameter for each. Depending on the ballast, you may have only red and blue wires. The T12 is 1.5 inches in diameter and the T8 is 1 inch in diameter. In many T8 fixtures, the ballast is covered by a casing and the T8 tubes are on top of it, meaning you need to take out the tubes and unscrew the casing to get to the ballast. The T12 is 1.5 inches in diameter and the T8 is 1 inch in diameter. On the most basic level, the T12 and the T8 bulbs have a different diameter tube thickness. The adoption of T8 lighting took some time because people not only had to just change a light bulb, but they had to change a ballast as well. This spawned a whole new variety of fluorescent lighting that continues to be used to this day. The diameter for the T12 is 38mm and 25mm for the T8. Before switching from T12 to T8, be sure to have a conversation with your lighting specialist about which sockets you need. Touch one probe on the white wire and then, one at a time, touch all the other colored wires coming from the ballast with the other probe. Most commercial buildings and people that use them in their homes have the instant start ballast that operates the T8 light bulb. T12 tubes pull 40 watts, and are frequently being replaced with lower wattage t8 tubes, which operate on 32 watts. If you do not see markings, the size or diameter of the tube will be the easiest way to tell the kind that you have installed. Although brightness is basically the same, less energy is used by the T8. Touch the remaining probe to the ends of the blue, red and yellow wires leading from the ballast. Turn the multimeter on the ohms scale. So the bottom line is that these are not interchangeable and if you're going to upgrade from a T12 to a T8 bulb, then you also have to change out the ballast. Many years ago, the research found out that if they could make the light tube thinner, then there would also be greater energy efficiency associated with it. T12 primarily run off a magnetic ballasts and T8 bulbs operate on electronic ballasts. © BallastShop. It’s a length of phosphor-coated tube that went powered on excites the phosphors which create visible light. Hardware store had 2-packs of T8 LED tubes (not explicitly compatible with T12) for $3.75, so I wonder about the electrical stress on these T8s in a T12 fixture. On excites the phosphors which create visible light runs on a magnetic ballast the! 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