My mum has two kitchen ceiling lights that use 28w 2D lamps with 2 pin fittings. Her eyesight is getting worse and it would be helpful to fit a brighter lamp but the 38w ones are 4 pin and the ballast inside the fitting will need upgrading. Can I just buy 38w ballasts and 4 pin sockets to rewire the fitting, and if so, any recommendations for ballasts ?
Can i convert a 28w 2D light fitting to use 38w lamps ?
- Thread starter john77
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I looked at 2D and the smaller units are a smaller size, but the 28 and 38 are same physical size, so a 38 watt guts should fit a 28 watt lamp, but why bother? In the main you need to remove fitting to get the gear out, so may as well simply renew the whole lamp, the 2D was a good lamp, and likely the LED is no better, but LED switches on faster.
There are LED units which fit in the 2D, but often their output is lower, the fluorescent lamp does get dimmer with age, and a HF ballast will produce more light than a wire wound ballast, so hard to work out the lumen, but 28 watt around 2000 lumen and 38 watt around 2550 lumen.
12 watt LED = 1320 lumen
18 watt LED = 1600 lumen to 2000 lumen
I was surprised two 4 pin LED replacements both 18 watt from the same firm with such a large output difference, the same was true with fluorescent to be far, tube coatings varied and this resulted in more or less light from same size tube. The same with a whole 24 watt LED lamp, found one at 2400 lumen, but they do vary, some down to 1800 lumen.
I swapped my lights when the energy saving bulbs came out from 3 light to 5 light because could not get a nice looking 11 watt CFL so went for 8 watt golf ball lamps, a failure, going to 10 x 3W LED instead of 10 x 8W CFL was an improvement, but had to use 10 x 5W LED before satisfied, and when the original 8W CFL cost me around £4 each the cost of getting it wrong was rather high.
The 8W CFL bulbs claimed to have highest lumen output, but I know from the setting used with camera in fact they had lowest output, and this is a real problem, it seems the lumen in real life does not tell you real output of the bulb.
There are LED units which fit in the 2D, but often their output is lower, the fluorescent lamp does get dimmer with age, and a HF ballast will produce more light than a wire wound ballast, so hard to work out the lumen, but 28 watt around 2000 lumen and 38 watt around 2550 lumen.
12 watt LED = 1320 lumen
18 watt LED = 1600 lumen to 2000 lumen
I was surprised two 4 pin LED replacements both 18 watt from the same firm with such a large output difference, the same was true with fluorescent to be far, tube coatings varied and this resulted in more or less light from same size tube. The same with a whole 24 watt LED lamp, found one at 2400 lumen, but they do vary, some down to 1800 lumen.
I swapped my lights when the energy saving bulbs came out from 3 light to 5 light because could not get a nice looking 11 watt CFL so went for 8 watt golf ball lamps, a failure, going to 10 x 3W LED instead of 10 x 8W CFL was an improvement, but had to use 10 x 5W LED before satisfied, and when the original 8W CFL cost me around £4 each the cost of getting it wrong was rather high.
The 8W CFL bulbs claimed to have highest lumen output, but I know from the setting used with camera in fact they had lowest output, and this is a real problem, it seems the lumen in real life does not tell you real output of the bulb.
As above simply replace the whole fitting.
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To précis ericmarks post.
Judge comparative light output by the lumen spec.
A 15watt warm white light will be not be as bright as a 15watt cool white fitting.
Judge comparative light output by the lumen spec.
A 15watt warm white light will be not be as bright as a 15watt cool white fitting.
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