These tubes were briefly sold at an unusually low cost on eBay, so I bought one while they were available. It’s a 4-foot T8 (120cm) tube that uses about half the power of a conventional fluorescent tube and pretty much puts out half the light too. Fluorescent tubes will be brighter and last longer than their LED replacements at this point in time, so it’s unfortunate that companies that have been duped by salesmen into replacing their tubes with LED ones will end up paying the price. Especially as the process of fitting them involves the fixtures internal wiring being butchered by gangs of “lighting retrofit specialists” (labourers) in a manner that will leave them in an unknown electrical condition and incapable of taking ordinary fluorescent tubes again without serious rewiring by someone who actually knows what they’re doing.
This type of tube has the end pins shorted and requires live (hot) at one end and neutral (return) at the other. The newer ones may require live and neutral at just one end to reduce the risk of a shock from the other end while fitting the tube. Sadly, this means that a tube like this will short live and neutral completely when inserted. So whoever came up with that “safety” idea is a dick. Especially when any real electrician would not finger the other end of a tube as they inserted it in the first place as even a conventional tube can ionise and give you a shock if you touch the pins at one end while shoving the other end into a live socket.
These tube style lamps seem to commonly use buck regulators which means that the LED strips are not isolated from the mains voltage. The strips slide into an aluminium extrusion that supports the strip and cover, aids with heat dissipation and has screw-channels to allow end caps to be attached.
Under fault conditions like physical dents, water ingress or manufacturing issues it is possible for the entire aluminium extrusion of the lamp to become live. Keep this in mind as it’s inevitable that someone is going to get injured at some point, especially if they are touching a grounded reflector as they insert a faulty tube.
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