These Costco Feit LED tubes are VERY BRIGHT compared to the fluorescent lights. Maybe that's because the T12 ballast is "overdriving" them? I don't know, but it's like daylight in the garage now with 12 of them lighting up the ceiling.
They cost $7 each, on sale, at Costco.
Googling for the price for fluorescents at Home Depot, for both T8 and T12, a ten pack is 20 to 35 bucks, so, about 1/3 to 1/2 the price. Given the fluorescents don't last as long (we hope anyway, that the LEDs last longer), that's about the same if the LEDs last twice to three times longer.
So, I figure, roughly anyway, the price is (about) the same.
Energy, the box says, is about half, but let's assume that since I'm using the T12 ballast on a T8 LED, that I only get about 1/4, but that's a bonus anyway.
This is a garage. They're on only when we use the garage which is a few times a day for short periods of time (although the kids leave the lights on all the time, so that's a factor).
I just learned what "program start" meant, and that's "rapid start", which these fixtures seem to be. There is no "starter" in evidence anyway. Just the ballast and the words "rapid start" on the assembly.
This is good that the LEDs can better handle the on/off as these lights are in a garage so they won't be left on (except by mistake).
My main objective now, is to replace the bad T12 ballast with a T8 from Home Depot, which will allow me to put the LED T8 lamps in that one fixture.
It will be an experiment, since the other three fixtures are T12 ballasts, so, and one of them has four new fluorescent bulbs, so, I'm running this experiment unwittingly for the four sets of fixtures (with 4 bulbs each):
- 4 Fluorescent T12 bulbs on a T12 ballast
- 4 LED T8 bulbs on a T12 ballast
- 4 LED T8 bulbs on a T12 ballast
- 4 LED T8 bulbs on a T8 ballast