[TR] LED tube florescent light replacements

[Randall]

> I think the LED scene is more wild west in nature. Some LEDs 
> have a very narrow wavelength so the color rendition can be 
> weird. 

Look for the color rendering index or CRI.  It should be published for any
quality lamp and you can compare the number to your old bulbs.  I looked up
some F96T12HO/CW bulbs and they say CRI 60, while the LEDs I got have a CRI
of 80.  80 still isn't great, I wouldn't want to use them for photography
lighting, but it's pretty good.  (100 is perfect)

> Another thing to consider is when the LED elements either 
> burn out or go bad, do you have to replace the whole fixture 
> or can you find just the lamp.

I have not seen an LED fixture that had replaceable LEDs.  But with a
typical advertised lifetime of 50,000 hours, do you really need to replace
just the LEDs?  If you run them 8 hours/day, 7 days/week, that works out to
about 17 years.  By then, they will probably have better lights anyway.

> I remember the first of the 
> compact fluorescents that had a screw in ballast and then a 
> 2-pin or a 4-pin tube that would get pushed into the ballast. 
> I bet those things are now considered unobtanium. (Which is 
> probably a good thing - they were horrible)

I had some of those; but the ballast died before the third bulb did.  Think
I've still got a couple of bulbs, but the bare bulbs cost more than a bulb +
ballast does now.

-- Randall