LED tube wiring Disconnect required?

[rick5280]

According to NEC 2014, Section 410.130(G)(1), fluorescent luminaires with ballasts are required to have a disconnecting means either internal or external to each luminaire.

How about when the ballast is unwired (or removed) in order to install self-driven LED tubes, in which the 120v (or 277v) branch circuit is wired directly to the socket on one end of the fixture?

Should this be a code requirement, or not?

I think this requirement was put in to address the changing out of ballasts, so you did not need to turn off the switch/breaker feeding the whole row of recessed trouffers. I think that there may be a need to disconnect the incoming power if a socket goes bad, but not necessarily when a tube goes bad, so the same thinking should apply.

Thoughts?

Rick Miell

 

[jap]

Its just my opinion but I feel the installation your describing should never be allowed in the first place.

Its deceiving to say the least.

I feel it should be a violation If someone bypasses the ballast and sends line voltage to the tombstones or the socket without some type of warning label that the fixture has been altered.

JAP.

 

[GoldDigger]

Among other things, having line voltage at the tombstones could cause line voltage to appear at one or more pins of the tube during the insertion or removal process. And the available fault current would be much higher than that available from a ballast.

 

[jap]

Lets say I go to work on a 100w Metal Halide Recessed can light with a medium base socket and there's no lamp in it when I get there.
The inside of the original reflector indicates 100w Metal Halide, looks like a 100w Metal Halide, Smells like a 100w Metal Halide, so thats what I got in my hand fixing to screw it into the socket.

I never put my test leads in a ballasted socket and aint going to start today, so, what would warn me that someone has bypassed the ballast and has sent straight unballasted
277v straight to the socket ?

Nothing.

 

[jap]

I even saw an LED Self ballasted 4 Pin Compact flourescent Lamp the other day.

Unbeleivable to me that anyone woud even design such a thing.

I'm completely against sending line voltage to a socket that for as long as I can remember has had a distinct characteristic of being a ballasted socket.

 

[GoldDigger]

It might have something to do with AHJs enforcing local energy codes requiring a special socket. And therefore an LED replacement for CFL would have to use the same socket type.
But I agree that using the same distinctive socket for both a unit requiring an external ballast and a unit requiring direct line voltage is scary.

A single socket for both CFLs and LEDs with integral drivers does make sense.

 

[jap]

On a 4 Pin Compact Flourescent Socket they had better be very careful as to which 2 pins they choose to put the Power to.
If the the power is landed on the wrong 2 pins and the lamp is in the socket it will remind them very quickly when they go to turn the Power on.

 

[kwired]

Kind of dropped the ball a long time ago on this one, there are meduim based 12 volt lamps commonly used in campers - put one in a 120AC powered socket and see what happens, not as common but there were 230 volt medium based lamps. Get into HID's and/or Mogul base lamps and you always had to watch what you installed.

 

[rick5280]

missed the question

missed the question

While I appreciate the thoughts, my question was concerning the disconnect, within the fixture, that is required for fluorescent ballasts. Would or should this same requirement stand for retrofitted fixtures, where the fluorescent ballast is unwired, and the LED tubes wired directly to the branch circuit?

As far as the replies so far: UL does require a label to be put on fixture when a LED conversion is done, saying that you can't install fluorescent lamps into this retrofitted fixture. Hopefully it is noticeable when someone opens the fixture to troubleshoot.

Thanks.

Rick Miell

 

[jap]

While I appreciate the thoughts, my question was concerning the disconnect, within the fixture, that is required for fluorescent ballasts. Would or should this same requirement stand for retrofitted fixtures, where the fluorescent ballast is unwired, and the LED tubes wired directly to the branch circuit?

As far as the replies so far: UL does require a label to be put on fixture when a LED conversion is done, saying that you can't install fluorescent lamps into this retrofitted fixture. Hopefully it is noticeable when someone opens the fixture to troubleshoot.

Thanks.

Rick Miell

I would say you no longer have a Flourescent Fixture with a ballast.

JAP>

 

[jap]

While I appreciate the thoughts, my question was concerning the disconnect, within the fixture, that is required for fluorescent ballasts. Would or should this same requirement stand for retrofitted fixtures, where the fluorescent ballast is unwired, and the LED tubes wired directly to the branch circuit?

As far as the replies so far: UL does require a label to be put on fixture when a LED conversion is done, saying that you can't install fluorescent lamps into this retrofitted fixture. Hopefully it is noticeable when someone opens the fixture to troubleshoot.

Thanks.

Rick Miell

A self ballasted LED lamp is not the same as a fixture that has been remodeled with an LED Retrofit Kit.

 

[iwire]

Listing wise it is a florescent fixture that has been retrofitted.

In my opinion it is up to the AHJ.

 

[al hildenbrand]

According to NEC 2014, Section 410.130(G)(1), fluorescent luminaires with ballasts are required to have a disconnecting means either internal or external to each luminaire.

How about when the ballast is unwired (or removed) in order to install self-driven LED tubes, in which the 120v (or 277v) branch circuit is wired directly to the socket on one end of the fixture?

Should this be a code requirement, or not?

I think this requirement was put in to address the changing out of ballasts, so you did not need to turn off the switch/breaker feeding the whole row of recessed trouffers. I think that there may be a need to disconnect the incoming power if a socket goes bad, but not necessarily when a tube goes bad, so the same thinking should apply.

Thoughts?

Rick Miell

Listing wise it is a florescent fixture that has been retrofitted.

In my opinion it is up to the AHJ.

2011 NEC 410.130(G) is in Part XII of Article 410 and is titled Special Provisions for Electric-Discharge Lighting Systems of 1000 Volts or Less. LEDs are semiconductors and are not electric-discharge tubes. And, once the fluorescent fixture is converted to LED it is no longer the "system" that it was.

If the local AHJ doesn't have an issue with LED retrofits, then, I think the Code is silent.

There's one more case: something like a 4 foot T8 LED where the T8 contains the LED driver that is supplied by the normal output of either a magnetic or electronic fluorescent ballast. That is, the old ballast provides the power to the LED driver. I just received an email about that this week.

 

[kwired]

I think the main reason the disconnect rule was put in was because of the number of electrocutions there were of people that were replacing ballasts or maybe replacing lampholders with energized circuits which is fairly routine that this kind of task needs to be done, this made it so the ballast could be easily disconnected when performing such tasks.

I would think a change to a self driven LED tube wouldn't require as routine of servicing, the LED tube doesn't fit into the current requirements as others have mentioned, and likely would not be added in the future either because it is not the same situation we had with fluorescent tubes and ballasts. But you never know they very well still could make changes that specifically include such a disconnect for LED luminaires. I think just how much maintenance they will require will be a big determining factor, but supposedly they are not supposed to need as much maintenance as fluorescent technologies do.

 

[jap]

I'm a big fan of the new rule for individual disconnecting means for Flourescent fixtures.

If this had been in play back before I knew any better and was changing out ballasts hot at the checkout line at Walmart years ago in sight of several hundred people, there would have been a lot less incidents of me getting shocked and about falling off my ladder but pretending like I meant to do it, or about biting my tongue in half and acting like it didnt hurt, or stuffing the wires back into the belly pan and pinching one and trying to stay calm as it blew up in my face.

My favorites were the old lowbay fixtures that hung off of deep strut runs where the ribbon cable ran inside of the Strut and you would use a "Phase Piercing" tap to energize the fixture and the 480v 3ph power and neutral were only about 1/8" apart in the ribbon on different motorized breakers,,,,, That was always an iteresting turn of the wrench also, seeing as how nobody wanted 3/4's of their lighting shut off to add a single fixture.

JAP>

 

[kwired]

I'm a big fan of the new rule for individual disconnecting means for Flourescent fixtures.

If this had been in play back before I knew any better and was changing out ballasts hot at the checkout line at Walmart years ago in sight of several hundred people, there would have been a lot less incidents of me getting shocked and about falling off my ladder but pretending like I meant to do it, or about biting my tongue in half and acting like it didnt hurt, or stuffing the wires back into the belly pan and pinching one and trying to stay calm as it blew up in my face.

My favorites were the old lowbay fixtures that hung off of deep strut runs where the ribbon cable ran inside of the Strut and you would use a "Phase Piercing" tap to energize the fixture and the 480v 3ph power and neutral were only about 1/8" apart in the ribbon on different motorized breakers,,,,, That was always an iteresting turn of the wrench also, seeing as how nobody wanted 3/4's of their lighting shut off to add a single fixture.

JAP>

The disconnect rule doesn't apply to lowbays (assuming you are talking HID's here) just "double ended" lamp type luminaires.