Compact Flourescent to T5 conversion

[reefnjunkie]

Recently I swapped out my Compact Fluorescent bulbs to T5's and have had a few folks PM me regarding it with some questions so I thought I would post up what I did in a short thread.

 

The whole conversion took less than 30 minutes and is a piece of "pie"

 

Basically my fixture was originally 2-250MH DE bulbs with 4-65 Compact Fluorescents. Each CF had its own ballasts so I was able to use the existing ballasts and just do a simple re-wire.

My CF are/were the straight pin configuration so all you with the square pin, I'll post up my best guess as to how you handle yours at the end.

 

Looking at the CF bulb you see it curves so think of it as a single bulb that has been bent (which is what it is I believe).

Anyway the 2 most left wires and the 2 most right wires make up the "2 ends” of the bulb and connection.

 

I clipped the 2 left most wires (it does not matter which wires go to the new T5 fixture so you don’t have to be concerned about hot/neutral etc) and those became the 2 wires that went to one of the end caps for the T5 connector, the other wires, the 2 right most wires from the old CF connector make up the other 2 wires for the other end of the T5 bulb.

 

I spliced some additional wire because I needed the extra 4 feet and connected them to the end caps and I was done.

 

The new T5 connectors ran me 5.00 total and I traded for the T5 bulbs.

 

The T5’s are 54 watts vs. 65 watts and the one T5 puts out more light than the 2-65watt CF did, so less than half the wattage for more color-Bonus

 

For those with the square pin, my "guess" is just try different combos of wires, use one wire and then keep trying another wire with that 1 original wire until you find the 2 that fire the bulbs-it should either work or not, when it works, you found the correct wires.

 

Since it only took a single ballast per bulb, I have 2 extra ballasts for back

 

I assume zero liability for anyone who tries this and gets hurt in the process due to electrocution fire or anything.

 

This is merely what I did

 

Piece of Pie

[kenf729]

Just have to say thans for the great write up...I swapped my 4 65w pc to two t5's much more light not to mention better quality, the process of swapping out the lights was super easy...

[ClayTheSavageFraser]

Where did you get the T5 connectors?

 

Clay

[kenf729]

Where did you get the T5 connectors?

 

Clay

 

I went to Saltwater Fantaseas, talk with Pat, he's a great guy, new they cost $12 a set. not sure if he has any used connectors, but worth asking...

[ClayTheSavageFraser]

Would these work for what we are gonna do?

 

http://www.fruitridgetools.com/storefrontprofiles/processfeed.aspx?sfid=136763&i=243069608&mpid=8171&dfid=1

 

Clay

[reefnjunkie]

Those look exactly like what I used, I was just lucky enough to have the wires already attached.

Those look like the type where the wire will just push in from the bottom and lock in place.

 

You are good with those Clay

[ClayTheSavageFraser]

Saweet!! I am on it!!!