PARMIDA 20-Pack 4FT LED T8 Ballast Bypass Type B Light Tube, 18W, UL-Listed for Single-Ended & Dual-Ended Connection, 2200lm, Frosted Lens, T8 T10 T12, UL, FCC - 4000K

I love saving 22 Watts per tube by eliminating the heavy, inefficient ballasts in our fixtures. The brightness & shatterproof coating are nice upgrades from old fashioned fluorescent tubes. Wiring diagrams on the cardboard sleeves are concise. Arrived ahead of schedule.Update: 23Jan2019The Parmida LED T8 Light Tube we're using as plant lights are cool in so many ways. They don't need a ballast to waste energy by generating heat, noise or flickering. That cuts power consumption from 40W to 18W while giving brighter light. Their wiring options let you make a light out of anything that will accommodate mounting the tube and a single tombstone.  Mounting options for the unwired end are only limited by your imagination. The attached collage shows the tube's label with its wiring options as well as how I wired a piece of scrap board as a prototype light fixture. If you use single end powering there is no measurable potential on the unused pins at the opposite end.  Safety note: I did check with a meter before I put my finger on the pins of a lighted tube to illustrate this point. The A and B ends of the tube are electrically identical so the unwired pins remain safe to touch even if the tube is swapped end for end.

I ordered 30 pack of EnVision and 20 pack of Parmida tubes because I only needed 46 tubes. I should have ordered all Envision.Out of 30 Envision, I had 2 bad tubes. Out of 20 Parmida, about 1/3 of them flickered. Worse, all of them were way darker than EnVision which was also rated 2,200 lumens. Parmida was rated 2,200 lumens. No way. Parmida was darker than the fluorescent tubes they were suppose to replace. I also had a Feit tube from Costco that was rate 1,700 lumens. We decided to use that one to replace a flickering Parmida tube. The difference in brightness was noticeable -- Feit was way brighter than Parmida. After spending about 1 hour replacing 20 fluorescent tubes with Parmida (not easy with 14 feet ceiling with fixtures on the way), I decided to bite the bullet, put the fluorescent tubes back, return Parmida tubes or order EnVision tubes. I did not want to make co-workers to work in the darker environment. Terrible product. Brightness is not even close to fluorescent, Envision or Feit. Also bad quality control product as shown by about 1/3 of the tubes flickering. I am returning Parmida tubes and ordering Envision.Sorry I did not take comparison pictures. At this stage, I decide it is not worth it.

I highly recommend these LED lights. Yes you need to remove the ballast but it really isn't difficult. I like that the wiring instructions are right on the lamp. I won't say that installing these is a no brainer but it really doesn't require a lot of brains. A moderate amount of brains. Definitely an improvement over the old fluorescent tubes. Very bright and instant on, no more "buzzing" noise! All of mine worked. If you are installing these lights in a fixture with a diffuser you will probably want to replace every lamp but if you are installing these in say a shop light you may only want to install half of the lamps because they are very bright.

Got tired of replacing fluorescent bulbs, so decided to switch to LED bulbs. Totally worthwhile! Very satisfied with these new bulbs. These cost about 50% more than the fluorescent bulbs I've been using, but it was so worth it. I expect to make up the cost difference in the first year because of the higher efficiency. Just the right color temperature for my finished basement. All of the bulbs arrived in good condition. Used only half of the pack so far, but every bulb has worked just fine. Like another reviewer wrote, the rewiring and removal of the ballast took about 30 minutes for the first one and it became faster with subsequent ones.Update 12/10: Liked them so much, converted every 4' fluorescent fixture that I have to use these bulbs. All bulbs have worked fine out of the box and every bulb installed continues to work well. Brightness and color temperature has been just right for my finished basement, workshop and craft area.

Started converting the 1st floor of my shop with a box of 4000Kelvin, 2200 Lumen bulbs. This was replacing TL741 Philips bulbs which are 4100Kelvin and about 2600 Lumens. I find these a tiny bit hotter in the temp color and absolutely outstanding in the brightness department. WOW! These LEDs don't blow light out to the back of the fixture like florescents do, so all 2200 Lumens go where they need to be... and at about half the power draw!! As to the conversion process, it is nice to ditch the ballast. The first fixture took about 40 minutes to do, just to get familiar with it and make sure I had it right. The rest of the fixtures are less than 10 minutes on the bench. Easy-Peasy once you prototype the first one. I ordered a pile more. 29 more fixtures to go... Highly recommend these if you can handle the conversion to eliminate the ballast. Parmida's site has complete instructions on it. Should be no problem if you can read, are a bit handy, take your time with the first one, and fully test it.... A couple of afterthoughts - 1. I timed one fixture conversion. 6 minutes, 10 seconds on the bench. 2. These new LEDs run MUCH cooler than the old flourescents. Good thing if you are sitting on the hottest day of the year so far, like I am today where I live.

Nothing to it; I was a little skeptical at first that it could be this simple.. With the type A tubes you just pop out your fluorescents and pop these in (you must have the right type of existing ballast). With type B you have to spend two minutes cutting the wires to your ballast, and wire-nutting a couple of wires together differently. The light is nice and bright. I'm very happy that I didn't have to tear out my old fixtures and replace them. (They also have type AB for people who don't want to do all their ballast-bypassing at once).