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Fluorescent ballast replacement for 48" four bulb fixture
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- Опубликовано: 16 окт 2011
- This is how I replace the ballast in a T8 fixture. You can convert a T12 to T8 as well. Fluorescent bulbs are very dangerous if you cut yourself with one so be careful. I am not an electrician, just a DIY person. Shut off the power so you don't electrocute yourself.
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I have installed many electrical items in our home and the homes of my family, but I have never replaced a ballast! I wouldn't have been able to do it without this video! The ballast that the home depot said I needed had more wires and they were in different places. I looked up the configuration and thought the worse thing I could do was fry it, and have to buy a new light. I didn't know that thing about wire nuts, learned something new!! My light lasted 9 months and I wouldn't use words like junk or crap to describe it. I almost bought more because it really made a difference where I used it. Thanks for your help! It is working fine now and if it goes out in another 9 months, I am going to drop kick it over the deck rail and beat it to death with my big sledge. Never buy Lithonia!! I wouldn't have another one if Home Depot was giving them away for free!!!!!!
Jim Miller Glad it helped.
LOL- I have the same fixture with that original Keystone... it lasted 3.5 years. Great Video! Great tip on filing the paint for grounding. I love the 'piece of junk' quote you said at least twice about the Keystone. I thank you... same here
I replaced my original ballast which was a Keystone just as yours. I liked the use of the non-contact AC Voltage detector. I went out and bought one and it's better than I imagined. The only thing I do not agree with is, the wire nuts. The orange wire nuts are good with the 12 gauge wire from the house wiring, but the ballast wiring connecting to the fixture wiring is a high gauge and the connections work a lot better with the blue wire nuts. I was not able to get the orange to tighten. I'm saying this to let the next person know to have at least 6 blue and 6 orange and use which ever work best. There already are two orange connected to your ballast and house wiring.
Thank you for this video, it gave me the confidence and I changed out the ballast, and with any electrical task I do, I'm happy to say I'm still alive :-)
Really appreciate the tutorial....and a few chuckles. Well done!!!
Rotohound - I would have replaced the unit, by you made replacement of the ballast so simple. Great teaching here, thank you.
+norman brown Glad it helped.
Exceptional, very thorough video with several important bonus tips. I wish more were like this. Thanks!
My light fixtures were installed when my house was built in '99 and they're still working well. I'm realizing more and more that even things made in the late nineties and early 2000's were still pretty decent. Stuff is complete dogshit now.
i thoroughly enjoy the sharp, blunt comments.
appollion32
Me too😁
You should of been a teacher, if you're not.....You are very good at explaining things in order and with clarity! Thank you and my advise is for you to make more video's....you're good buddy...
Thanks for posting. Followed your instructions and fixed my light. I had the exact ballast (Keystone) in your video. Appreciate you taking the time to post.
Thank you for the video, it helped put me at ease quite a bit when replacing the ballast for the first time in my overhead kitchen light. And thanks for the heads up on the voltage detector... It turns out I would have given myself quite a shock if I hadn't bought that.
Never rely only on a voltage tester, use a meter on volts setting, wire to ground. People have died relying on a beeper
So....to replace your dead ballast took the better part of a day, at least 2 trips to your home center because of a bad NEW ballast, and red, yellow and orange twist connectors. And you bought a new voltage tester. So to replace a $50.00 fixture, you spent at least $50.00 not to mention nearly a days worth of work. Does not make much sense to me. I have a 4 bulb fixture in my workshop and two bulbs went out. I was going to replace the ballast but instead I think I will buy a brand new fixture! Thanks for the video. You did a great job at convincing me not to replace the bad ballast! LOL!
+robertbdesmond A little late getting back to you. I must have had 20 of these junk fixtures in my office. Every few months one went out. Took me 15 minutes to replace ballasts which I bought in bulk vs. new fixtures with who knows what ballast. Saved money in the long run and didn't need an electrician every few months. Hope your new fixture lasts.
Thanks for the lesson on using wire nuts. Never dreamed it was so simple. Unfortunately I still don't know how to connect my ballast.
+Bill Stuart Yes, pretty nice. Don't twist the wires together prior to applying the wirenut. Let the wirenut do the twist. Works great.
Yes now how do you connect a 4 bulb ballast with 2 blue and white wires,2 red and white, 2 blue and 2 yellow. The receiving wires are yellow blue and red at each end of the fixture. ??
Bill Stuart
The ballast should have a black and white wire on one end. This goes to the line voltage and hook up exactly as it was with the old ballast. There should be 2 red, 2 blue and 2 yellow wires coming from the ballast. There should be 2 blue, 2 red and 2 yellow wires coming from the fixture. Hook the red ballast wires to the red fixture wires, same for yellow and blue. Use the wire nuts, orange if I remember for these and the power ( black and white ) reuse the wire nuts that are already on, probably red. Hope this helps. If your ballast doesn't have a black and white, 2 yellow, 2 red and 2 blue something is wrong. Also, on the ballast their is usually a wiring diagram. Some companies may use a different color code so use the wiring diagram on the ballast.
Thanks. You know someone posts stuff like this to help others out. I use youtube a bunch when I have a project to figure out. The problem is that someone always wants to flame you. They don't like your voice or something. Makes one not want to bother posting.
Thank you Sir, This instructional is both responsible and thorough - well done!
Pretty much that's it. Make sure the power is off, there is one screw that holds the ballast in place, Probably there are wirenuts on the black and white power source, unscrew those, cut the other wires and I cut usually 12 inches from the old ballast and remove. New ballast scrape the paint to ground, strip wires and trim to acceptable length, wire nut same color to same color and you should be good to go. Better to have long wires on the fixture. Who cares how long they are on the old ballast.
I have replaced these with GE432-120RES-DIY and have had very ggod luck. They too are made in China but have never had a failure. I get them at Home Depot for about $22 each. Stay away from Keystone.
Hey thanks for the info i fixed and replaced the ballast in my kitchen fixture you rock!!
Very helpful and informative video. Much appreciated!
At 6:56 is that what you mean? The right socket was the hot, the left the neutral and the bottom the ground and I believe that is correctly wired. I have one of those plugs that you plug into your outlets to tell if things are not wired right (or not grounded) and mine are correct. The smaller socket on the plug is the hot and the larger ( on the left here) the neutral. Thanks for watching.
Very informative video. thank you
I love it.. Pice of Junk.." hahahaha. The Black paint is an electrically conductive so there is no need to sand the corners. You save more than 20$ per fixture, per year comparing them to T12 magnetic ballasts and lamps.
+kevini001 I learned something new. Didn't know the paint was conductive.
kevini001 Just about to replace another one so I tested the paint to see if it is conductive. It is not. As a matter of fact the instructions with my ballast say use a star washer to make sure it breaks through paint to ground fixtures. I just scrapped paint off.
I would try changing the bulbs first to see if that's where the problem is. In my experience when the ballast is bad the lights just won't turn on.
I do wish you had shown us video of you actually installing the ballast. Watch you connect the wires would be very helpful
As you know this is an old video and I recommend going the LED route and you don’t need a ballast. The ballast though is held up with 2 screws. With the power off you remove the wire nuts powering the ballast, cut all of the wires to the light fixtures, unscrew the ballast screws and throw away the old ballast. The new ballast goes in identical to the old one. Black to black, white to white, etc. Essentially plug and play. I do scrape some paint off around the mounting screws for better grounding. I really don’t recommend this anymore as I have switched to Led and think it is the future. Fluorescent bulbs won’t even be available. Do led that don’t require a ballast. Many videos on these by others.
I should note that when connecting the wires I don’t wrap them around each other. I just hold them side by side, then twist the wire nut around the wires. Make sure the wire nut is secure.
i bought a magnetic ballast thats the same lable everything but being magnetic i wonder if theres any difference
I replaced all of my old t12 with t8. The wiring was identical. Can't get t12 bulbs anymore so you should become a pro at this. I like t8 bulbs anyhow, more energy efficient, easier to replace the bulb compared to t12.
The other thing to worry about in terms of
some electronic ballasts is the ballast making
a loud "pop" sound when a fluorescent lamp
reaches EOL... you also have to worry about
the bad end of the bad bulb melting the socket.
You didn’t show how to disconnect the wires from the bulb connections! That was the whole reason I sat through this video!
You don’t disconnect the wires from the bulb connectors. They are reused on the new ballast.
@@TheRotorhound The wires on the old ballast are connected straight to the sockets. How do I disconnect the wires from the sockets? I took pictures, but I can’t upload them to RUclips.
@@mariehailey6738 You use the wires that come from the bulb connectors to hook to the new ballast. You don’t disconnect them. The ballast has red and blue, etc. You hook the wires that come from the bulb connectors to the new ballast. I show how to do this with wire nuts. Don’t understand why you are trying to disconnect wires from bulb connectors. You aren’t trying to do led bulbs are you? I personally have gone to led for mine. No ballast needed.
@@mariehailey6738 You cut the wires from the old ballast near the old ballast and use wire nuts to connect to new ballast.
@@TheRotorhound yeah, I figured that out after watching a few more videos - and none of them had the ballast wired directly to the light sockets.
RUclips has made posting a response almost impossible. For those that got value from this great.
Almost impossible? Geez. I clicked the reply link, and wahlah.
You were just embellishing, right?
i have a 2 bulb t12 setup on a sign that originally was running an old magnetic ballast. I went to home depot and bought a 2 bulb t12 electronic ballast and wired it up 2 red wires to the 1st socket .Then the 1st socket is jumped over to the 2 socket. then 2 yellow wires to the 3rd socket and 2 blue wires to the 4th socket now it seems to work only when it wants too one time it took 2 hours to come on and sometimes it starts up no problem today i went to switch a bulb that looked like it was dying then after that it wouldnt work anymore i really need help figuring this out
i wonder if ge pro ballast are better than the Philips ballast the ballast that came with this 4 lamp is keystone lol brand lithonia
For GE432-120RES ballasts, you can ignore the insert stating "for commercial use only". This insert apparently comes with all or most GE ballasts but (if you read it carefully) ONLY applies to "FCC CLASS A" products...the "RES" ballast (if you read its label carefully) is an "FCC CLASS B" product. Very confusing if you are a DIYer.
I wish you could have talked more about the screw that holds the ballast to the sheet metal. I have run into a screw that turns with the nut and I may have to use a hacksaw blade to get it off. But I am taking some time to think. I never saw this before because previously the screw had flat sides that kept it from turning.
Sorry but all of the ones I dealt with had a nut that you removed and took less than a minute and the ballast was off. Sounds like you will need to remove the fixture as I don’t know how you will screw a new ballast down. I suggest going to a LED, leave the old ballast in, rewire for the LED and no ballast. Light will be better anyhow.
instead of putting wire nuts I would recommend disconnects for the hot and neutral. they are safer and easy to install
Good info on this video but wasn't that neutral that was tested on the wall outlet and not ground?
Yes. The ground is the third prong
thats all great. now can you post a vid on how to convert t12 to t8? the wiring is all different on mine.....every vid I've seen shows ballast with 2 red 2 blue one end, B&W and 2 yellow on the other end. My ballast is like yours but not sure of the hook up on these old wires...any help with that pal....?
Most T12s I believe use the old fashioned magnetic ballasts, more expensive to run. When one bulb is bad on T12 usually both lights will not work. On T8 if one bulb is bad then that bulb wont light. My recommendation is that if you have a bad ballast convert to T8 ballast. More efficient and in the long run will save you money. I also find it easier to put T8 bulbs in. I believe T12s are being phased out by the bulb police.
You are absolutely correct. I contacted the company and complained and got virtually no response. Let the buyer beware when it comes to Keystone ballasts. They have all failed prematurely in my fixtures. My ballasts all were made in China with a Keystone label. Cat No KTEN-432RIS-1-TP. Looks American but stamped in the case says Made in China. How would you know though when buying a light fixture unless you took it apart.
is there a differences between the orange cap and the yellow cap?
A yellow wire nut connector is meant to hold two #18 wires, or four #14 AWG. The orange wire nut connector can be used from a minimum of one of #18 and one #20 wire sizes up to the maximum of four #14 AWG wires.
Had to look this up. I am not an electrician.
Why is the hot and neutral lead green wires?
That fixture was just an old dummy fixture that I used to test bulbs. That was not mounted to anything and was not the fixture that I replaced the ballast on. Very good observation though. Now of course I recommend led lighting.
At least you have a label on your ballast, I got 2 ballasts and no labels.
Love it - "Piece of junk" repeated in this video.
Great video. I don't see how to get the cover plate off the ballast area, there are several metal tabs holding it in place that i am reluctant to bend and pushing and squeezing doesn't free it. Any ideas?
Judy you need to squeeze the ballast cover towards the middle. It is thin metal and squeezes easily. Try one side first up and down the whole length. If I remember there are 3 places where it is held. Putting it back is the trick as you have to carefully tuck all the wires in. Once you have one side off the other side is easy.
Why do I have 2 ballast in one fixture? Also the yellow wire is coming out from the side of the black and white wire. And the way it's connected now the yellow wire is connected to the opposite side of the ballast. And so the other.
You probably have old magnetic ballasts that's why you have 2 of them. 1 ballast for 2 lamps. You'll be better off if you just convert them over to t8's buy yourself a 4 four lamp t8 electronic ballast.
Why use the orange caps for the yellow wires? What made you use orange and not yellow caps? Not fit in the yellow ones?
filoIII Based on wire gauge. Worked well for me.
fantastic video. thank you
+Jeff Hunter Glad it helped.
Hi I need a how to video for T 12 ballast I have a broken T 12 four lights and uses two ballast can you make a video in instructing how to properly install them
+Omar Acevedo Just use T8 ballast like mine and switch to T8. Every old T12 that I had that went out were old magnetic ballasts and easily convert to T8.
Probably a stupid question, but why the distinction between the various wire nut colors? Great video?
Different colors for different gauge wires.
I don't know the answer. You will have to look at a ballast chart to see if it will work.
Replacing light bulbs/ballast every 4 years is about the average for some people. For others, shorter or longer. Depends on usage; not the manufacturer of the entire assembly.
My advice would be to identify lifestyle choice, and upgrade appliances to suit your lifestyle - rather than what's cheap.
I wish your video showed how to remove the old ballast. How do you disconnect the wires from each bulb socket? Do you have to remove the sockets from each end of the fixture? Also it didn’t show how the new ballast was connected. The new one had the yellow wires on the side with the red and blue, not on the side with the black and white like the old one did. Did you have to push the yellow to the other side?
norywalker You cut the wires with a wirecutter off the old ballast. Make sure you leave plenty of wire on the sockets. One screw then to remove and the old ballast comes off. The black and white power wires probably have a wirenut already so just unscrew those. Don't mess with the sockets. One screw to replace the new ballast. Someone said the paint is conductive so you may not need to strip it. Doesn't matter what side the colored wires are on but splice red to red, blue to blue, yellow to yellow, wirenut them all. You will have to cross some to the left and some to the right. Tuck them under the cover without pinching and replace bulbs to test. Hope this helps.
TheRotorhound - Thanks so much, that helped. I had a piece of junk Keystone ballast, too. It had 2 screws, though. I bought a pack of 6 wire caps and was able to replace the ballast and now my light is working again. Thanks again!
norywalker Glad it helped.
there are two yellow wires. which two connect to the two on the ballast?
BlueWaveDragon You have two yellow wires coming from the ceiling. Usually there is a black and white wire from the ceiling. Do you have a 3 way switch? You need to see if these wires become hot when the switch is turned on. Neon tester or electrical tester. Don't get shocked. Normally the black wire goes to the black ballast wire and the white wire to the white ballast wire. How was your old ballast hooked up? If the yellow wires are coming from the light fixture they go to the yellow wires on the ballast.
TheRotorhound I meant the wires come directly out of the ballast and go back through the fixture and when I cut them did it matter which yellow went to the other yellow. but it didn't. same with the blue and red there are two and I wasn't sure but later figured well it is AC so probably doesn't matter and it works.
BlueWaveDragon Glad you got it working.
Mercury Vapors may last forever but they aren't very energy efficient. On top of that, they would cost at least 10x more to manufacture than bringing fluorescents in from China. Most manufacturers will gladly take a shorter life and spend $15/ballast than spend $150/ballast. American made electronic ballasts cost twice as much than imported ballasts and fixture manufacturers won't pay for it. There is no room in the industry for American made ballasts anymore.
How do you know it's going bad?
filoIII The bulbs wont light.
Never rely on a voltage tester, use a meter always,red lead to wire ,black lead to ground on voltage setting.also don't trust colors on wires, electricity know no color! Only quickest path to ground with least resistance.
You are correct. Am now going led only, easier install, same need to not get shocked. Can’t see why anyone still considers fluorescent.
@@TheRotorhound it only takes 0.05 Amps to cause heart attacks. Current kills not voltage. Fluke make a reliable and affordable meter, t5-1000, wiggies are not reliable. Also retro led bulbs still require ballast no energy savings, eliminating ballast and going to a drive is the way!
@@joerostkowski7313 The leds I use don’t have a ballast, positive on one end, neutral on the other. Much easier to install, brighter, no mercury, and yes, I turn fuses off and still check to make sure no current. I like getting older.
@@TheRotorhound no ballast just a drive gotcha,
@@joerostkowski7313 Drive? Not sure what you mean. One side is hot, one side neutral. Very easy. Ballast removed or just disconnected. I remove the ballast.
Lithonia Lighting from Home Depot with Keystone ballast lasted 1 year.
Garbage.
I have two ballast's on my four bulb fixture... it looks a little more complicated to replace than anything I've seen on RUclips,
Powertuber1000 Do you have the same color wires coming from the connectors? If so you will only need one ballast and red to red,blue to blue,etc.
Actually, most electronic ballasts are made in China, some even in Mexico. You will find very few electronic ballasts made in the US because of the cost to manufacture them. Also, ballasts have been coming in from China for years now. This isn't anything new.
Ditch the ballast and replace with led tubes
Mycouponman They have these in 2011? How about posting a video on how to do this with LEDs.
I put new bulbs in and they still have that dim wavey light.
filoIII Not sure why. When they are cold and you first install them mine does this too.
It's because you either used the wrong color wire-nut OR you used the incorrect type. Make sure you don't use shunted wire-nuts so you don't short out the ballast or bulbs.
@@6977warrior that's rediculous
Not as energy efficient. Also, if one bulb goes I believe 2 will not light. Then you have to figure out which one. With electronic if one bulb goes it is the only one out.
Too much talk, not enough action. All he did for 12 minutes was talk, and showed very little about how to actually change the ballast.
Lay off the coffee man
I came back just to hear.. Crummy, Pure Junk and Piece of Junk.
I hope people go to led lights. I have. I leave this up to remember the good old days.
Dam well useless video doesn’t show u any thing only how to use a wire nut 😂😂 like I said doesn’t show how to replace a ballast
Steve Skinner You actually watch the video? After you cut the wires you take a screwdriver and unscrew the two screws and put the new ballast in, replace the screws. Then you rewire. This video is so old though I recommend you go LED. Watch some other video to learn how to do that. Then when you figure it out post a video of your own.