Fluorescent Tube Fixture to LED Conversion Tubes???

So, I have 70 year old 3' florescent tube fixtures installed vertically on the sides of my bathroom mirror cabinet. They no longer sell 3' warm white bath and kitchen florescent tubes (Soon to be any tubes and/or fixtures). I have purchased 2 new modern ballast transformer 3' florescent tube fixtures to replace the old capacitor ballast starter rusty fixtures and type A or B LED replacement tubes which can be wired  with or without the ballast and with selectable warm 3000K, cool 4100K, or daylight 5000K color (want warm).

Should I just use the ballasts or should I eliminate them and wire the receptacles 120V direct? To save a couple of cents? Which way is safer in a humid bathroom? Two transformers or just one? I'm also going to add and hard attach and wire a 4' fixture to the top of the two 3 footers after raising them up a couple of inches.

My track record with LED bulbs and fixtures is about 10% failure. I want to be able to just replace the LED bulbs.

Also, none of the wiring has a ground wire. Do I ground the fixtures to the neutral or just ignore the grounds?

The LED's I've been going to take direct 120V to one end. I don't know if I've seen 3 footers though.

As for a ground, I would see if there is metal flex going to it or Romex. I'm not totally sure if the flex can count as a ground(I think so) if an electrician speaks up we'll both know for sure, lol. If not, you could run a ground to the box the flex came from. Romex should have a bare wire in it for your ground but it might have been cut short.

In reply to jgrewe :

Thanks, it's just that 70 yo old braided Romex type stuff. I am inclined to wire them direct without the ballast, but I worry that they will discontinue the bulbs before I die. These weren't exactly cheap Sylvania tubes. They better not dim out or start flickering.  I'm hoping that florescent type LED bulbs will be around forevermore.

I had a fluorescent lamp fixture I was going to do this to.  Beware, not all LED tubes are created equal.  Some wire with the existing ballast only and some do not.

Of course you know that I yanked the ballast and tossed it when I read the fine print on the version of LED tubes I have.

In reply to Noddaz :

It has been confusing in regards to the two types of led bulbs. These bulbs have a switch for with and without ballast. For now to make it easier, I will try them with the ballast and if I find out any differently, I can rewire them without the ballast, but I will leave the ballasts in place just incase I want to reverse the wiring.

A 70 year old house with no obvious grounds equals start budgeting for major rewire in the near future. I can guarantee there are worse issues in the walls and attic.  That old wire insulation is a fire waiting to happen. 

If it were me, I'd ditch the ballasts and run LED tubes that don't require a ballast. It will make the wiring more simple and require less power to operate. Finding 3ft LED tubes that require power at both ends might be easier than finding tubes that only need power at one end. A quick search on the jungle website shows quite a few options.

Is replacing the entire fixture an option?

stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) said:

If it were me, I'd ditch the ballasts and run LED tubes that don't require a ballast. It will make the wiring more simple and require less power to operate. Finding 3ft LED tubes that require power at both ends might be easier than finding tubes that only need power at one end. A quick search on the jungle website shows quite a few options.

Is replacing the entire fixture an option?

These are brand new mercury fixtures with new ballasts. The old ones used a capacitor starter which I don't think will work with the LEDs and I don't see anyway to rewire that one end of the tube holder with the built in starter holder.

Take a look at these:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/toggled-36-in-12-Watt-Daylight-5000K-T8-T12-Linear-Tube-LED-Light-Bulb-E312-50310/205622698

These are the 3' version of what I've been putting in my 4' fixtures in my apartments. The kits come with new tombstones for one end if you have single pin lights or the kind with the oval plug. Maybe 4 or 5 years with no burn outs, try that with fluorescent.

Black wire to one of the pins, white wire to the other and you're done. You might have a pair of same colored wires going to on end, just hook one to black, the other to white. Looking at your pic, I would cut the red wires going to the left end and hook them up to the power.

I have these from Menards. Selectable color and wiring with or without the ballast plus a 48" for the top of the mirror.

Sylvania® TruWave™ 25-Watt Equivalent 36" T8 Universal Type A/B Selectable Color Temperature LED Light Bulb

jgrewe said:

Looking at your pic, I would cut the red wires going to the left end

NEVER CUT THE RED WIRE THAT'S WHAT MAKES THE BOMB GO OFF

In reply to Duke :

Lol, in this case, cutting the black and the white wire at the same time makes the bomb go off.

@VolvoHeretic

I like the color option on those. The toggle bulbs have two options to purchase, no switching the output.

I would run them without the ballast, it just gets rid of one more failure point. I did some quick figuring and I've installed about 50 of the toggle bulbs and I've never been back into those fixtures since.

Progress report: After Durabond 90 patching and painting the wall where the old lights where, adding a newly varnished piece of oak for a spacer, dropping and smashing the 70 year old 4' Fluorescent fixture while trying to draw circles so I could hard wire it horizontally over the top of the mirror, I finally got power turned back on to the new LED mirror lights. They are a lot brighter than the old mercury vapor ones so I don't think I will be adding the 4' tube on top of the mirror. I will now have to put a wire cover over the new exposed bare wires since there is no way I am going to take everything back apart to fish out the original in wall wiring to the left light. I ran out of time and energy and just plugged the LED tubes into the unmolested fixtures and will eventually cut and splice and bypass the ballasts. But than again, maybe I never will. 

It is a lot brighter than this photo shows from an ancient stupid Apple smart phone.