Hyperikon Ballast Compatible LED Tubes Review

This article represents my own opinion and may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosures for more information.

As I mentioned in a previous post I've been working on switching a lot of my lights to LEDs. For standard screw in bulbs it's been very simple. If you have any fluorescent tubes, switching to LEDs was a bit difficult until now. I found these Ballast Compatible LED tubes from Hyperikon that make replacing your fluorescent tubes with LEDs easy.


Until these types of bulbs came out switching fluorescent tubes was a bit complicated because instead of using a double-ended design typical of standard fluorescent tubes, they used a single ended design. First you had to disconnect and remove the ballast from the fixture. Then you had to remove the sockets on one side of the fixture and replace them with non-shunted sockets. Next you had to rewire the fixture to the new sockets.

With the Ballast Compatible bulbs all you have to do is remove the old bulbs and put in the new. That's it. In most cases the bulbs will work with your existing ballast. I have this 4' Commercial Electric Shop Light I got from Home Depot for less than $20 and the Ballast Compatible bulbs worked like a charm without modification. The Ballast Compatible tubes also worked with my Lithonia Lighting 4-Light Heavy Duty Shoplight without removing the ballast. Keep an eye on it on Amazon as the price fluctuates but when it's in stock you can get it with free shipping for around $50. If Amazon has it for more than that Home Depot carries it for a good price too.

I replaced 2 32W fluorescent builds with the Hyperikon bulbs and with very little effort I was saving over 30% on electricity since they only consume 22 watts when using the ballast. I eventually removed the ballast and the lights now only consume 18 watts each for about 44% savings. Removing the ballast isn't difficult and I'll provide instructions bellow.

The light output is very good. I went with daylight bulbs based on my preference to use daylight bulbs for task lighting. Shadows are a little harsher than with fluorescent bulbs but there's no problem working under the Hyperikon Bulbs. The energy savings and the fact that the bulbs won't need replacing for a long, long time and won't fade as quickly as fluorescents do is a huge plus.

The Ballast Compatible bulbs are available in daylight (5000k) with a clear lens like I have or slightly warmer (4000K) with a frosted lens.

How To Remove Ballast On Shop Light For Ballast Compatible Tubes

As I mentioned removing the ballast is optional unless the Hyperikon Bulbs start to blink or exhibit some other odd behavior. However it's worth taking the time to remove the ballast if you're comfortable working with electrical wiring because you'll save even more electricity.

As I mentioned, the Ballast Compatible LED tubes use the standard shunted sockets as opposed to the non-shunted sockets required on a lot of other LED tubes. The difference between shunted and non-shunted sockets is that on a shunted socket the contacts on both sides (where the 2 pins touch) are electrically connected, while on a non-shunted socket they are not. In a shunted socket one wire gets inserted and feeds both the left and right sides. In a non-shunted socket you can have 2 separate wires (live and neutral) each going to one side.

Most standard fluorescent light fixtures come with shunted sockets. In my affordable shop light three screws are removed from the reflector to reveal the wiring and ballast. The existing wiring will look like this, minus the ground which I omitted for clarity since it doesn't change.

Notice that the sockets on the left side of the fixture are connected together while on the other side, each socket has a separate wire coming from the ballast.

To make the shop light work without a ballast for the Hyperikon Ballast Compatible bulbs I rewired it like this.

Now the left side has the live wire coming from the switch and the sockets are connected together. On the left side the neutral wire goes to one socket which is then connected to the socket next to it with a jumper wire.

I was able to reuse all the existing wires in the fixture but I had to pull some of the wires out of the sockets. The wires push into the holes in the socket. You can remove the wires if necessary by gently pulling and twisting on them. Make sure any splices you make are spliced correctly with wire nuts then wrap with electrical tape.

It took me less than 10 minutes to rewire the fixture and most of that was trying to figure out what I needed to do. Well worth the time to save the energy.

The Hyperikon Ballast Compatible replacement tubes have been doing a great job in my shop lights at a very affordable price.