Rewiring fluorescent fixture for LED bulbs, safest way to arrange the wires?

Question

I have two twin-bulb fluorescent fixtures with dead ballasts and I decided to rewire them for LEDs. I've seen multiple ways to do it, and I don't know what's best.

Here's what I currently have:

I've seen multiple people on here say they don't trust single-ended LED tubes, and I already have 4 double-ended LED tubes, so I'll be using those. As I understand it, I need to wire two tombstones at one end to hot, and the other two to neutral.

But what I don't understand is exactly how to wire the neutral end. Do I run one neutral wire to each tombstone and shunt them, two neutral wires to one tombstone and run two wires between the two tombstones, or four neutral wires like the hot side?

This looked easy at first, but I've seen so many different methods now I don't know who's right and who's an idiot.

Answer 1

My best recommendation is to use double-ended LED "tubes". Oh, I see you're way ahead of me on that.

So it's pretty simple with double-ended. You see some wires going to the tombstones (lampholders) on one end of the fixture. Gather them all up and connect them to supply neutral.

You see some wires going to the tombstones on the other end. Gather them all up and connect them to supply hot.

Make sure the power cord is 3-wire, intact ground pin, and the ground wire goes to the fixture chassis. This is vital in case either of those wires turns out to short to chassis.

That's it. Done & Dusted. No need to replace tombstones. No need to sort anything out.

Early ballasts contained PCBs. Manufacturer recommendation is to leave the ballast in the light because they do not want to be responsible for you throwing PCBs into landfills. Search the ballast for any markings indicating it is NON-PCB. If it is, feel free to can it. If you have a friend who likes to recycle metals and you don't like them too much, feel free to give it to them - it's full of copper and iron, but it's also full of tar.