On Thursday, December 8, 2016 at 2:28:18 PM UTC-5, Hazuki Nakamura wrote:
How much flourescent ballast humming is too much indicating replacement?

I have some ballasts that don't hum at all, and some that hum loud enough
to hear them ten feet away and some that barely hum, but they do hum.

For the ones that hum noticeably (about the sound of a refrigerator
compressor), I know that they need to be replaced and I know that replacing
the $20 ballast is probably substandard to going all LED so for the loud
hummers I will go to the expense of replacing the entire fixtures with
LEDs.

But LEDs will drop in price by a lot over the next few years so I don't
want to replace any ballast or fixture that doesn't need to be replaced
right now.

So my question is all about the ones that hum ever so little?

The hum is about the level of a soft whisper. You have to stop to look to
notice, otherwise you wouldn't notice the minor subtle hum.

Is that soft-whisper ballast telling me to replace it also?

If the light is fine and the noise is so minimal that it doesn't bother you,
why would you replace it at this time?

Is the fixture so vital that if it failed hard you couldn't wait a few
days to repair it? If so, replace it as soon as it makes any more noise
than a new one or wait until the noise is bothersome.

Instead of buying a $20 ballast, why not use direct wire LED's? Two 4' T8
LED tubes cost the same as a ballast. With a little rewiring, you avoid
"the expense of replacing the entire fixtures with LEDs." and eliminate
ballast issues forever.

https://www.earthled.com/collections...nt=13929188100