Those T5 ballast must be old.
Mine are from 2013. They draw about 50 to 55 volt amps per tube on the high output ones.
I have some intermediate output ones, my Frankenstein fixtures that use a T8 ballast left over from my T8 LED upgrade, uses about 40va per tube, looks as bright as the full powered T5 tubes and these T8 ballasts are way brighter when powering T5 tubes than they were when powering T8 tubes they supposed to be used on.
Maybe late 2017 - 2018 will be the time that LED finally surpasses T5 in efficiency at the consumer level.
But will these LEDs be as relable as T5?
The LED should last something like 50,000 hours but not if it overheats. What about the power supply, if it over heats then it's finished then too.
My T5 LED tubes came in today. I have not tried them out yet.
ATM they are substantiallymore expensive than repowering a T5 fixture.
The cheapest I have seen them is $15 per tube that's if you buy a lot of them. If you only order a few you are looking at $17 to $23 per tube.
To re ballast a T5 costs between $7 and $12 per tube. The more tubes the ballast poweres, the lower the cost.
A 6 tube T5 ballast for a 6 tube fixture can lower the cost to as little as $5 per tube.
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