Electrical – How to Bypass Ballast for T8 LED

Either stay with ballasts (and you might as well use real fluorescents; they're cheaper and the light is better)... or go to ballast-bypass LEDs.

A "Universal" LED will supposedly work either ballast-bypass or with a ballast.

The ballast you pulled was an entirely modern, rapid-start T8 ballast. That plus a modern T8 real fluorescent tube is state-of-the-art and better than LED IMO; I'm actually putting those in. I assume that ballast had failed? (if you had been putting T12 tubes in it, that would give poor performance).

With direct-wire LED "replacement tubes", there are two configurations you'll find.

Single-ended, direct-wire

This isn't your application, I'm only telling you about it because you need to know that it exists so you can be on the lookout for it.

In this case, the tube wants 120V hot + neutral on the 2 pins at one end. The other end is completely dead and does nothing.

In my opinion single-ended is a bad idea - it's hard to wire, and it puts 120V between the two end pins, and they were never made for that. Installing a double-ended "tube" may go kaboom. I don't like kaboom, it seems unprofessional.

Double-ended, direct wire, or universal

In this case, the tube wants hot + neutral at opposite ends of the tube. It wants both pins at each end connected. Generally when you have a Universal LED tube that works either with or without ballast, it will be this type. (for technical reasons).

This is your case.

This is very simple and straightforward to wire. All the wires from one end of the fixture, go to Hot. All the wires from the other end of the fixture, go to Neutral. To join that many #18 wires, use an orange wire nut.

If you mistakenly install any single-ended "tubes", they just won't work.

Aren't LED replacement tubes fun? More confusing than T12 vs T8, and $10 a tube instead of $2! Supposedly they last forever, but I see a lot of dead ones when I go through big-box stores and look at their ceilings.