Electrical – Is it safe to convert a shunted tombstone lamp socket to a non-shunted socket by cutting the shunt

electricallamplamp-tombstoneledsocket

I am looking into converting a T-8 fluorescent tube fixture to a direct-wire LED tube fixture. In addition to removing the actual ballast, I understand that the "tombstone" lamp sockets in an electrical ballast fluorescent fixture are shunted, but for a direct wire LED tube,
I should use non-shunted.

Based on the diagram in this vendor article:
https://blog.1000bulbs.com/home/shunted-vs-non-shunted-lampholders
it seems like it would be pretty easy to convert a shunted socket to a non-shunted socket with some wirecutters. Is this generally unsafe? And/or code-violating?

Best Answer

You can't hack a shunted lampholder to be a non-shunted unless it's designed to do that. For one thing there is no place to attach the wires. Yes, there are two wire holes, but a non-shunted holder has four.

You have three options:

  • stay with instant-start fluorescent... I am because the CRI is better
  • change lampholders to non-shunted type
  • take care to select LED "tubes" which take power from opposite ends of the tube

You should certainly not be modifying the wiring before you have seen the wiring diagram which comes with your LED tubes. You may find your tubes require a different wiring than what you did.

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