I want to convert a 4-tube T-8 fluorescent fixture to LED. I watched some YouTube videos and think I have the gist of it but I like to get a sanity check before I do anything that could potentially blow my toenails off, so I'm asking here.

I've already taken the fixture off the ceiling (for lack of not knowing I didn't need to) so here's what it looks like:




What I'm thinking needs to happen is to cut all the wires off the ballast (but the black and white wires don't need it because they're already unhooked) and chuck the ballast. Then connect the white wire hanging out of the ceiling to both of the yellow wires in the fixture. Then bundle the remaining four (red & blue) wires (which were previously connected to the ballast) and connect them to the black wire hanging from the ceiling.

Does that sound about right? And does anything need to come of the bare copper wire hanging from the ceiling?

 

The bare wire will go back to the metal light fixture pan.

We can't give you the final wiring until you get the tubes.
There are two different styles..... fed from the two pins at one end OR fed from both ends.

 

Thank you, PJmax. After reading your post I went to the website of one of my local home repair department stores to see what they had on offer. It didn't seem to be much (unless you were buying bulbs by the dozen) and I couldn't make out from the online documentation which were "one-ended" and which were "two-ended." Nor could I make out what nomenclature was used to distinguish the LED bulbs that required a ballast from those than didn't need one so, armed with the insights you had given me, I decided to pay them a visit.

They only had one brand of 48-inch fluorescent-replacement LED 'bulbs' in stock that were A) clearly marked as not needing a ballast (it seems pointless to me to switch to LEDs but still need a ballast) and B) sold by ones and twos, so I bought two 2-packs of "toggled" brand LEDs.

And IMHO they were exceptionally well packaged because they not only contained a comprehensive (paper) set of installation instructions, they also came with pre-wired replacement 'tombstones'/bulb holders and wire nuts. So my fretting over whether they fed from one end or both was pretty pointless because they covered you either way by including a complete set of pre-wired (or not) tombstones.

Here's their wiring diagram as it appears in the instructions, copied from their website:


This was the first time I'd done anything with a fluorescent fixture except change the bulb so I was pleasantly surprised (again) that the old tombstones were easy to prise out of the fixture and the replacements slid right in, no muss, no bother. And since I was replacing the original tombstones with new, pre-wired new ones, it wasn't even necessary to cut the wires connecting the old ones to the ballast. In fact the whole swapping from ballast-powered fluorescents to ballast-free LEDs was simpler than I might have imagined.

Except that I'd given up on figuring a way to remove the diffuser and frame from the fluorescent fixture without first removing the fixture from the ceiling. Which was completely unnecessary because the diffuser frame clung to the fluorescent fixture by a pair of spring clips at either end that could have been loosed with a flathead screwdriver (if I had know where they were hiding and what their function was):

It wasn't obvious (to me) what this was or what its purpose was ... until it was to late for it to be of any benefit to me. Slide the screwdriver bit in from below (left-to-right, as depicted) to depress the wedge-shaped spring, which disengages the spring from a ledge inside the diffuser frame and the frame will fall free.

It took a minimum of three hands to get it off the ceiling and at present I'm one hand short of that total so I'll post a photo of the finished installation as soon as I can find a spare hand.