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Hoping to do better with this than with my door hinge....

In my garage is a very old 8ft fluorescent tube powered through a big 'Atlas' choke and some sort of ?can capacitor? While it is still working (probably over 25 years old), how do I replace it? Can I buy a starter unit to replace all the old stuff, and will I then need a different tube?

Change the fitting.

My garage light was installed in 1973 and I got rid of it in 2010 when I partitioned the garage. I fitted two LED clusters. One of 4 and one of 2 and could direct the light where needed. It was also instant compared with the spluttering of the fluorescent tube firing up.

and uses less power. You can get fluorescent shaped ones if you want it to sit along a joist, search for LED "batten" to see what's available, although I prefer the 600mm square where they fit.

Both good ideas, but pricey. I can easily just replace it, but OQ was

"Can I buy a starter unit to replace all the old stuff, and will I then need a different tube?" It looks about £50 to replace with a batten, which is an attractive option, but.............

I stripped out a load of old 8ft fluorescent tubes and fittings soon after we moved into this house. Now got a load of LED lighting up which looks way better. the old stuff had an annoying audible mains buzz on it too, the LEDs don't have that problem.

Will this achieve what you want?? The blurb suggests its a straight replacement with no added parts required, all for less than £30...

https://www.lampshoponline.com/8ft-36w- ... iring.html

John - that would be ideal, but the minimum purchase is 4. A good pointer however and I will look around.

Ebay, buy 4, sell 3, £40 each, job done

Would you like to be my sexual advisor?

Sure, eject you any time

That's an offer I can definitely decline..........

Back to the OQ
"Can I buy a starter unit to replace all the old stuff, and will I then need a different tube?" Anyone know?

To turn the question around, if you replace the fluorescent tube with an LED designed for the same fitting you will need to replace the starter with an LED starter, which is in fact a short because the LED tube doesn't need a starter.

Just as a later thought, 4 foot LED tubes seem cheap and easy to find. Some of these are single ended - meaning that the electrical connections are on one end only and the other end has pins but these are only to support the tube in the existing fittings. (I have actually used smaller versions of these for illuminating artworks...)You might be able to fit two of these using the existng sockets on the opposite ends as the electrical connections and using a couple of those springy clip things to support the tubes in the middle....

Folks - I don't have an issue with replacing the unit with LED, but am interested in what I need to do to resurrect it.

Many of those 'regular' LED tubes just need to wired direct to the mains which you might manage to do with a bit of adjustment to the existing wires. The old ballast and starter become redundant.

https://www.ledmyplace.com/blogs/storie ... -a-ballast