Either leave the ballast there, or remove it with the bracket and fit some replacement bracket..

The crimp wire nuts are not meant to be removed. Cut the wire right at the crimp (through the plastic of the nut to keep max wire length)

And if I want the ballast back, just connect it with standard removable wire nuts?

Who says you have to remove the ballast? Just leave it in there. As for the wire connectors, cut them off and reconnect with wire nuts.

How would I remove the ballast if I wanted to switch it to something else?

You would probably need to make a new bracket or find another ballast that already has a compatible bracket. I swapped out the ballast in my Cooper NEMA with one from a Regent yardblaster. The bracket on the Regent ballast bolted right into the NEMA. Sadly the lampholder screws didn't line up but I was able to secure the lampholder to the bracket with zip ties. I'm slowly working on installing the NEMA permanently, and when I do, I'll probably replace the zip ties with twisted wire.

Or maybe I'll just fix the original Cooper ballast...I replaced it because one of the wires had pulled off of the winding but I'm sure I could solder a new connector on there.

I have an idea: Have a bucket light with an LED driver inside, and a replaceable LED bulb with a real screw-in base. Kind of like the CFL bucket lights just with LED in place of CFL components.

Not a bad idea in theory, but keep in mind that the drivers are often more prone to failure than the LEDs themselves.

How you even managed to hold it with zipties ? (i assume a flat bracket with 2 screw holes, and cylindrical shaped lamp holders with 2 holes in its base ?)

In this situation i'd just screw it in with 1 screw, it should stand straight anyway because the back of the lamp holder is flat against the bracket



The idea might be ok except..

1. In a well made unit, the driver is most likely to fail before the LEDs, because while you can design both to last, you cant do much about a random surge from the line killing the driver

2. Why LED for area lighting ? Use something suitable for the application, and if not MH then PL-C/PL-T CFL

Then just have good-quality circuitry inside, along with good thermal properties.
The LED lighting would be good for "greenies".

The lampholder has a sort of "T" shape with screw holes in the legs, not in the back of the lampholder itself. The ballast bracket is also sort of "wavy" so there is space to run zip ties through. I know a picture would show it better but I don't have access to the light at the moment.

N
I get it how its made

W
Your good thermal design will make the LED and driver last long under good conditions. No thermal design will prevent a random surge from blowing up the driver in a split second

We get to there every time... I dont think greenies need anything properly made specially for them

For those who actually want to be friendly to nature, how about choosing something with better optics than a bucket light for a start. And then, use some properly eco friendly light source in it like 18W LPS or 50W HPS

The problem with "greenies" is that they refuse to use anything other than LED.

The problem with "greenies" is that they refuse to use anything other than LED.

That describes 99.99% of utilities and contractors today.

That describes 99.99% of utilities and contractors today.

That doesn't sound good.I hope to contact the utility about a dayburning MV bucket light street light. My goal is to give the bucket light a good home and not have it replaced with LED.