Garage door opener has a pair of A-base light bulbs in it. Would like to route the socket to control some other "area lighting". But, stay within the power budget of the controls (relay) in the opener.
CFL's start fast enough (tubular flourescents have a sluggish warmup -- recall this is practically outdoors). Ditto LED.
But, the opener uses the lamp circuit to signal errors (something in the way when the door closes; excessiv force required; etc.). In these conditions, the lamps blink at about 0.5 Hz. I think "indefinitely".
How would that affect the electronics in these devices? We've had poor luck with CFL's elsewhere in the house (short lifespans) and would hate to find needing replacement in this application just because it happened to "blink too much"...
Dimmable LEDs should be fine. I'd think they wouldn't have the big electrolytic power capacitor to weld your relay shut. I've never had one fail so I've never taken one apart.
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Plug a wall-wart into the socket on the garage door opener. It should output DC at the coil voltage of the highest-coil-resistance relay you can find (that also has adequate contact rating). Put a Big Honkin' Electrolytic [tm] on the output of the wall-wart, and then wire that to the relay coil. Wire the contacts to the other lighting you wish to control.
This will give you a delay of a second or two between the opener light turning off and the other lights turning off.
I've had pretty good luck with Philips, GE, and Wal-Mart brand CFLs in up to 100 W equivalent rating, in two different houses. In my current house, the utility consistenly supplies 124-125 V per side, which I call the "CFL encouragement program".
I've had pretty rotten luck with CFLs over 100 W equivalent; I tried a 150 W in the sole ceiling fixture in my garage at my old house and it lasted less than a year. (GE, I think.) I put two 100 W equivlaents into a Y fitting and into that socket and they lasted just fine. I had one other one, I think in a table lamp application, that also had a short lifetime; I don't remember the brand.
A 60 W equivalent Philips LED is now $5 at the local Home Depot, subsidized by the electric utility. I have one and I haven't put it through the Kill-a-watt yet, but I suspect it might deal better with frequent switching than a CFL.
This story
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says that you'll be able to get 2 Philips 60 W equivalent LED lamps for $5, starting next month, at Home Depot.
Hmmm... hadn't considered that! I was more concerned with shortening the lamps' life even more than it would otherwise have been!
The CFL's fail here with astonishing regularity. I doubt any have lasted more than 3 years. OTOH, I think we've replaced the incandescents (throughout the house) probably *once*.
Only have a few LED bulbs to play with and they are all "spotlight" configurations (I'd have to rearrange fixtures to get the light pointed where I want it)
I was hoping for a "screw in" solution. :> And, one that preserved the "error indication" (flashing) -- though adding a regular incandescent to the circuit could solve that (ahead of the relay/wall wart)
I don't think we have had any last beyond 3 years. And, they don't see much (user-oriented) abuse (or even extraordinary *use*). I've taken to writing the installation date on the base of each as a way to track lifespans. Two failed in the kitchen in the past week; both installed in late '12. Granted, that's probably the highest "total hours" location in the house -- living room and office would be close behind (office sees at least 8 hours of use each day,
7 days/week. And, I am frequently chastised for leaving the lights on well into the next "day").
Yet, the office and LR lamps are incandescent and haven't seen anywhere near the failure rates. LR are on a dimmer but spend a good portion of their time at full intensity -- esp when I'm tearing apart or building a machine in the middle of the room (much more "workspace" than in the cluttered office! :> )
We have only one 150W CFL in a "nightstand" application. I.e., reading in bed. It has outlasted the other applications -- but, probably because it only sees an hour of use, nightly.
Hmmm... might be worth exploring. At the very least, a cheap way to get some experience with *their* reliability! I'll have a look tonight (or tomorrow)
Kitchen (our biggest CFL site) tends to see lamps left on for a long period of time -- e.g., meal prep. LR and Office see them left on for even longer periods of time as the rooms tend to remain occupied more continuously (even while baking, I am seldom in the kitchen for more than 5 hours at a stretch).
That would suggest NOT installing them in a location where they'll be "blinking" -- even if only a several dozen times (at a time). Esp if you don't have precise control over that blinking (e.g., something fallen in the path of the optointerrupter of which you were previously unaware and the lamps blink until you exit the vehicle and find your way over to remove the obstruction, then return to the vehicle and repeat your attempt to close the door)
I didn't specify it, but I was picturing one of those adapters with male Edison threads on one end, female on the other, and two 2-prong sockets on the side. Adapter goes in opener socket, incandescent goes in adapter socket, wall-wart plugs into side of adapter.
These relays
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draw (relatively) a lot of current, but would be handy to install on a junction box.
The two boxes of Wal-Mart brand CFLs I have on hand claim 8,000 hours (60 W equivalent) and 10,000 hours (100 W equivalent).
3 years * 365 days/year = 1,095 days
8,000 hours / 1,095 days = 7.3 hours per day
10,000 hours / 1,095 days = 9.1 hours per day
If they were installed on 1 December, that's roughly 31 + 365 + 365 +
31 + 28 + 31 + 15 = 866 days. 8,000 hours / 866 days = 9.2 hours a day, daily; 10,000 hours / 866 days = 11.5 hours a day, daily. If you run the kitchen lights that much, then the lifetime you got doesn't seem too far out of line to me.
If you want to know exactly, Amazon has an electromechanical hour meter that runs from 100 to 250 VAC and costs $9 with free shipping. I don't know if it's any good, I just know it exists.
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If the dimmer has soft-start (at any setting), that probably helps. And I understand about working on stuff where there's room. :)
I have a hall light (single 60 W incandescent) that gets maybe a few minutes of use every 2 or 3 days on average. I'm pretty sure it's still the one that was installed when I bought this house in early 2009. The only other incandescents remaining in the house are the back porch light (also present when I bought it), the lights around the mirrors in the bathrooms (for the color temperature), and the lights in the oven, refrigerator, and microwave. The bathroom lights have probably turned over about 1 or 1.5 times since I've owned the house. That hall light has such low usage that the ROI of a CFL or LED is probably a couple of decades in the future.
some brands are lousy, some good. Also there are more operating restriction s than incadescent to get that lifetime. No enclosed fittings, not operatin g 100w equivalents base up, and avoiding very frequent switching. Hence the re's still room for the odd old filament lamp.
Yeah, I was hoping to just screw in a couple of bulbs (two sockets) and see how they fared before committing to tying it in to the recessed lighting. Of course, I could let the recessed lighting see your "filtered" signal (even installing the relay inside the opener) and let the existing two light sockets remain incandescent (and "flash").
[Or, wiat until I have the controller designed/built for the garage and let *it* do the switching]
The boxes we have on the shelf claim 10,000H average life (of course, "average" means they expect some to have shorter lifespans :> ). Nine hours a day would be a real stretch (for the kitchen -- not a problem for LR or office but those are incandescents): we'd have to turn on the lights near dusk and leave them on well past midnight. EVERY day. (e.g., they are off, now -- 4PM -- and probably won't go on until we start preparing supper... closer to 6)
They're obviously failing at a much shorter time. Of course, no idea what was written on the box that the "failed" lights came in, 3 yrs back!
I have a couple for genset, etc. Just tracking installation date has been revealing. Previously, it *seemed* like they were failing far more often than the incandescents. Now we can put a number on it.
Again, most of the other lights in the house are incandescent (lots of dimmers, here) so you would expect us to be grumbling about having to replace *some* of them often, too! Instead, its always the CFLs that need replacement.
Dunno. Each is a switch+dimmer. Does the dimmer setting talk directly to the triac while the switch interrupts power? Or, does the switch gate the triac??
Yeah, SWMBO doesn't seem to "get it". Where else can you lay out all the parts and not have to worry about screws rolling off workbenches or under bits of paperwork, etc.
[OTOH, I can understand her dismay when a 50" TV is lying face down in the middle of the floor leaving little room to navigate around it and the boards removed from it!]
All of the overhead "area lighting" is incandescent with the exception of *most* of the kitchen lights (the lights over the sink are incandescent). This allows us to leave the entire house on a "low" setting to aid with visibility in an otherwise darkened house when guests visit (wouldn't want them falling into sunken living room or walking into an unseen bit of furniture, tripping over a pet, etc.) -- yet not having to worry about "going blind" by waking up to bright lights (the lights are so dim they are only visible after your eyes have become accustomed to the dark)
We opted for CFL's in places like the kitchen in the hope of conserving energy. I.e., when *in* the kitchen, I tend to want the most light I can get! We've argued about adding a 4'x4' skylight there but I seem to be losing that argument. (we deal with the "nightlight" issue in that room with the incandescents above the sink) Likewise, I want a lot of light in the bathrooms (so, if you visit, NEVER turn on the bathroom light in the middle of the night if you want to preserve your eyesight! :> ) Places like the laundry are lost in the noise.
I was hoping to replace the tubular flourescents in the garage with in recessed cans. I have a bunch of retractable "extension cords" that I wanted to install up there as well (the outlets on the walls aren't really accessible as the side walls are floor to ceiling industrial shelving). As the ceiling is pretty high, each lamp would need to be fairly bright (I tried holding some 60 eq W LED lamps up near the ceiling and I don't think they even illuminated the ground!). And, probably closely spaced to give the sort of light that I like when working on the cars (in addition to the shop lights), etc. So, I'm not keen on buying a large number of bulbs only to discover that they burn out rapidly from the tie-in to the opener.
[I can, of course, put a small light somewhere that does the blinking. But, siting that in a place where it would be visible to a driver who had already pulled out of the garage (and was trying to close the door behind him) would be a problem. The flashing OVERHEAD light is far more visible -- esp in the daytime.]
The kitchen lamps are base up -- but only 60 eq W. The single 150W is in a bedside fixture, base down, and has lasted "forever" (probably due to its low usage).
I'm tall enough that I can generally reach the ceiling fixtures in the kitchen with, at most, a milk crate to gain the extra few inches of reach. OTOH, the garage ceiling is difficult to reach. I'd not be happy about replacing bulbs out there (esp with vehicles *in* the garage, at the time) with the same frequency that I've had to in the kitchen. (see my reply to Matt)
I know the (tubular) flourescents in the garage often need replacement probably because they see such frequent cycling: flip the lights on to fetch something from one of the cars, or, to fetch something from the freezer chest out there, or to fetch some solvent out of the "flammables" cupboard, etc. And, I'm sure the ambient doesn't help even with the insulated door (recall, lights are up high; heat rises!)
I can't imagine why CFLs would not last for you. I have CFLs in every light that is used much and they are turned on and off at least a half dozen times a day if not a dozen. No failures in around 2 years. The one failure I had was after about 2 seconds of being installed and one was DOA. I expect to return them to Costco sometime soon and will see how they handle returning one bulb each from six and eight packs. I think total I have some dozen and a half CFLs around the house. I don't bother putting expensive bulbs in sockets that aren't used much.
I suspect the actual issues governing longevity are more involved than
*just* "hours on", "power cycles", "power dissipated", "orientation", etc. E.g., our small (incandescent) "landscape" lights are on for about 6 hours every day (timer) and I don't think I've replaced more than one or two of them in the ~15 years that they've been there. In fact, I have a box of LED equivalents that I've been meaning to install but haven't yet had the *need*.
The lamps in our refrigerator (20 years old) have never been replaced. Ditto with the freezer chest (which is probably closer to 30 years old!). Yet, it is probably opened dozens of times EVERY day. Nor has the one in the (hot!) oven -- though it sees much less use than the 'frig'.
OTOH, you tend to notice lamps that you've had to replace "often" -- like your freezer (my kitchen, etc.) Or, whose replacement is a non-trivial task.
The quality range is likely enormous. California subsidizes CFs, so you can sometimes get them at Home Depot for under $1 each. The utility in Truckee gives them away.
I've noticed that the always-on ones last a lot longer than the switched ones. They smell awful when they die.
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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
LEDs will handle all the on-off cycles you can fed it along with dimming constantly. Remember, they are used all the time in signs that change lettering, flash, change color 24/7. They are used almost exclusively these days for rock concert lighting too, which really makes them work hard. They hold up well. They also draw very little power.
I have 4 of them in my barn that are on 24/7, so my animals have a little light. They are 25W equivalant, and actually use 3 watts. That's
12W per hour or 288W per 24hr day. or 8640W per month. I pay 14cents per KWH. So, it's costing me about $1.21 per month. Thats cheap security.
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