Beware: CFL duds

Wow, that means there are no standards? It can mean that they get the Philips specs and components out that day? I can make tyres to one specification, and then the next day manufacture tyres to another specification, High speed tyres cross ply, still made in the same factory, but with more care and higher costs, still made in the same factory. I dont know if that happens but it could.

** All CFLs are checked for compliance with electrical SAFETY standards

Performance is however not tested.

Clearly it needs to be and this IS widely recognised.

..... Phil

I've had a similar experience with Philips "Cyclone" CFLs, one was DOA and two or three others have died prematurely. I have stuck with them and the quality control on more recent purchases seems to be much better.

In fact BOTH the energy AND maintenance savings COMBINED make the deal slightly better than marginal, BUT only assuming the predicted savings actually EVENTUATE.

From past experience of government predictions, this is highly UNLIKELY. You will almost certainly find the savings are not as great as expected, and the replacement costs (parts and labor) are greater than expected. Still, if nothing else it should provide some extra employment.

MrT.

Monday is

and

True even when they made globes in AUS, more so now they are mostly made in China.

What tyres are made in a globe factory? And you are confusing BRANDS with TYPES. For example an incandescent edison screw globe IS still different to a BC-CFL, *even if* it comes from the same factory. However it is true, BOB JANE does not have his own Tyre factory. A similar thing CAN happen with all generic/house/co-owned brand tyres as well.

MrT.

"Mr.T"

** The whole thing is a blatant PR exercise ( aren't we so green !! ) for the NSW Govt.

Bet the RTA had no intention of doing it until the $18M loan was offered by the NSW Treasury.

BTW

I expect the LEDS are highly reliable plus there is lots of redundancy anyway - but how about the SMPS used to power them running 24/7 in all conditions ?

Could be out of the frying pan and into the fire with long term reliability there.

....... Phil

Hell yes! You've hit the nail right on the head, Phil.

Over the last year I have been troubleshooting designs for LED lamps, for a Chinese company. My favourite was the 230V self-oscillating off-line flyback converter using an MPSA42. Yep, not joking. And the transformer saturated on every cycle, too. > 100% failure rate on that "design". The space is very small, and gives rise to some frightening manufacturing processes.

Whats really scary is the name of the large European company (wot makes its own semiconductors) that gets put on these things. I've read the specification documents, they are all about optical output and degradation, "they" care not a jot about whats inside the package.

And I'm sick of bloody CLFs that go bang the first time you turn them on. None of the chinese engineers I've met have known what Ifsm is, perhaps thats why.

Cheers Terry

"Terry Given"

** Ah soo, Mr Given - so you have already met with our esteemed circuit design engineering team:

The honourable " Won Bung Lung " , his colleague " Hoo Fung Dung" and loyal assistant " Won Hung Low" .

All of them, most recent *honours* graduates of the SSDP = Shanghai School of Design Plagiarism.

Our company motto:

" Quality Control is something the Customer Does for Us "

....... Phil

Is that where the expression "fried lights" comes from?

Bob

It flied lice. Unplug you tens unit.(grin!)

Actually the light on my desk lamp uses an AS/NZ standard designed fleuro and its OK so far. The standards would be nice to get hold of. Standard number AS/NZ60968 2001 so lets google it to see the bigger picture. So there are standards for these things...Just as I figured another standard applied in Singapore. Knowing that country to be corrupt, why didnt we use our (corrupt) standards? ((whoops We cant say that in a democratic country)

ROTFLMAO! You've obviously met them too.

BUT they were insanely quick. I sketched up a little inrush tester for them (400Vdc and a FET switched with a DIY scr to give a nice fast step of peak volts), and half an hour later they were testing units....

Cheers Terry

Nage Shi Chou Fan. Women Sha!

thats all well and good. the real problem is that inherent with power electronics: once the design "works" (and many of these may not), actual reliability is governed by the purchasing and manufacturing processes.

I've gutted a few DOA CFLs, and the internals are a lot less than impressive. In particular creepage and clearance can be ridiculously low (all working, no safety), so condensation can be a real killer. then there's the shitty soldering etc.

Cheers Terry

having toured the factory, yes he does. All philips do is write the specification, all the rest (design, test, manufacture) is up to the Chinese company that makes them.

Cheers Terry

its the phosphor that makes white LEDs degrade faster than others.

but the others *DO* degrade. LED lifetime is a serious issue for manufacturers of LED video screens, traffic lights etc. Arrhenius strikes again.

Cheers Terry