What kind of light will you leave on with nobody home

I bought this solar-tracking timer last September for our outdoor lighting:

I have it set up for sunset-sunrise timing, but you can set it up for sunset-scheduled-turn-off... useful for interior lights.

As for bulb type, we're at 93% LED's... remaining CFL's in enclosed fixtures where heat is a problem for LED's.

I've has only two LED "bulbs" fail in the past three years... one, loss of brightness, other just went dark... no heat, no smoke, no flames... not a big enough sample from which to draw conclusions.

So who knows? ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
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| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
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     It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

LEDs seem to be very reliable, but I guess cheap ones are, well, cheap.

CFLs tend to die and smoke, especially if power cycled.

--

John Larkin   Highland Technology, Inc   trk 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

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I've used lots of CFL's in recent years. Few of them have been on for long enough to fail, but none of them have failed to flames and smoke.

Have you checked the actual mains voltage level at your home? Sometimes the power supply company screws up and supplies an out-of-specification high v oltage to some houses - I've seen newspaper reports about customers complai ning about short-=lived light bulbs. My guess would be that these would be houses that were close to a sub-station that also supplied houses that w ere much further away ...

My guess is that LED lamps would fail gracefully as the emitting junction t urned into one that emitted less light per charge carrier, without changing the heat dissipated in the junction.

--
Bill Sloman, sydney

CFLs are very reliable. You need to buy them from somewhere else though!

NT

Is it too much too ask if your CFLs were all the same brand, a mix of brands or just exactly what? A bulb emitting flames is grounds for a recall if not a lawsuit.

I've used lots of CFL's in recent years. Few of them have been on for long enough to fail, but none of them have failed to flames and smoke.

Have you checked the actual mains voltage level at your home? Sometimes the power supply company screws up and supplies an out-of-specification high voltage to some houses - I've seen newspaper reports about customers complaining about short-=lived light bulbs. My guess would be that these would be houses that were close to a sub-station that also supplied houses that were much further away ...

My guess is that LED lamps would fail gracefully as the emitting junction turned into one that emitted less light per charge carrier, without changing the heat dissipated in the junction.

--
Bill Sloman, sydney 
========================================================== 

I'm going to lump several replies together here.  I've checked the line  
voltage a few times over the years and it's always been 115 to 118 VAC. 

Most of the bulbs that have failed were left on 6-12 hours per weekday,  
10-20 hours a day weekends, and most lasted a few years at least.  I've only  
had a couple of CFL bulbs in lower use lights fail, and they just went dark  
(bathroom, kitchen, bedroom; many more on/off cycles but maybe 1-2  
hours/day). 

I guess my concern about LED's is that if the cheap electronics in the CFLs  
fail in flames, why won't the cheap electronics in an LED bulb?  The LEDs  
themselves I guess will fail open, not shorted, but even if one in a string  
shorts hopefully the electronics would maintain the constant current so the  
rest wouldn't pop.  No, I don't really expect a flaming failure, I'm just  
both gunshy and collecting opinions :-). 

All of these bulbs were purchased at Home Depot, Lowes, or Sam's Club -  
mostly HD.  I don't think any were Lights of America since I was never happy  
with their color (CRI), so whatever other brands they offered that were  
cheaper than the expensive Sylvania or Phillips offerings.  All had 8000 or  
10000 hour warranties.  None were dimmable or on dimmers. 

All that smoked were in lamps with the usual cylindrical shade so plenty of  
airflow and the lamps are rated for 150 watt incandescents.  I like plenty  
of light so the first two that flamed were 42 watt CFLs rated as "200 watt  
equivalent".  The rest have been 150 watt equivalent CFLs so actual wattages  
in the 30's.

Hmm, I just turn the lights off and tell the neighbors we're going away. (I've only got two/ three neighbors, depending on who's living across the road.) If they see anyone besides the dog/cat sitter, who also lives down the road, then call someone. I've got fish lights on a permanent timer, fluorescent with magnetic ballast. I've got a bunch of incandescents in the attic.. lotsa 75W if you want some, I assume they are still for sale elsewhere.

George H.

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** Crikey ....

• The LED bulbs I have seen and bought so far are sealed and run fairly cool, so it is not likely they can combust.

** You sound unlucky.

.... Phil

No led explosions so far at home or work. They usually fail gracefully or blink at 1-2 Hz trying for a restart.

Have not had one explode or burn , but have had a few Cree and Phillips fail. All were well heatsinked and a few were in enclosures. That is for Edison Screw bulbs, I can't say the same for some LED MR16s.

Steve

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** The filament in each end of a CFL generates a lot of heat, good design is to have a thermal barrier between the CFL lamp and the inverter electronics.

Have you ever done a "post-mortem" to see what is combusting first ?

Resistors, film caps, the PCBs ?

** I have been using some CFLs rated at 32 and even 55 watts consumption as workshop lights and had no issues at all. Still I never leave one on when away from home.

All the CFLs I have opened or read about on the net have internal fuses and or fusible resistors in the AC supply in case of major failures PLUS are made of flame retardant plastic.

As you already know, making sure the base does not get to hot to touch is essential to avoiding trouble or suffering a short life span.

.... Phil

I had a CFL shoot sparks and smoke once. I was on the toilet when it occurred about 6 ft from me. I think I pissed on the floor as I got off the toilet and hit the wall switch to OFF. Nothing was damaged, except the bulb itself, but that was scary. (and stinky smoke).

I had several more of them emit smoke when they died.

I hated them CFL bulbs for many reasons, such as the delay in getting bright and they dont work outdoors in cold weather and more, but when that flare-up occurred, I went back to incandescent bulbs. Now, I use all LED bulbs. They are great!!!

I probably still have a dozen or more CFL bulbs, many are new and in the box. I should take them to Goodwill or something because I will never use them miserable things again.....

Not as good as LEDs. Frequent cycling of CFLs (like, once a day or more) tends to kill them in smelly ways. They last for years running

24/7.

--

John Larkin   Highland Technology, Inc   trk 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Yet the well engineered, similar wattage, small Circline tubes would run for decades.

Similar sized compact folded "plug in" tubes would run for 3 years CW off magnetic ballasts...

Most CFL tubes were made so cheaply with tiny cathodes as to never have a chance of any long term lifetime. I hope the "environuts" learned their lesson at the check-out counter...

Steve

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** The filament in each end of a CFL generates a lot of heat, good design is to have a thermal barrier between the CFL lamp and the inverter electronics.

Have you ever done a "post-mortem" to see what is combusting first ?

Resistors, film caps, the PCBs ?

** I have been using some CFLs rated at 32 and even 55 watts consumption as workshop lights and had no issues at all. Still I never leave one on when away from home.

All the CFLs I have opened or read about on the net have internal fuses and or fusible resistors in the AC supply in case of major failures PLUS are made of flame retardant plastic.

As you already know, making sure the base does not get to hot to touch is essential to avoiding trouble or suffering a short life span.

.... Phil =================================================================================

I've never done a post-mortem. When the smoke erupts my first dive is for the power switch, and then I try to get the bulb out of the socket and thrown into the back yard as fast as possible without burning myself, to minimize the nasty smoke smell in the house. I let it rest for a few days while my temper recovers, and then into the garbage it goes. Hopefully I'll not have another chance, but if another one goes up I'll try to remember to take it apart and post the results.

--
Regards, 
Carl Ijames

Same has happened to me on at least one occasion, walk into room and CFL is popping and smoking like crazy in its socket busily melting down its own base into molten plastic slag. There's supposed to be a fusable resistor inside and it "fused" alright, fused together into a solid burnt mass that could conduct a heavy current no problem.

CFLs were a stopgap technology and with LED bulbs from name brand manufacturers so widely available IMO they're best left on the ash-heap of history, literally

How about an incandescent bulb or a magnetic-ballast fluorescent? ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

http://electrooptical.net 
http://hobbs-eo.com

What's the point of leaving an interior light on when one's away from home at all? Tryin' to help the thieves see better? It doesn't fool anybody and just lets 'em know you probably don't have a real security system

Someone should design a security system that when e.g. an infrared beam on the front stoop is broken it paints a half-dozen red dots on the person standing there from strategically placed lasers all around the property it's unobtrusive yet probably attention-getting

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** Many folk have made that remark - but never explain how a "gap" arose th at required "stoping".

CFLs occupied a commercial lighting niche in shops, restaurants and buildin gs with a few spin off sales to curious consumers. In all the above cases, their ability to run thousands of hours if left on, low running cost & and a choice of light quality that kept them selling.

The competition came mainly from tiny 12V Halogen reflector lamps running o n dimmers - an overall more expensive option that lighting designers loved.

The only "gap" I can point to was deliberately created by loopy Green activ ists in their mad rush to "ban the bulb" and replace them with incompatible CFLs on political grounds.

It was never their maker's idea but they sure were happy to play along.

.... Phil