Another reason to hate CFLs ...

As if any more reasons were needed on top of their horrible startup characteristics, their ugliness, their sick coloured light, and their inability to last for a fraction of the claimed lifetime :-(

Like most of us, I suspect, I have hundreds of component drawers, which over the years have become mixed up and confused, so in the circumstances of work being very quiet at the moment, I decided to have a major tidy up and clear out of redundant components. As a first move, I decided to rationalise the resistors, and re-store them by individual value, rather than in groups of values in the same drawer.

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as it was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an animal any more due to EU ecobollox intervention - I put in a CFL that had come free in a cornflake packet or some such nonsense. Once it has warmed up in the morning - at least one coffee drinking time needed for this - it seemed to work reasonably well. Until, that is, I started trying to identify the resistors in my old drawers to move them into the individual value drawers in the new location.

The spectrum from this lamp is so poor and discontinuous, that it is almost impossible to resolve red from brown from orange, or violet from blue or grey. Absolutely bloody useless. If I can't find any more 60 watt pearl bulbs on the 'net, then I'm going to modify the lampholder to take a low voltage halogen downlighter bulb, and hook it to a 12v transformer.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily
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"Arfa Daily is a Bloody Whinger "

** FFS - get a CFL that is rated for "Daylight White" colour balance.

My bench ( planetary arm) lamp uses a 22 watt " Daylight 6400K " spiral CFL.

The light quality and quantity are both excellent.

.... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

On 10/23/2010 6:28 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:

Hate to say it, Arfa, but you sound like a Croat ranting about how much he hates automobiles, having driven nothing but Yugos all his life.

CFLs used to be like that, sure. The ones I use (here in the Untied Snakes) are much better in all the parameters you mentioned: instant on, no appreciable warm-up time, pleasing color spectrum, long life.

(Well, their packages still leave something to be desired in some applications, but other than that they're good.)

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Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Sadly, our experience (also US) has not been that satisfying. Warmups of 15-30 seconds and I don't think any have lasted more than 2 years. We have been replacing them with commercial grade incandescents as they blow out (and donating the "free replacement" bulbs to a local charity).

We've tried three different brands and have been disgusted with all of them. (neighbors seem to share our opinion)

And the "dimmable" lamps are absolutely worthless.

Reply to
D Yuniskis

One of these?

Ummm.... there should be a sticker on the Angelpoise desk lamp indicating that due to the miserable ventilation design, the maximum incandescent light bulb size is 60 watts. Anything bigger will blow up rather rapidly due to overheating, as I found out in my previous lamp. My current lamp is a Ledu, which specifies 75 watts max, mostly because it has much larger vent holes and side ventilation slots.

You're using junk CFL bulbs. The ones I buy come on instantly. I do have one in the kitchen that I'm too lazy to replace that takes a few minutes to warm up. The others are almost instant on. CFL bulbs are available in various color temperatures.

If you have a glass prism or diffraction grating, you can test your bulbs for color spectra. Incandescent shows a continuous spectra, while CFL shows a series of discontinuous color blobs. If the color of your resistor band is missing from the spectra, you will have problems even if all the other colors are present. See spectrum photo on the right of:

Also, look for CRI on the package. The closer to 100, the better:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Actually I live CFLs. They provide a cheap source of light where I need light but don't care how bad it looks. For example outisde lighting which is mostly there so someone sees a light on and prefers to walk somewhere else, if even just because it messes with their night vision.

I like them for places that I have to have a light on such as my windowless bathroom. It's cheaper to leave one on 24/7 than have it on a timer. Especially if I have to get up to use the toilet at 3am when the timer would have the light off.

Over the years since I first got them in the late 1990's they have gotten more efficient and finally someone wised up and is making them "warm", which is close to the color that I can actually see.

The latest ones are brighter per watt, about 30%. I could see that about a month ago when I replaced a bunch of them. I replace the one in the bathroom when it goes out (and keep a spare as it usually happens late at night), the others about once a year, just because.

We still have plenty of incadescent bulbs for sale here, and they are cheap. I expect we are the dumping ground for bulbs made in eastern Europe but can't be sold there. I've bought plenty of them to stock up.

We use them for reading lamps so there are 5 of them still in use in our house.

I also have a good supply of 12v halogen bulbs, but to be honest, I'm not sure where the lamp that the fit is. :-)

Although they are long gone on the commercial market, they are still needed for photgraphic enlargers. 3200k color temperature (about what you are used to) and pearl or opal finish (very smooth even distribution of light).

Since they were often hung base up printing on the top would become part of the image, so they had the wattage etc printed on the side, like a vacuum tube (or valve as you would say).

You can find them if you search the web for suppliers of photgraphic darkroom equipment, which has become a thriving niche market.

Geoff.

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Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
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Reply to
Geoffrey S. Mendelson

over

work

clear

almost

You can get your own back when you scrap them one GE 11TBXT 3/827 10Y, 240V, 105mA CFL gave these "useful" bits

10R fusible R 2 x BU102 ?? high V, TO92 2.8uF, 400V, 105 deg F with nice long leads 30 V diac BLDB3 / DB3 high temp textile sleeving 4mH inductor ferrite ring 2x 0.5R
Reply to
N_Cook

How do you scrap them? The ones I have (and had in the past) were all encased in some sort of ceramic, and to me they can only be taken apart with a hammer.

Thanks,

Geoff.

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Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
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Reply to
Geoffrey S. Mendelson

On 10/24/2010 1:34 AM Geoffrey S. Mendelson spake thus:

Plastic, not ceramic. Still requires a few love-taps from a hammer, but the circuit board can be retrieved undamaged.

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Reply to
David Nebenzahl

The white cone part is one-time fitted via pawls to the main part. Dremmell grind a small hole into the cone at the break, where in case of both GE or Philips logo is , seems to coincide with a pawl. Then lever off with screwdriver. Cut the wires to the outside connector or desolder I suppose. These days fibre reinforced plastic or mineralised plastic, used to be ceramic in the original ones, Googling for BU102 + TO92 gets nowhere, I assume as diac in there then triacs

Reply to
N_Cook

Inside Philips Genie 8W CFL

10R, 1W 2 x Si 13001 triac? 105 deg C electros 1.8uF 400V and 2x 22uF lower V 1cm cube choke ferrite ring 4.7mH choke probably diac as well as "diodes" not checked
Reply to
N_Cook

Not so. At least not so with the lamps I use, CFLs from Home Despot.

They come on instantly (and reach full brightness in about 30s); their odd appearance is usually covered by a shade or fixture; their color balance is good enough for color photography (and under a glass fixture is indistinguishable from tungsten); and their-less-than-claimed lifespan is still pretty long (about 2K hours for these lamps), especially considering they use about 1/4 the energy of a comparable-output tungsten lamp.

Fluorescent lamps have always suffered from weak red output and a discontinuous spectrum. The use of CFLs in "non-industrial" environments (kitchens, shops, businesses, offices) has forced manufacturers to "do something" about these problems.

I had tried CFLs (Philips) when they first came out, because the electric company subsidized them. They were bulky, dim when they came on (the Home Despots aren't), and took "forever" to reach full brightness. And they didn't last very long.

Several years ago Home Despot handed out free CFLs. I tried one and was sold. I no longer use tungsten lighting. (If I needed a high-intensity desk lamp, though, I would use tungsten.) As I write this, I'm sitting in my den of iniquity, illuminated by a 24W Home Despot CFL. It's in a beautiful IKEA fixture (no longer made, of course), and -- other than the fact you don't feel a blast of infrared when you stand near it -- I defy you to tell it's tungsten without looking at the bulb.

I use them "nekkid" in the bathroom, and though /slightly/ cool, the color is anything but "sick". I'd call it a brilliant cool white. It in no way resembles conventional fluorescents.

As for your problems with metamerism... I don't know whether the Home Despot CFLs would solve the problem. However, it seems unlikely that /some/ GB retailer isn't importing the same bulbs.

PS: I stuck one of Home Despot's free lamps in the fixture outside my condo. It has lasted at least twice as long as the "long-life" incandescents the condo association uses.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

Nope. The ones sold here (and I assume in the UK) are Hyundai (Korea), Osram (eastern Europe), and a bunch of Chinese brands that sound like famous Japanese ones but are not.

And they are ceramic, not plastic. :-(

I do occasionaly see Philps ones (at twice the price or more than the others) and I have lots of GE incandescent bulbs which are made in eastern Europe.

Geoff.

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Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
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Geoffrey S. Mendelson

I like the 6500k CFLs for security lighting and my bench light. I'm very surprised at the longevity of the outdoor 23 watters. They have been in use dusk to dawn in all kinds of weather, all mounted inverted and in some sort of shroud one actually totally enclosed in a globe. Only one has failed after two years and I expected it to fail, the globe enclosed CFL. None of these 4 outdoor lamps are rated for inverted use either. I did some reading on inverting a CFL and the base temperature increases dramatically when the lamp is inverted. So I would expect cheap electrolytics to dry up in no time.

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Reply to
Meat Plow

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message news:4cc390a0$0$2453$ snipped-for-privacy@news.adtechcomputers.com...

Over the years since this technology was vaunted as the 'replacement' for incandescent light, I have bought many examples from different manufacturers. Whilst there has been some improvement in their performance in that time, they remain, IMHO, a 'substitute' technology, rather than a 'replacement' one. They do not start up in the few mS that it takes an incandescent to come on, no matter how good and up to date they are in that respect. Neither do they reach full output for some considerable time after they are powered. Most seem to be rated to produce 80% of their maximum light output after 15 seconds. The remaining 20% takes a lot longer than that. Both shortcomings are exacerbated by low ambient temperature. The power ratings and light output are typically specced for an ambient temperature of 25 deg C. Whilst some parts of the world may achieve this most of the time, we don't here in the UK, and UK homes are certainly not heated to that level from autumn through spring. Apart from that, they don't sit properly in many decorative light fittings, and change the colour aesthetics of some lampshades - notably for instance, in a rather nice Tiffany style table lamp that I have. When I tried one in that, the beautiful ruby red panels changed to a muddy colour, and the whole shade took on a muted look, with much of the colour vibrancy that is a trademark of this type of shade, gone. I went back to an incandescent in it. I was able to use a clear one, as the bulb is not visible.

As another example of dubious output spectrum and CRI, I recently bought an expensive example to go in a new light fitting in my hallway, which I had just decorated. It was sold as a 'warm white' for household interior lighting uses, and with a claimed equivalent light output of a 100 watt incandescent. I chose a type that had a pearl 'globe' around the CFL spiral, as the lampshade it was going in, was formed from glass crystal beads, making the bulb completely visible, and part of the overall visual design. An 'open' spiral or loop CFL design would have looked dreadful.

However, when it was fitted, the light from it was barely adequate, despite the fact that previously, the hallway had been lit perfectly well with a 60 watt pearl incandescent bulb, and was now decorated in lighter colours than it was before. Further, the colour spectrum was so poor that the background of the wallpaper - actually a 'calico' colour - appeared to be a 'sick' pale green, completely different in shade to the calico emulsion paint used elsewhere in the hall, and which is indistinguishable from the wallpaper background under natural daylight, or incandescent light.

My daughter, who is an artist and understands a lot about colour, saw the new decoration for the first time after it had been completed and this new bulb fitted, at night, and she was horrified at the effect, asking how on earth we could have picked such horrible and mismatched colours. She knows nothing of the technicalities and shortcomings of CFLs, and was just reacting to something she was seeing from the artistic perspective.

My wife and I were so disappointed with her comments, that I immediately removed the dreadful thing, and replaced it with a 60 watt pearl bulb that I had rescued from my mother's stash after she died recently. Unfortunately, it was the last one she, or I, had.

Once I had done this, my daughter couldn't believe the difference she was seeing. To her, it had been 'just a light bulb'.

So, it's not just me. I think that many people don't like them - or the many other eco, production and disposal implications (but that's another whole story) - but are just going along with the whole thing because they are being left with no other choice. They have their uses for sure. In areas that have to be continuously lit for instance, or perhaps where aesthetics don't matter. But as a replacement for incandescent light in all circumstances ? No sir. Not yet. Not by a long long way ... And if that makes me a Luddite and pommy whinger (just for you Philip) then yes, guilty as charged ...

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

You've obviously had bad luck. Or there aren't any good ones in your neck of the woods.

True. They come on instantly. You can see the difference -- there's a visible lag with incandescents.

Mine take about 30s. And they're acceptably from the moment they're turned . (The older Philips were really dim at turn on.)

It appears that your government is aggressively forcing a conversion to CFLs and other low-energy lighting. Forced conversion tends to short-circuit the normal market forces that encourage companies to produce products people really like. Your manufacturers have no real motivation to produce CFLs with pleasing color balance.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

But this totally underlines my point about them being a 'substitute' rather than 'replacement' technology. Many many household fittings are either enclosed, semi-enclosed, or use a bulb that hangs down. In fact I would have to say that fittings that have the bulb base facing up, other than perhaps in table lamps, are few and far between, and fittings that do employ such a scheme, and are then able to take CFLs, are even rarer. My son has a three-branch 'chandelier' fitting in his hallway. He has fitted CFLs to this, and because of the larger bases that these have to accommodate the ballast electronics, they stick out of the tops of the glass shades, and look ridiculous.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

More...

"Emission spectra of some compact fluorescent lamps"

You can check the spectra of some CFL lamps at:

"The Double Amici Prism Hand-Held Spectroscope." Emission spectra of various lamps are furthur down the page.

Incidentally, you might find it amusing to see what CCFL backlit white looks like on a laptop LCD display [1.3.7], and a Sony Trinitron [1.11.3]. Also, the authors comments on "Full-Spectrum Lamps" near the bottom of the page.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Reinforced Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT) or Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) plastic resin with about 30% glass fiber mixed in to minimally meet UL-94 V-0 flame retartent specs.

MSDS for CFL from Home Despot:

What's inside and how it works: "Self Oscillating 25W CFL Lamp Circuit"

Fiat Lux (let there be light).

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

I wasn't arguing the fact that they are 'substitutes' as you put it. But what is a person to do unless you are willing to blow your own glass and buy tungsten from Norway or Sweden or wherever it comes from and refurbish your own incandescents? You could start stockpiling your favorite incandescents to have them on hand when they finally disappear for good but what after that? Although fluorescents have been around for

60 years or more used in commercial lighting those that manufacture CFLs are going to have to beef up the technology and design better lamps with better quality components but keep the cost down at the same time.
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Reply to
Meat Plow

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