Bit OT. CFLs revisited.

On Dec 30, 8:49=A0am, "Arfa Daily" wrote: > I have just returned from a Christmas trip to Vegas, staying in the same big > name Strip-side hotel that I always do. However, since I was last there a > year ago, they seem to have had a big drive to turn the room lighting over > to CFLs. Now, instead of getting a decent light in the room when you come in > the door, it's like someone is going round lighting candles one at a time. > When the rotten things have finally warmed up enough to give out some light, > the room appears dingy and uninviting. Although at first glance, the colour > temperature and CRI look a 'reasonable' match to incandescent, the light > actually has a most unpleasant 'sick' quality to it. >

The US congress is also talking aout MANDATING CFLs because of the energy use - translate: Global Warming. We have a house as full of them as possible and I don't give a hoot about GW but we DO care about the electric bill. In southen CA electric rate is $0.25/ KWh so anything that helps is OK by me. There is a large difference between CFLs from different manufacturers, the old Philips taking a few seceond to even BEGIN to light and then a minute to come up to full brilliance. OTOH its one of the first ones I bought 7 years ago and still going strong. Be aware that some are only rated to have the base down and unenclosed and they do fail FAST if you don't follow the instructions.

When light bulbs are outlawed only outlaws......

Happy New Year GG

The US congress is also talking aout MANDATING CFLs because of the energy use - translate: Global Warming. We have a house as full of them as possible and I don't give a hoot about GW but we DO care about the electric bill. In southen CA electric rate is $0.25/ KWh so anything that helps is OK by me. There is a large difference between CFLs from different manufacturers, the old Philips taking a few seceond to even BEGIN to light and then a minute to come up to full brilliance. OTOH its one of the first ones I bought 7 years ago and still going strong. Be aware that some are only rated to have the base down and unenclosed and they do fail FAST if you don't follow the instructions.

When light bulbs are outlawed only outlaws......

Happy New Year GG

I'm with you on the GW thing. I think that there's enough evidence to make the case for it being man-made, dubious at very best. Also, like Smitty, I think that there are better ways to save. As far as it being an economics thing, I would guess that is why a 3000 room hotel in Vegas is going over to them. I can't imagine the corporation that owns this particular hotel ( and

50% of the others on the Strip ) actually caring too much about the eco aspect. But I really think that these lamps need to get a lot better *in general* to make mandating their use a truly viable option. I am sure that there are some very good ones at the leading edge of the technology, but the ones that I encountered in this particular hotel, sure as hell didn't fall into any category down at the 'acceptable' end of the scale, let alone the 'good' end.

On the other hand, I did see some stunning examples of the latest LED technology. You can always see new forms of this in use in Vegas, and a lot of the hotels seem to be going over to LED floodlamps for their properties, with spectacularly good results. The Venetian has just completed a new accommodation tower, which was due to open a few days after we left. During the last couple of days that we were there, they were carrying out commissioning tests on the new LED giant TV screen outside. Now there are a lot of these down The Strip, but this one was so bright, it was blinding. I'm sure that once they can get the CRI right for making LED based 'incandescent-look-alike' bulbs, they will quickly knock CFLs off their shaky eco-perch.

Arfa

All right, Arfa? Good to have you back.

Yeah, I don't have answers to your questions, but I do know what you mean about those bulbs. The aging CFL I've got in my bedroom is utterly appalling; it takes ages to brigten up; sometimes I've walked past the bedroom having just got up, and thought I hadn't actually turned the thing on, it's been that dark! I mean, I could just buy a new one, but I never remember!

What is the mechanism by which they take so long to get going? Is it some mercury vapour thing whereby the mercury takes ages to go into gas phase? As you can tell, I have no idea what's going on inside these bulbs. I thought the pressure was so low that the mercury was always gaseous even at room temperature, but I'm not sure. That's pretty embarrassing.

And is the warm-up time affected by age? I don't see how it should be, but I don't think they're that bad when new. It does seem to be age-fellated. RELATED. Sorry - she's gone now.

Also, how is it that the light output diminishes with bulb age?

Cheers, anyway.

Martin - not the brightest bulb on the xmas tree

--
M.A.Poyser                                                  Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K.          http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=fleetie

I've also noticed that some CFLs emit radio-frequency interference. If you're not a ham radio operator or a listener to AM radio, you probably won't be annoyed by that. Incandescent lamps produce an extremely broad range of light frequencies, which is part of the reason they are so inefficient. Fluorescent lamps produce a narrower range which tends to be heavy at the blue end of the spectrum unless special phosphors are used, and those fade faster than the "blue" ones. LED lights are narrowest yet, leaving one feeling slightly color-blind. My reading light and my bathroom light are going to stay incandescent as long as I can get them that way. I'm looking forward to seeing, in wide-screen high definition, the results of Hollywood stars dressing under LED lamps.

Have you heard the RF trash radiated from some of the LED traffic lights?

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

But tungsten-halogen lamps are incandescent, and significantly more-efficient than conventional incandescent lamps, because they operate at a higher temperature, and convert more heat into visible light.

There are some reasonable CFLs out there - but I'd not expect to see them in an hotel room. They mean you to suffer while you save energy - and them money.

The GEC RO80 size I use in the workshop inspection light is very good - at least as bright as a 100 watt and the colour rendering passable. But it cost over 15 gbp...

--
*Pentium wise, pen and paper foolish *

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

LEDs as such don't produce any RF but some types of drivers for them do.

--
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    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Hi Fleetie - good to hear from you. Trust all is well with you ? Go have a look at

It might help you out with the concept and operation of these dreadful devices.

Happy new year to ya, and stay in touch. Always glad to see you pop up on here.

Arfa

I find that the light quality from CFLs varies widely, some are junk, some are quite good. I no longer use any standard incandescent lamps in my house and haven't in years, I do have a few Halogena lamps in decorative fixtures, as far as I know, the ban does not apply to those.

I still despise an outright ban on anything of the sort, tax them, fine, but keep them available. It's not possible to forsee all the niche applications where they will still be needed.

Of course I recently resurrected a nice old 2 stage vacuum pump and I found a place that sells tungsten wire so maybe I can just make my own lightbulbs if it comes to that :)

The higher power/more compact CFLs use a mercury amalgam instead of pure mercury in an effort to control vapor pressure over a wide range of tube temperature. The result is that when the lamp is cold, very little mercury is vaporized and very little light is produced. For some reason some lamps are considerably worse with this than others, to the point of being useless for most indoor lighting, and yes, they do tend to get worse with age. I have some excellent CFLs, but I've also had some junky ones.

Yes, Dave. I am VERY aware of that. One of the problems of selecting SMPS for our line of US $20,000 to $80,000 Telemetry receivers was their radiated noise. About 95% of the samples were rejected for this reason. The noise sounds like a bad SMPS, and the noise is carried on the power lines for about two miles, from each of the new lights. That leaves VERY few places that you can listen to AM or shortwave. The Vicor supplies were quiet, but had a horrible failure rate.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

In article , Arfa Daily writes

Snap. Somerfield were selling boxes of 10 60W incandescent for a quid, so I stocked up with enough for the next 20 years. :)

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Hmmm, a refiliament service? good idea if you could do some stage lighting bubbles, they can cost £75 each!

Ron(UK)

--
Lune Valley Audio
Public Address Systems
Hire Sales Maintenance
www.lunevalleyaudio.com

big

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For your own personal use. Assuming your lamps are bright enough, then you could always mix up some varnish and some red + ? dye/ink to make a weak colour wash to paint over your CFLs to adjust the colouration to your own taste.

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

Problem with these lamps is often holes in the spectrum which a filter can't really cure. And they're dim enough already. ;-)

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*In some places, C:\ is the root of all directories *

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Wot a cracking idea, Gromit ! I could then have even LESS light coming out of them ... d;~}

Arfa

For the curious, the non-believers, and the "I need a new geek toy" set there's a very inexpensive "student" spectrometer that makes it really easy to see just how discrete the spectra is (are?) on many florescent lamps.

It's kind of flimsy (vacuum-formed plastic shell) but the damned thing really works. Quite interesting (Must. Resist. "Eye-opening") to compare a narrow CFL spectrum to a white LED.

Don't know of a UK source, unfortunately.

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

News just in, as they say

Ron(UK)