Fluorescent shop light woes

And the best part is that every dollar we spend on Chinese products helps them build up their military and technological capabilities. The US's technology lead could soon disappear. Maybe then all those short sighted American companies that shared their valuable expertise with our Chinese "friends" for the sake of a profit now will realize what a horrible mistake it was.

Buy American while you still can. This poster tries hard to do that, but as others have pointed out certain American products no longer exist. For example I'm still looking for a set of American made automotive jack stands. The last time I looked there was one genuine Made in America set of stands out there for a price that was at least four times the price charged for the ubiquitous Chinese types, Craftsman being a good example. Holy cow. Sad to say, but there is a financial limit to my patriotism. Still looking though. Have not bought the Chinese jack stands yet and have no intention of doing so.

I have three flourescent screw in light bulbs in my house.One in my kitchen and two in the light fixture above the medicine cabinet in my bathroom.I never turn them off.Lights of America, I think is the brand name of them, I bought them at the Wal Mart store.Back in the 1970s, a W.T.Grant store was going out of business and closing that store down.They had a lot of stuff on sale.One of the on sale items I bought was a made in Nederlands flourescent thingy.When I installed that light in my bathroom, I wrote the day and date on it with a ball point pen.That light lasted for about fourteen and a half years untill the plug in glass bulb itself finally gave up the ghost.If I can find another plug in light bulb like the old one, I will give it another go. cuhulin

Lights of America products are, ironically, made in China using mostly Japanese fluorescent tubes. They're also well known to make some of the worst quality lighting products in existence. You get lucky once in a while, but I only have two LOA products that still function, one is an early 1980s circline retrofit with a magnetic choke ballast in the rarely used storage closet light, and the other is fluorescent wall pack out back.

Historically, the tubes themselves have been quite good quality, but LOA engineers either can't design a ballast that's worth a crap, or and forced to cheap out by the bean counters.

while,

CU has reported that LOA CFLs have relatively short lives.