I only two of them in my house.One in my kitchen and the other one in my bathroom, I never turn them off.Just now I was in my kitchen getting me a ''cold one''.That flourscent light bulb blipped a couple of times.What does that suppose to mean? cuhulin
Maybe a "brown-out" on the power line?
The one I leave on 24/7 usually conspires to fail when I'm out. Common failure modes are the tube or the mains in reservoir electrolytic, typically they start flickering or just go "phutt".
Back in 2003 I saw a 13 watt Osram CFL end its life in bursts of sparks and smoke through a hole melted in the side of the ballast container. I called Sylvania/Osram and they offered a replacement free of charge. I told them no thanks I prefer to not have my home burn down if another one of these failed while I wasn't present to disconnect its power source. That scared me away from CFLs for a long time.
I agree. Same here. I saw the big sparks and smoke. I changed back to incandescence. I would not use it even it is free.
The only one I ever saw do that was one I'd fitted bigger transistors in an attempt to use it as an electronic ballast in a 6' strip light - it even worked for a few days before blowing up.
Thing is the quality has improved dramatically over the past 6 years. Especially with the push to outlaw incandescent. However I still wont leave these on while unattended unless they are outside as my security lighting consists of the latest 23 watt slim socket design lamps branded Sylvania CF23EL/MINITWIST. These tested pretty robust surviving outdoors completely enclosed in a globe as porch lights and in a security light fixture designed for incandescent floods out in the rain and now snow. That fixture is a motion detector but it was frequently placed in the manual on mode as I was having some minor problems with juveniles trespassing and wanting to use our trampoline.
I used to love to experiment like that.
MOSFETs work better but you have to increase the turns on the feedback toroid dual secondaries to feed the higher VGSthr.
I think I'll stick to beds, the couch, the floor, hot tubs, etc.
I've had one outside for a couple years now. It's only semi-protected from direct rain, but not enclosed. Temperatures from 0F to 100F over the seasons. Controlled by a timer, on about 6 hours a day.
-- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ:
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If the lamp is secure in the socker and no serious brownouts, suspect bad solder conncetions on its PCB. Eventually, it will just go out completely. 50:50 it will blow one or both transistors, else resoldering will probably fix it.
-- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ:
Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header above is ignored unless my full name AND either lasers or electronics is included in the subject line. Or, you can contact me via the Feedback Form in the FAQs.
Some times it just "feels so good" to let the smoke out.
A few months ago, our shop was shipped some incorrect Bosch automotive relays we use to honk the horn from the LMR radio (crew page).
The problem was that these had an internal "back EMF" snubber diode across the coil. That would be no problem if plugged into a prewired socket, but we wire them manually with spade lugs and often in poor light where you couldn't see the diode polarity-to-lug markings on the schematic molded into the black plastic . Get the coil wires backwards... blow the switch transistors in the radio!
The fast fix was to hook up a 20A bench supply to the relay coil terminals so the diode was forward biased and watch the current jump to
20amps for a second as the diode blew out... no longer a problem. Only bad part was the smoke couldn't get out as the relay is sealed.
I was trying to think of how to make that joke, but you beat me to it.
I converted an inspection lamp that uses an 8 watt 11" T5 tube with a resistive ballast in the cord to electronic ballast using a new 9 watt 'off brand' CFL board. Works a treat and has seen a lot of use over the last three years. Fitting it in required some very creative board trimming and taking the resevoir cap and series cap between the filaments off board.
The left over brand new CFL tube went into a good brand CFL that had become seriously blackened at the ends and gave me a couple of years more life from that.
lol
I have a standard home Shop Light fixture that I shorted the ballast out with commercial bulbs. Guess I'll tear it apart and see what happened because when it fires it draws a lot of current for maybe a half second then shuts down (protect circuit I suppose).
This will be a good litlle experimental repair for me never having torn one apart to repair before.
Yeah the 23 watt Mini Twists I put out this summer have survived out in the elements only protected by a 2" deep "half shroud" and the depth of the lamp socket. They are angled at 45 degrees down and on the wall of my garage on the leeward side of where our winds come from so that helps with the moisture a bit but otherwise are completely open to the elements.
And I was happily surprised that they survive well completely enclosed outdoors in the heat. One out front is in a globe and is on from dusk till dawn.
So as a conclusion to my tests I will probably migrate to these Sylvania Mini Twist CFLs. I like the 2700K color of these and they do put out a lot of lumens even the 13 watt version is very bright.
Your lucky in Australia they are in the process of banning incandescent lamps we wont be able to buy them
They idiot politicians are doing the same in the U.S., but more slowly. I've laid in a very good supply of incandescent bulbs already and should have a lifetime supply on hand by the time the ban takes effect.
-- Roger Blake (Subtract 10s for email. "Google Groups" messages killfiled due to spam.)
I have been playing with the circuits for a while and IMHO there is a possibility of a dead short when bad spikes occur in the supply.
There are two MJE13003 connected across the supply and I suppose they are to only alternatively. By any chance if they conduct at the same time even for an instant you had it.
All the circuits I built had short lives when I connected to bad supplies.
My 2 cents
-- Thanks for your time Ardent
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