Strange problem with low energy light bulb

OK.... you and Allison are more than welcome to give your money to the power companies and the fossil-fuel companies and so forth. Far be it from me to confuse your closely-held beliefs with anything outside your (very) limited experience. Writing for myself and my family, I would much prefer having the extra cash to spend on more enjoyable pursuits.

As to the source of lamps, if you buy s*it at s*it prices, you will get s*it, and generally, s*it is a waste of time and frustrating. So, if you are going to base your pathological and fanatical distrust of new technology on s*it and anecdote, I wish you well as you impoverish yourself. And given the general basis of your arguments, you would prefer a rock over a hammer, as the cheap Chinese hammer you bought at the dollar store shattered the first time you used it.

Luddites abound even after the advent of the power loom, it seems.

Peter Wieck Wyncote, PA

I couldn't agree more re: the 's*it'.

Apart from 3 'cheapy' CFLs I bought last year and one I bought recently with a

The 'cheapies' work perfectly well too as it happens.

Whilst I'm a CFL 'fan' I am nevertheless anti compulsion wrt 'banning' incandescent bulbs.

Graham

There are places you really want to keep incandescent bulbs. I use one in the lavatory, because generally at night the light will only be on for a few seconds - nothing like long enough for a CFL to reach its proper brightness. Also in the main living rooms I have tried CFLs and rejected them because the light they give is just too unpleasant to live with. I use CFLs in the hallway and on the upstairs landing. That will do.

Even with the current 'warm white' types ?

Graham

Yup. For me they have never felt warm - just dim. They put me in mind of wartime and rationing.

Well, they *are* dimmer than conventional incandescents. I've always found the idea that they use 1/5 the power misleading. Those comparisons were made with 'softone' bulbs.

You need at least a 23W CFL to match the output of a 100W incandescent.

The table here...

Shows a 100W incandescent providing 1700 lumens.

In comparison some new CFLs I have claim only 1100 lumens for an 18W and 1200 lumens for a

The 11W CFLs claim 600 lumens and that makes them only slightly brighter than a standard

I do wish they wouldn't make these silly claims for them.

Graham

Ony for a good one at the start of it's life. They get even dimmer with use though.

than a standard

Me too, and those equally silly 8,000 hour claims.

MrT.

I haven't been counting the precise hours but the ones I've had have lasted a long, long time.

Graham

lasted a

MrT.

The only difference between 120V and 240V CFLs is the configuration of the rectifier and filter capacitor(s) on the input.

Some are crap and fail quickly, others last years. Start cycles seems to have a large effect on life, the ones that are in dusk till dawn lights outdoors have lasted me to or beyond their rated life, save for one that failed in the first couple weeks.

Full size fluorescent tubes do last a long time, though the ballast is the reason for most of this. CFL ballasts are just not robust, they're built to be disposable.

The tubes for the latter simply run at half the current of the former.

See for 120 volt CFLs.

See for 240 volt CFLs.

All 14 shown use a bridge rectifier at the AC input.

....... Phil

Interesting, those are different than most of the ones I've torn apart which had a voltage doubler with a pair of identical filter caps, these are mostly older though. Either way the tube current is determined by characteristics of the tube and most of a given diameter are about the same. Input voltage does not determine tube current, the design of the ballast does, in the case of the first one, the inductor L2 is primarily responsible for limiting lamp current to something reasonable.

Getting rid of that crossposting crap, makes me wonder if any newsreaders can warn when crossposting so I don't have to remember to check.

I've had ones that I counted the lifespan in seconds. Burned out before I got off the ladder when replacing them....

-- Ed

"GPE".

Returned it to the store for replacement and the staffer moaned that I had opened the packet !!

BTW

Be sure NEVER to put one in a socket that operates from a dimmer, no matter that it may be kept set at maximum - it will still fry the CFL's electronics.

See this page, about half way through, under "Normal" CFL Failure Modes.

........ Phil

"Phil Allison"

........ Phil

LOA is usually pure junk. The curious thing I've noticed about them is that at least in the past, they used top quality Japanese tubes with about the cheapest most junky Chinese ballasts I've ever seen. I don't think I ever had one of the ballasts last long enough to wear out a tube so the replaceable aspect is not really worth much.

That's certainly never happned to me. Were they 'off-brand' cheapies by any chance.

Graham

Mine does.

In article , Sam Goldwasser writes

In the UK, it's common to drill holes in floor joists and run several circuits through them, including lighting (6A) and ring (32A) circuits. Thus a long length of ring main cable running alongside the lighting circuit in question would easily be sufficient to induce some current flow in the lighting circuit. This is where the energy comes from to cause the CFL to charge up and flash.

To the OP: it's entirely normal and not indicative of a fault at all. You only need to do something if the flashing bothers you.