Australia to Ban Old - Style Light Bulbs

[petrw1]

I use them wherever I can in outlets that I use regularly. The cost savings of reduced energy usage vs. cost of the bulb will not be realized in a bulb used a couple hours a week. Mind you, the "protectors of the planet" will still suggest that I am still saving Mother Earth.

One place they work better is where there are fixtures that say: "Max 60W". I understand it is because higher wattage incandescent bulbs give off more heat and could melt the fixture. If I have a room that I want more light (i.e. for reading or my wifes cross-stitching) I can put a 100W flourescent bulb in these Max 60W fixtures without the risk of fire and get great light. AND....100W Flourescent still uses less electricity than a 60W incandescent.

Finally the bulbs are getting more compact but I still run into some fixtures made for incandsecent bulbs that I can't quite get the flourescent bulbs into.

[akruppa]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

1.) Noise, the high pitch buzzing/whine. I have a relative that can't stand them. I have some over my vanity and at night they quite noticeable.
2.) Flicker, some of us, especially those of us with certain conditions are irritated by the flicker. School children sometimes suffer. While it is shorter than the 1/40 of a second figure, it is still noticable. Put a flourescent lamp over a ceiling fan and I go .

These two problems sound like old or low quality bulbs. As for sound, even with my ear right next to the 6000K CF in the picture above, I can't hear the slightest sound. No hum, no buzz, no whine, nothing. Flicker is a problem of CF with conventional ballasts, those will flicker at 100 or 120 Hz if your grid is 50 or 60 Hz, respectively. With electronic ballasts, the lamp is operated at several kHz and with the inertia of the phosphor, the emitted light is almost perfectly constant.

Buy a quality CF and you'll never go back.

Edit: here is a comparison of flicker of different types of lighting (in German). The table towards the end of the page shows that the luminous flux of a normal flourescent lamp (LL) with conventional ballast ("Konventionelles Vorschaltgerät" = KVG) varies by about 40% with twice the grid frequency, with electronic ballast (EVG) only by 3%. For a normal incandescent bulb (Glühlampe) it's 10%. Afaik CFs with electronic ballast perform about the same as normal flourescent tubes with electronic ballast, so a good CF would actually flicker less than an incandescent bulb.

Alex

[robert44444uk]

C'mon guys, Akruppa has it right. They just ain't romantic enough.

Me, I am back to candles a lot because of brownouts, load shedding, etc, all words I have learned since coming to Dhaka. Wait till it warms up and the aircons start to function with a supply/ demand ratio of about 40%.

Candles are the way to go. No complaints. Reminds me of 1973/4 back at college, where a man's fancy had nothing to do with prime numbers.

Hoping!!!!!

[akruppa]

The intro of this cracked me up for some reason...

Who said religion can't adapt?

Alex

[akruppa]

Apparantly some German politicians like the idea and are pushing for an EU-wide ban of incandescent bulbs. According to polls, a majority of Germans is in favour of the ban.

Alex

[Andi47]

I have started to replace my bulbs with CFs every time when one of my bulbs wears out.
Unfortunately I can't replace the bulbs in my sleeping room, because their socket sits on a long, narrow neck which is needed to fit the bulb inside the lamp. All CFs I have seen before have a short or a "thick" neck which doesn't fit into the lamp.

[akruppa]

Do you mean E14 vs. E27 sockets? CFLs with E14 are a little more difficult to find but they exist. I know because I bought one for the lamp in my sleeping room!

Alex

[Andi47]

Originally Posted by akruppa

Do you mean E14 vs. E27 sockets? CFLs with E14 are a little more difficult to find but they exist. I know because I bought one for the lamp in my sleeping room!

Alex

Yes, they are E14s. And additionally the bulbs have got a long neck, E14 bulbs or CFLs with a short neck won't fit into my lamp. (I have also bought some E14 CFLs, and their neck is too short.
Up to now I don't have found any E14 CFLs with a long neck.

(CFL spot lamps are even harder to find than bulb-shaped CFLs)

[masser]

Has anybody had experience with CFs dying prematurely? I have had three die on me in less than 4 months of regular household use. One of these was my fault - I put it in a motion sensor device outside my house and after it died, I read that my motion-sensor is a no-no for CFs. But the other two were in regular light sockets in light fixtures attached to our ceiling (away from our rambunctious cats and dog). Also, they were GE CF's, so I don't believe quality was an issue here. Any ideas?

[BlisteringSheep]

Any chance that they were on a dimmer switch?

[masser]

No. Just a regular on/off switch. Incidentally, our kitchen light fixture has 3 sockets (each with a CF) and our dining room has a fixture with 4 sockets (most with CFs). The two that died prematurely were in these two fixtures respectively. The other CFs in these fixtures have not had any issues.

The only reason for these burnouts, that I can think of, is that we bought the CFs (in 6 packs and 8 packs) at a Sam's club and maybe the packages got jostled too roughly in transit somewhere and these two in particular got messed up.

I'm curious if other people have seen CFs die prematurely.