They had inductive ballasts (hence the weight) which were intinsically more reliable but less efficient and more expensive. AFAICR they did also have a glow switch starter, which in general don't last 7 years, but it does depend on how many "starts" you do.
Derek
My father was a tailor about 55 when he stopped working. He would scold me as a small child "Y'er in me light !" if I as much as walked across the window (8 feet wide) whilst he was working. At the time I couldn't understand it.
I tend to think that the pro CFl lobby are composed of young whippersnappers who will understand what we've been on about when they become late middle aged.
Derek
Just to add a bit to that, the lampshade really fulfilled the function of the integrating sphere to some extent, and it would be valid to say that the light you are interested in is the useful light emerging through the centre of the diffusing material of the lampshade, at eye level when sitting, not the light heading downwards towards the dark hardwood table or upwards towards the ceiling 6 feet away, if that is how the lamp is to be used. Presumably CFl's were made to be direct replacements for GLS bulbs in lamps with lampshades. Or have I got it wrong?
Derek
I just find 'dynamo' Hansen amusing, when not plain boring.
He has read the Greenpiss manifesto, and swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Greenpiss are the biggest obstacle to tackling climate change IMHO.
Time and again they have demonstrated that their ideology is emotionally based, and has no foundation in facts or actual calculations.
Yet their agenda has been adopted by Europe. Crazy.
and for
I am sure I have some 11's and a 14W..
Ah. Do you ment that 11s and 14s are available, but bigger?
Oh, there are some very interesting direct excitation phosphors around. For OLED type stuff.
But in a decade it will be irrelevant, as nuclear power will mean the incandescent lightbulb becomes overall the cheapest and lowest carbon form of domestic heating ;-)
Me too :-) Every shopping trip I come back with another couple of 100W incandescent lamps. I just don't like the quality of light produced by the energy saving lamps and also the fact they are not as bright as claimed by the manufacturers on the box. 100w = 20w = bollocks.
On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:29:26 +0000 someone who may be Bruce wrote this:-
Then you were not an early adopter. I have one which I bought in the early 1980s and which was still working yesterday evening. It does behave the way the antis claim all such lamps behave, it is slow to start. However, I have been using more recent lamps in places like the toilet for over a decade and for say the past five years on the stairs. They start quickly enough for these applications.
Over the years some have failed. One failed more quickly than I expected, but no others have done (other than a couple I broke through my own stupidity).
Because of this it is easy for me to spot the bogus claims of the antis and warn those who may be influenced by the loud claims of the antis that there are many of us who are more than satisfied with compact fluorescent lamps.
Plain ol' fluorescent lighting is far more suitable for an office - larger light source so more even. There is a big variety of specialist tubes available for those who don't like the light colour of standard ones. And using fittings with electronic ballasts gets round the flicker thing that annoys some.
no
It does. The lumen spec is given as when new. Same is true with filament lamps, whch also fall in output over time, but less
You already confirmed they werent compared to GLSes, but to tinted filament lamps.
Then youve got a thing or 2 to learn about life.
yawn
wonder what supermarkets you've been shopping in
You misunderstood the claims. And still do.
The governement hasnt suppressed any information on CFLs. We are scrutinising the argument right now.
NT
present cfls also use inductive ballasts. I guess its easy to criticise what you dont understand
NT
Again the mfr claims aren't 15 yrs but rather 15 yrs if you use it under specified conditions, which naturally are low use conditions.
NT
That's all very wll if you're writing a scientific paper, or a marketing piece - but in practice what's important is the amount of light from the bulb taht is reflected off whatever you're looking at, that reaches your eye. So while you're correct in theory - in practice the important thing is the users' perception of brightness, which seems to be what the Lux meter is measuring.
Ah, the wonders of globalisation.
Another reason for exporting industrial production to China is that it appears to reduce the EU's carbon emissions. In world terms, it increases them, because China's industries are far more inefficient in terms of CO2 emitted per unit of manufacture, and there is also the CO2 aspect of shipping the items back to Europe.
EU governments are very good at appearing to want to do something about climate change while doing nothing, or making it worse.
Known in the trade as "The Shoesalesman's Excuse" ...
"You've been using these"
Derek
Gettaway !
I never said they didn't. It would be more correct to say that "high frequency solid state ballasts also use inductors". The ballast as a whole would not accurately be best described as "inductive".
So I see.
Derek
LEDs are advancing at reasonable pace, there are actual 100 lumen per Watt parts availiable, CFL barely hits 80 l/W. Getting that in a lamp that has similar `wall plug ` efficiency might take a bit though. Like fluro, in commercial sector there are some very nice LED solutions but they are cost prohibitive for domestic installation.
Sir Joseph`s developments were certainly a big step forward, never mind that American guy and the $50K he spent buying a similar idea from some Canadians, another 80 years on and Elmer Fridrich`s developments led to what would personally still agree with him as "the most beautiful light quality of anything on the market" halogen:
I've been happily using CFLs from the early days of Philips 'jam jar' ones. The early problem was that there wasn't one equivalent to a 150w incandescent. That still is a (lesser) problem. They have improved vastly over the years, and I have used them exclusively for at least 10. Life is much greater than incandescents were in my last house (close to substation). As the mains voltage here is normally about 230, it gives long life (and poor colour temperature) to incandescents.
Switching doesn't seem to alter the life, most failures have been mechanical ones, like hitting them with a hard object by mistake.
I would lijke there to be greater availability for higher wattage ones (30w=150w incandescent) and a higher colour temperature (I /like/
3500/4000K) but most seem to be 2700K.If th above were more readily available in the supermarkets/DIY shops, then I doubt if there would be many complaints.
In the 50s, when incandescents were used together with gas lighting, I much preferred the gas lights. Getting rid of the low colour temperature inefficient incandescents isn't such a bad thing!
CCT are less efficient because the cold cathode has a high 'fall' voltage at the electrodes which wastes power (and ironically given the name, makes the tube ends much hotter). This effect is minimised by making long tubes so the loss at the cathodes becomes a small proportion of the tube power, but that doesn't lend itself to making compact light source suitable for folding into something lightbulb sized. Where CCT's could win in theory is that they should be easily dimmed using bog-standard phase control dimmers (subject to dimmer's minimum load). The only one I've played with explicitly stated "not suitable for dimming" on it, which is completely barmy -- it dimmed perfectly, and the circuit had nothing about it which was unsuitable for dimming.
In terms of colour, there's no reason they need to be different from standard fluorescents (with thermionic electodes). Run-up time might be different for a number of reasons. Longer tubes might take longer for mercury to diffuse along the full tube length (particularly important after a long time without being used), and the higher operating temperature means there's a bigger difference between the cold and operating temperature which means they may be dimmer at switchon. Tube life should be longer (very much longer if cylindrical cold cathode electrodes are used) and control gear slightly simpler.
The 'new' lumen spec for a fluorescent tube is generally specified at
100 hours old. For the first 100 hours, the tube needs to 'run in', and light output isn't representitive of anything useful.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.