Got a lampshade from The Range and the sticker inside says "Lamp shape 60W Lamp shape 12W"
This has me puzzling. Is there something about CFLs which makes the base much hottter than a traditional bulb? What about the CFLs with a globe around the outside which look like traditional lamps? Or has someone done a dumb thing and thought "The equivalent to a 60W filament bulb is a 12W CFL so that is the maximum size of CFL to fit"?
Struggling to find the logic here.
Cheers
Dave R
unless they think that a 12W CFL is the largest that will fit physically.
Not necessarily hotter than a traditional bulb but hot enough to shorten its lifetime in the wrong sort of fixture.
The capacitors in the CFL control electronics tend to die if they get too much above 120C. By comparison an over power incandescent will merely set fire to the lampshade and only fail when the glass melts.
CFLs in ceiling mounted glass globes tend to overheat and die young.
An ordinary light bulb runs at up to 200C surface temperature. The electronics of a CFL would very quickly die if they ran that hot. The tube of a CFL is expected to run at 100C max, and the control gear normally no higher than that.
Another factor is that you wouldn't be able to fit a 60W CFL into many fittings designed for a 60W filament lamp.
BTW, a 60W equivalent CFL would be nearer 15W.
The spirel CFLs ones will often fit where the stick ones don't shine (!)
These are pretty big ventilated shell globes - roughly 8" diameter. So you should be able to get a big CFL in although it might not be positioned centrally to the globe. There is also plenty of airflow so heat should not be trapped. So having noted the helpful responses, I am still not really sure why they are only rated for a 12W CFL
Won't be having CFLs anyway because they are on dimmers :-)
Its temperature seems to depend more on maker than wattage, so I suspect that they have been mostly dumb, but maybe just on the safe side just in case.
Brian
What it really means is that a 60W CFL is < a 12W incandescent lamp :)
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