humming CFL

[micky]

I've been listening to a weak FM radio station, on a radio, and 2 feet away was a desk lamp. It used a CFL and I noticed static or some kind of interference in the reception. It could be lessened by changing the frequency a little, but the result was still less volume than when the light was off.

So I figured, LEDs! They won't make interference. Bought Ecosmart. Then the radio hummed so loud I couldn't hear the station at all.

I will probably go back to incandescent. Any other way to get rid of the hum?

[Rod Speed]

Quite a few sold everywhere are like that.

I use Philips Hues which likely are fine but that system is very expensive for just the one led light.

[Bob F]

You could add a better directional antenna to the radio.

I've not had any similar problem myself, so maybe you just tried the wrong bulb, Or, maybe you just need an AC filter between the lamp and the AC line that is probably shared with the radio.

[Biff Tannen]

Probably expensive but if the lievertising is to be believed, these might fix your problem.

[micky]

It's $19/2 of them, at Home Depot and Amazon, and Amazon has one for almost $10. Thanks. Expensive but a good idea.

Bob, there's one other bulb in the package. I'll try that

As I said, with the CFL the interference could be lessened by turing the radio off frequency a little**, but with the first LED bulb, I turned the tuning knob a half turn in each direction, from maybe 88 to 92 MHz FM. and the hum was the same everywhere, twice as loud as the sound had been. It's interesting that it interfered with FM reception, which is less vulnerable than AM, but it appeears, not invulnerable.

**An advantage to analog tuning over digital tuning.

[Rod Speed]

That's because it was a relatively weak harmonic of the chopping frequency.

That's because the designer was stupid enough to use a chopping frequency that's right in that band.

Yeah, particularly with that powerful a signal.

[Meanie]

On 6/2/2019 9:18 AM, micky wrote: Any other way to get rid of

Teach it the words to the song.

[Bob F]

Another model or brand is more likely to make the needed difference.

[micky]

You're right. I put the noisy LED bulb in the ceiling fixture and now it's about 5 feet from the radio and doesn't interfere at all.

It's called "daylight" and at 100 eq. watts it gave a very strange appearance to the room. I'll probably get used to it. They didn't have anohter low-cost LED at HDepot and ... I'll probably get used to it. After all, it's "daylight".

[Clare Snyder]

Had a batch of cheap LED bulbs at the office - close to a remote control ceiling fan. With the lights on the remote didn't work. Would not have been a problem but the fan power was switched with the lights

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[Clare Snyder]

I never got used to "cool white" flourescents. The "delux cool white" was better. I've switched virtually everything to LED now and I use ONLY daylight. Took a bit of getting used to, but the light is SO much more natural - and SEEMS a lot brighter for the same lumen output because the human eye senses bkue light much better than yellow

[TimR]

CFLs will do that too. A lot of TV remotes stopped working when CFLs came out. The spectrum of the lamp affects the IR sensor that the remote shoots at.

[Rod Speed]

I did have that reaction initially when I installed the Philips Hue lights right thru my house. Got the dirty yellow starter kit and hated how yellow it was, even tho I mostly used PAR38 floods and spots inside the house before that. So I got the fully color controlled bulbs for the ones after the initial starter kit of 3 bulbs and used the yellow ones in the bedroom, the room where I store all the beer I brew etc.

Don’t really notice the dirty yellow in the bedroom anymore even tho it gets used every day. And I now how quite a few of what Philips call white ambience which can be set to any white you like but not any color you like like the most expensive bulbs can be.

[micky]

Yes, it does seem very bright. It lights up the whole kitchen and when I had an incandescent bulb 100W, I changed to 150.

Of course maybe it just seems to light up the whole kitchen because I had no ceiling light for a month and was away for the 3 months before that. We shall see.

They have a small exhibit at HDepot where you put your hand or something in the little box, one of three boxes for each kind of light. And some make-up mirrors claim to use 3 kinds of light.

I'll have to pay more attention.