Lightbulb Filament Replacement

Right. None of us want your vote to count.

We've actually got around a 50/50 distribution of CFLs and incandescents at our place. In the last two years I can think of three incandescent failures and four CFLs, so the CFLs are actually doing a little worse (they were all bought at HD). Maybe it's the cold winters up here that kill them, or the high humidity in summer (I don't believe it's our power, because we have no problems with anything else).

Also, I have heard lots of rumors about the electronics getting cooked in the downward-pointing types and causing failures, and maybe there's some truth to that - all that ones I've had to replace have been downward- pointing.

cheers

Jules

Just yesterday I "rebuilt" a tube amp for an old juke box. All new caps, 10 or so resistors, and 6 new tubes. This one has some odd ball output tubes and it took all 4 (push pull stereo) (grid leakage). 6L6's are usually good for the "blue light show".

Now that's interesting - do you have a reference or remember where you saw it? I wouldn't mind reading that - particularly to see how they define "manufacturing", i.e. whether it includes PCB fabrication/ shipping, IC fabrication/shipping etc. as things like that are probably done by other specialist plants and just bought in, rather than being done on site (often for these kinds of studies, "manufacturing" equates to "all these sub-components arrive on our doorstep, and we put them together", so they don't give the true cost of making something).

Given all the ones I've had over the years, I've found that they last about twice as long. I don't really have a handle on "cost" because although CFLs cost more to buy, they do use a lot less in terms of electricity - but I really don't have any faith at all in manufacturer's lifetime claims (or light output - a "40W equivalent" CFL never seems to give as much useful light as a 40W incandescent)

There's certainly no doubt about energy use during run-time - but it's the bigger picture that I'm concerned with. That study does sound really interesting, because an incandescent obviously uses a lot more energy during run-time, so the 2% figure means that an incandescent is *vastly* more energy-intensive to make and safely dispose of than an CFL - and that doesn't seem logical.

cheers

Jules

=3D=3D China made CFL's vary. I have had some that didn't last a 1000 hrs....others have lasted for 5000 hrs plus. On my outside porch lights with glass covers only the 40 watt equivalent will work as the others are too long. I have used CFL bulbs down to -40 degrees with no problems although as you say it takes time to come to full intensity.

I see some bulbs advertised that looked like regular incandescent but contained CFL elements...do you know anything about those? I haven't seen them in stores around here yet. =3D=3D

And even better, if you have no actual preference DON'T VOTE.

In , Jeff Thies wrote in part:

Cold cathode fluorescents can be started frequently and blinked, and usually can be dimmed, and they start instantly. However, they have the same warmup needs as hot cathode ones do, because they still need a proper concentration of mercury vapor to do what they can.

I have seen those. They tend to be "60 watt equivalent" and are more likely to be of major brands. I have seen those in a few supermarkets and at some big box home centers.

They have outer bulbs. Like other CFLs with outer bulbs, they tend to start dimmer and take longer to warm up than CFLs without outer bulbs.

In 2 lines (required by old-tech newsreader):

For incandescents, that may be much less than 2%. Also, energy consumption per bulb throughout its life for electricity consumption is less if the bulb's lifetime is shorter. Shorter lifetime of incandescents means more of them being manufactured, transported and disposed of.

Well, I'm just slightly under 60 years old. Yes, I remember where most tubes would turn white if they got a little crack in them. I never knew why. Thanks for that info.

Yep, 6L6's were some of the most used tubes of all in the old tube amps. I used to have two matched and modified guitar amplifiers hooked to my stereo. Each amp has 4 6L6s in push pull parallel. Those 6L6s really did get a good glow. Particularly the older ones that were shaped sort of like lightbulbs (fat in the middle). The newer ones that were straight on the sides were not quite a vivid, but still did ok.

I wonder what tubes you got in that old amp? I recall some really old tubes which if I recall, were 807s (something like that). I also had another real old amp that had a voltage limiting tube or was that current limiting? They glowed purple. Gees, that's a long time ago, I'm starting to forget all those tube numbers. I do recall the 12AX7 and 12AU7 were often used as preamps, and 5U4 rectifiers.