Trouble lights NEED Incandescent bulbs

Over the many years I have used trouble lights, I have ruined many incandescent bulbs by dropping the light. And those trouble lights are prone to falling due to poorly designed hooks.

I thought using a CFL was the solution. WRONG! Those CFL bulbs are more fragile than an incandescent bulb and make a bigger mess when they break, not to mention the toxic mercury inside them getting into the environment. Besides that, the higher wattage CFL's dont fit in a standard trouble light. So, the limit seemed to be a (way to dim) 60W equivalant. And in cold weather, they are almost useless.

The good news is that they still sell the 100W incandescent "Tough Bulbs". They were designed just for trouble lights. They still will burn out or break if dropped hard enough, but far out last the common bulbs.

Those "tough bulbs" can still be used in home fixtures too, if you require an incandescent bulb. I use them in my garage lights, because the CFL bulbs dont get bright enough in cold weather.

I have not yet tried a LED bulb in my trouble lights, due to their high cost, and some LED bulbs only light up on their top (not much light from the side of the bulb), so they would not work well in a trouble light.

I guess trouble lights were appropriately named, since they are always causing troubles. But I wanted to share the fact that those "Tough bulbs" are still available in the larger wattages and can be used anywhere you desire an incandescent bulb. They are more costly than the standard bulbs, but still cheaper than the LED bulbs and comparable in price to CFLs.

Reply to
Jerry.Tan
Loading thread data ...

Yes, and you can modify the hooks to make them work better in many cases. I closed the hook and use either a shower hook or a zip tie in a lot of places. No one solution fits all though.

Most of the newer bulbs glow around the globe so they would work. The real problem is the cost. At $20 plus, I'm sticking with incans for the trouble light.

Yep.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

I used a CFL in a trouble light. Think it was 100W, it fit fine. It did break though and you're right, it's a much bigger mess. I agree cold temps are a problem. On the plus side, they are cool so you can't burn yourself on the hot metal housing.

They also have trouble lights now that are LED period. IDK how well they work and haven't tried an LED in a regular one. What you point out is why I strongly disagree with those that want to force this stuff on us. I say, let the free market decide what to use and where. If it's anywhere as good as they claim, there is no reason to force us to change.

Reply to
trader_4

I've used CFL's in trouble lights for years. If you drop the trouble light, there is a chance the bulb inside can go dead, but that's true of both incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs. Generally, because of the housing the bulb is in, it won't break when you drop the light, and it's just a matter of replacing the bulb.

So what. A 19-something watt CFL bulb will cost you $4 compared to $1.50 for an incandescent bulb. If you're reasonably careful with you're trouble light, you're not going to be dropping it often anyway.

I think it's much ado about nothing.

If people want to use incandescents I think they should be able to if they want to. For me, the fact that I save quite a bit of money using CFL's is all the incentive I need to switch to CFL's and probably eventually LED's.

Reply to
nestork

And those damn plastic housings that melt. I'll never buy one of them again, regardless of the bulb in use. I'm surpised they passed the NEC. They are a fire hazzard.

Yep, I've seen the all LED trouble lights. They are quite costly too. I'd think they would need a lot of LEDS to be bright enough. Years ago, I bought a battery operated rechargable LED light stick. It was costly but I had to buy it for a job I was doing, so it was a business expense and got written off for that job. It put out fairly good light. But after about 4 years it would not hold a charge anymore. The battery was built in, and the only way to get to it was to smash the case. I carefully cut the case open with a hack saw blade, but it would have needed to be taped back together. I was willing to do that, but not when I found out some battery cells would cost more than the light cost, and would need to be soldered, which can damage batteries. It went in the trash.

Reply to
Jerry.Tan

I saw an ALL-LED trouble light in an autoparts shop, and I was actually quite surprised at how bright it was. The individual LED's were so bright that you had a hard time looking directly at them, kinda remeniscent of incandescent bulbs.

Maybe before you hoard a whole bunch of incandescent bulbs for your trouble light, check out an LED trouble light. I expect it will impress you as much as it did me. And, you could save yourself a bunch of money on incandescent light bulbs.

Reply to
nestork

They are generally a 130 or 135 volt bulb with a plastic skin over the glass, and they DO work. Generally sold as "rough service" bulbs.

Reply to
clare

And the BIG advantage to the LEDs is they won't brand you when your body parts get between them and the floor when you drom them, or when you brush against them while working under the car. Those metal reflector/guard units can get hellishly hot with a 100 watt "flame" in them!!!!

Reply to
clare

Well stated

Reply to
Todd

But if the glass breaks, the CFL makes a much bigger mess. No matter how careful I am with trouble lights, they /WILL/ fall and break. When working on cars, the chance of them falling is worse than when working in the house (it seems), but all it takes is another cord, like from a power tool, to get tangled in the trouble light cord, and down they go.

I'd rather lose $1.50 than $4.00. I also think the "Rough Service" (Tough) incan... bulbs are tougher than a CFL.

I use CFL in all my indoor house fixtures, to save money on electricity. I finally broke down and paid the high price for a LED bulb to use on my outdoor porch light. My reasoning was that I leave that light on almost all the time after dark, to avoid tripping when I go down the steps, or other people visit. Plus the CFL bulbs dont work in winter. I also bought a low wattage LED bulb for in my barn, because that light is left on 24/7 so the animals have a little light. I used to use a 15W incen... bulb. They dont need much light, just enough to see. Once again, the CFL did not work in cold weather. This LED bulb only uses

3W, works in all weather, and saves me 288W in a 24 hour period.

The 15W incan used 360W every 24 hour day. The 3W LED uses 72W " " " "

I did some calculations. In a 30 day month, the 15W bulb used 10,800 watts. (roughly 11KWH), and at $0.14 per KWH, that is about about $1.50 per month.

The LED uses about 2,160KWH per month, which is around $0.30 per month.

Thus I save $1.20 per month, or $14.40 per year. Those smaller LED's are cheaper. I bought that bulb on sale for around $8. So, it was paid for after around 7 months in power savings.

Anyhow, my point agrees with what you said. ["If people want to use incandescents I think they should be able to"]

I dont want to get into a political discussion, but I'm really tired of the government telling us what to do and buy. This is (supposed to be) a free country. They have no right telling me what light bulbs I can and can not buy, or telling me I cant buy chocolate because it's fattening, or even telling me I cant smoke, as long as I respect other people's right to clean air.

I can and do agree with govt. control of unsafe products, such as food additives that are harmful, or controling what gauge wire we use to wire a 15A circuit, but those are for our safety. Everyone knows that smoking is bad, but it should be my choice, as well as how much chocolate I eat, or what kind of light bulb I buy.

I use CFLs indoors because the save me money. I use incan... in my garage because CFL is worthless in cold weather. I use LED in my barn because all of the above and because those smaller size bulbs are affordable. I WILL use more LED bulbs, when the price comes down, and as design and color improves. Actually the color is not bad now, but the price is the biggest drawback. Yet, I prefer an incan bulb in my trouble light, because that is what seems to work best for now. And my trouble light is not used daily or for long periods of time, so the savings on electricity is not significant.

In the end, I use what works, and saves me as much money as possible, without having to struggle to read a book, due to poor lighting. I dont need the govt. to tell (and force) me what to use.

Reply to
Jerry.Tan

It seems some of the CFLs in the higher wattage, are getting smaller in size. I could not fit soem of the older 100W (equivalant) sizes in a lot of fixtures.

By the way, there is one drawback with incan bulbs in trouble lights. I once had a trouble light fall, while working on a car. I had spilled a small amount of gas on the ground. The bulb broke and I had an instant fire. Fortunately the fire went out quickly and did not do any serious damage. The trouble light was a little charred, but still was usable. But if there had been more gas, it could have been much worse.

However, I suspect a broken CFL could spark a fire just as easily.

Reply to
Jerry.Tan

So, being so impressed, did you buy it?

Reply to
trader_4

No. I have a trouble light meant for an incandescent bulb and plenty of

13 and 19 watt CFL's to go in it, so there was no need to buy the LED based light. I don't use my trouble light often enough to justify buying an LED based one just to save money, as most of the time my trouble light is hanging in my closet. I wanted to try the LED one just out of curiosity to see how bright it was.

But, if I was in the market for a new trouble light, I'd probably have bought that one. The reason isn't just because of the lower electricity usage, the reason is mostly due to the much lower heat output. I use my trouble light most often when painting acrylic grout sealer onto the grout lines in my bathroom ceramic tiling, mostly on the walls around the bath tubs. To do that, it's most effective to hold the trouble light and small bottle of sealer in my left hand and paint with a small artist's "script" paint brush in my right hand. That way, the reflection of the light off the grout line lets me know whether the grout line has been completely covered with liquid sealer or not. It gives me some "feed back" on how good a job I'm doing. That LED trouble light was both light in weight and produced very little heat, and that's what I'd need for applying grout sealer. As it stands now, I use a 13 watt CFL bulb in my trouble light for applying sealer, and prior to CFL bulbs becoming available, I'd use a 15 watt incandescent bulb in the trouble light just because of the smaller amount of heat it gave off. That LED trouble light would have given me much more light with much less heat than using an incandscent, which is nice to have for your normal applications for a trouble light, but which is what you really want for applying grout sealer to grout lines in a small room like a bathroom.

Reply to
nestork

Have you ever tried one of the lightweight LED headlamps like the Petzl Tikkina? I've started to use them for a lot of things since the light is focused where you are looking and you're not trying to juggle a light in one hand or trying to prop it up to shine where you need it.

Reply to
rbowman

dedicated LED (not bulb type) trouble lights are better than either...

Reply to
N8N

...Don't post after the signature indicator next time (if is one)...

Don't think in 50+ yr I've _ever_ seen the former, the latter is only thing I've ever seen. At least w/o some special order something; just what's on the shelf from the normal Ace or farm supply from the usual suspects like GE or the generic store brands.

I generally just bought 130V-rated bulbs; essentially afaict the same heavier filaments at significantly less $$/bulb...

Reply to
dpb

Hmm, Good news is I replaced my old trouble light with new LED array trouble light. Bright and light. Also there is such thing as shatter proof CFL bulbs.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

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.