CFL musings.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I generally hate the things, and won't have them in a living area.

But did decide to use one in the workshop - which is actually the spare bedroom, so still has a pendant light fitting. Only used for general illumination - there is proper lighting over workbenches etc.

I got the largest CFL I could find in a BC fitting. Says 30w on it. Ugly thing - but that doesn't matter. Can't remember exactly when - a few years ago, though.

And it's just gone bang. So much for the claimed long life. I doubt it's done much more than the 1000 hours or so you'd get from a GLS. At many many times the cost.

Had a look at what ASDA had to offer now. Perhaps a 100watt equivalent LED. Not in BC - only ES. Along the isle was their electrical section - sockets and things. No ES lampholders, though. Only BS - including pendant sets.

Of course I know the explanation for the short life - it's a pendant fitting and the bulb would prefer to be the other way up so the electronics run cooler. Pity they don't tell you that at the point of sale.

[charles]

are you sure about that? 1000 hours continuous is less than 6 weeks. I'm sure in a few years, you'd easily run up 1000 hours.

[philipuk]

It's all pretty ridiculous. You're not meant to be able to get large filame nt light bulbs any more (but a quick pop over the road to my local corner s hop easily disproves that!).

The tungsten bulb in a bulb light bulbs are next to be phased out. They onl y saved a tiny bit of leccy anyway.

The CFL's don't fit in existing light fittings in larger power outputs, tak e an age to warm up and have nasty light.

LEDS are expensive and have very little light output. Some of the LED bulb are downright dangerous having exposed solder pads at mains voltage (but th ey do seem to be getting there). The cheap ones give out horrible light. Th ey also don't fit in existing light fittings in larger power outputs.

No one seems to sell good, inexpensive light fittings for low power bulbs.

And for some reason fluorescent tubes have gone out of fashion, replaced in many cases with a shed load of tungsten spot lamps for a huge energy use i ncrease.....

Philip

[Dave Plowman (News)]

1 hour a day for three years? I really don't use it much - just for access etc. And not in daylight unlike the bench lighting. That's fluorescent over the main benches and halogen over the 'electronics' one. The tubes over the main bench are many years old. The halogen too.

[Tim Watts]

I'm experimenting with various LED bulbs from Amazon - mostly because I can read the reviews which often weeds out some right lemons.

Homebase are doing a line of "TCP" bulbs with Nichia LEDs.

For fun factor, I've just got the kids an Auraglow RGB bulb each for their desklamps. Bit heavy, had to do the anglepoise wingnuts like Geoff Capes (time to try adding some friction washers)

Nice decent warm white light and lots of funky colours with an IR remote.

Now, for sheer power, I can personally recommend

It's a long bugger, but not fat. I've had one burning 24/7 for a year or so now and it's still happy. It gives a very good light if you want warm white.

[harryagain]

I have had four CFLs for almost thirteen years now. The Philips "jam jar" style.

I have the newer ones everywhere else, very rare one goes down.

[Chris French]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

I did have a fairy high wattage CFL (35-45W I can't remember)in the hallway, before I installed more lights in their.

It was base up and really suffered from the heating. The glass tube section became 'unstuck' from the base, and eventually it failed

[meow2222]

1000 hrs is an average life, so 50% will fail before then, 50% later. Lifetimes do vary more than filament lamps.

NT

[Richard Tobin]

[...]

Their lives do seem to be rather variable. But since replacing most of my bulbs with CFLs I find myself changing bulbs far less often, and mostly the few remaining incandescents, so I am confident that the average life of CFLs is much greater. And they are all pendant lamps.

Anyway, they're not long for this world. I expect to replace most of mine with LEDs as they die.

-- Richard

[Dave Liquorice]

How many on/off cycles was it specified for?

Try a different supemarket, Tesco have a couple of 850 lm LED jobbies in ES or BC but the price is only just below eye watering in there. Aldi, Hexham had a selection last week but again the higher output ones not cheap (£8.99 IIRC).

s/BS/BC/ B-) Joined up thinking is getting rarer and rarer. TBH with such low use just get a 100 W tungsten. Though that is overkill just for quick access, 60 or even 40 W will be enough to stop you falling over the cat.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

True - but in my experience, not by much. If you have a fitting which takes several the same, they will invariably go fairly close together, if starting out from new.

They certainly do. But never exceed their claimed life. Strange, isn't it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Can't remember that being quoted.

I don't have a big Tesco nearby, and the mid sized one seemed only to have 'posh' LEDs - nothing to replace a GLS type. But I'm really looking for something like 1500 lumens.

Yes - although only stocking BC lampholders when the majority of the bulbs are ES is BS.

I've shoved in a 105w halogen for the moment. Bliss. It's pretty well the only pendant in the house - and without a dimmer - so I feel obliged to use a low energy type, if only to moan about it.

[Tim Watts]

I have been looking across the board and have found nothing greater than

1055.

[charles]

TLC have a "Bollard lamp" at 1050 lumens (they say they do their own measuremets) available in both ES & BC. The Warm white version is 975 lumens

[Andy Burns]

Philips make a BC22 1400 lumen (14W actual/90W equiv) but searching mainly seems to find them in India, for some reason.

Aldi? I have one of that power, the business end (polycarbonate globe?) runs cool, but the base (potted with resin?) feels about the same as juggling a hot incandescent.

Makes you wonder how long the manufacturers will get away with boasting "n x 10,000 hours life" then having to explain "only the actual LED, not the PSU".

[Tim Watts]

Those look like they would have several useful applications and being made of loads of little LEDs rather than 1-3 massive ones should have quite a good life.

[Martin Brown]

Even so it will have saved you enough on electricity costs overall.

That tends to suggest something about you mains glitching and taking out lamps together. Mine fail very infrequently and since switching from conventional spotlamps to LED in the kitchen I have not only saved on power consumption but also in not having to reset the main lighting circuit every time a kitchen spotlamp blows.

Yes. They do. Filament lamps are quite bimodal in their MTBF with a very small number of quick infant mortalities in the first 24 hours of operation and then a very long exponential tail of failures that stretches off to at least a couple of times the official MTBF.

Optimising the preventative maintenance time to swap out units to avoid in service failures is actually quite an art.

Obviously you can shorten its working life considerably by switching it on and off more often and cycling thermal stress on the filament.

[Martin Brown]

No the LEDs are in series on some of the cheapest nasty ones and the first failure takes the entire thing down. I have one in bits now.

[Brian Gaff]

Well I know people who have had more than6 years out of the cfls, and used them every day. I suspecgt you had a rogue. The only rogue I've had was a b/q one that got so hot it let the tube fall out on the floor. Brian

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not surprising given their claimed life. Which is usually 6,000-15,000 hours. GLS tungsten 1000.

However, the only ones I've had here which do exceed GLS by a large amount are outdoors.