i have a wall switch that turns on the light when it gets dark and turns it off after several hours. are there energy-saving bulbs that would work with this kind of switch? the only low-energy bulbs in the shops seem to be for dimmable switches.
It's possible your automatic switch needs to be able to continuously pass a small current to run it's electronics, IE has only 2 terminals a live in and a live out. If this is so then you may get a problem with some low energy lamps which pass zero current until they strike and light up fully.
Not all switches are like this and similarly some lamps may pass enough current anyway to operate the switch.
Without knowledge of which types you've got it's not possible to advise further except to say if you do have this problem then the set up can usually be made to work by wiring a very low wattage filament lamp (Eg. a 15w night light) in parallel with the low energy lamp. This will ensure a continuity of supply to the switch while the E/S lamp is off.
As an alternative you can also buy low energy lamps with the dusk to dawn function built in.
Derek
On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:32:21 +0100 someone who may be ernie mendoza wrote this:-
Depends on how the switch works. If it has a neutral connection then all should. However, if it doesn't have a neutral connection then it works by passing a small current through the lamp. This can't be seen with a filament bulb ass it doesn't make the filament hot enough. With a CFL it may make the lamp flash occasionally, with a LED it shouldn't do anything.
I fitted one of these:
Will dimmable low-energy bulbs pass enough current to operate the switch?
Yes, I saw these in the shops. Trouble is they will stay on all night instead of switching off after a set number of hours.
ernie mendoza coughed up some electrons that declared:
We really need to adopt some new wiring practises:
Take neutral via switch - that'll solve that problem.
Stop trying to dim lights by hacking the sine wave to bits (which worked really well for a slow to react resistive load). Agree on a SINGLE control signal and ship that to the light fitting. Lamp dims itself in whatever way it sees fit. That would also reduce some of the EMI from wiring.
Talking of standards, why is it so hard to get a simple cheap table light with a BC fitting...
Tim
Almost certainly a class X capacitor. That way it doesn't dissipate much heat, which a resistor would.
Good point - Hangs head in shame :)
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