Light bulbs (again)

Jan 27, 2017 31 Replies

Salesperson in the lighting shop yesterday told me that 2D fluorescents are to be phased out. This seems unlikely to me, and this page confirms what I thought (that they aren't);



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Which stick has she got hold of the wrong end of?



[Makes mental note to 'stock up' on mains GU10s. Well, we only have 2, IIRC, so "stocking up" will consist of buy one, maybe two, bulbs]
[Apropos of nothing, they had large stocks of incandescent bulbs, (not that I wanted any) although she said they'd run out of 40W ES and couldn't get any more.]

What are avaialble are LED filled boards which fit in a 2D lampholder.

OOI why? There are good LED GU10s available (non-flickery, choice of cold/warm/daylight colour temperatures, no chunkier than halogens, narrow or wide beam, various wattages).

Despite supposedly being phased out in 2009 100watt plus lightbulbs are still freely available.

Mike

Not just 100 watt plus.

The 'efficient' halogen versions, which are slightly more efficient. They comprise a little halogen capsule inside a fairy standard 'old fashioned' envelope. I use them in my outside PIR lights where efficiency really doesn't matter all that much and I'm not sure if the old PIRs will successfully drive LEDs. I use 70 watt (100 watt equivalent) and 43 watt (60 watt equivalent) ones.

I'm using actual 100W incandescents for that. If they're on for 10 minutes a month I'd be astonished, I want the "instant on" that a CFL at 0degC doesn't give you and I use them so little an LED really isn't worth the expense. Especially since I'm using up the bulbs my MiL bought and is no longer in any position to use.

For GLS (not that I have many) I've changed to the halogen versions. They are more expensive, but claim a longer life, and the better efficiency should cover the extra initial cost. And they give a very similar light to GLS - I'd say better.

What about fireglow bulbs, can one still get those? I can tell you cfls in red celophane do not get hot enough to run the fan. Brian

Yes that is funny. So how much clout do these regs have. maybe you can still buy powrful domestic vacuum cleaners as well. Brian

"Special-purpose items such as fridge and oven lamps, halogen capsules and linear R7s bulbs are untouched by these bans, as they cannot be adequately replaced by other technologies," on the linked page should cover them.

Yes, we have a 40w red bulb in a 'cat house'. I recently bought some more from CPC. Standard size BC incandescent bulbs.

I have 2 (ex-MiL again) which are available for P&P.

But they are no longer 10 for a quid.

Isn't cat house a slang name for a Brothel in some places? Red bulbs would be traditional.

G.Harman

Which is why Government bans of things are sometimes referred to as "price controls".

LEDs are available for fridges - I suspect LEDs wouldn't last too long in oven or microwave.

My understanding is that these are not standard domestic lightbulbs. They are special purpose lamps that come with clear instructions that they must not be used for domestic lighting. Obviously no-one would disregard these instructions :-)

They're caught by the phase out of less efficient fluorescent lamps. IIRC, the original ratings were all 'B'.

However, GE and some other manufacturers brought out replacements which are more efficient. The first set were a few watts less than the originals, but then they seem to manage to get back to the original power ratings with more efficient designs.

The down-side is that these have more noticable run-up to full brighness than the originals.

I had a number of fittings I made which used the 21W 2D electronic (4-pin) lamp. The 21W was never one of the more popular ratings, and I rather imagined I had it. However, GE brought out a retrofit

18W to replace it, and then newer 21W lamps appeared which were same efficiency as modern CFLs.

However, replacing the 2D lamps with LEDs as someone else said is vastly more efficient, in part because most 2D lamps are used where only light from the front is useful, and with LED retrofits, the light is only from the front, which makes the lamp much more efficient in the luminare, and you get away with a much lower powered LED.

They are "rough service" lamps for "wander lights". They have extra filiment supports.

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