End of an Era...

[WBear2GCR]

I have tested the spectrum of CFLs... with a spectrometer!

They use the same rare earth phosphors as do all fluorescent lamps. So, the "white" is made up of
three spectra (wide ones) that are R,G&B. One gets the different "temperature" colors by changing the mix of RGB. I am not impressed with the light in many respects.

They don't save any money that I can see. They do permit a lower load to the power company. The consumer grade bulbs certainly do not last very long at all. Read the fine print on the multi thousand hour claim printed on the package!! HA!

I did just purchase a "red" CFL, called a "party lamp" at the discount store. It radiates a neat "neon" light! Beautiful amber color, lovely. I'll have to take it over to the place where the spectrometer resides and see how much blue from the mercury plasma behind the phosphor is escaping...

But I am looking forward to LED lighting... although that has the same phosphor issues too...OLEDs or similar distributed surface light emitters might be the best thing, if they come to fruition...

Right now I have end to end 4 bulb 40w fluorescent tube fixtures, 4 of them... 160watts burn per fixture, so 640+ watts when on. It would be nice to have the same light levels with 1/3 the power.

                 _-_-bear

[k4kyv]

I'm just sick and tired of getting rid of an older item, only to find that the new item that I replaced it with is no where as good an the "old outdated" one that I just discarded, and then longing to have the original item back.

You forgot to add "and twice as expensive" to the "no where as good".

That's been par for the course for decades.  I can recall my parents saying the same thing about stuff they bought back in the 50s. Each generation of "consumer" stuff tends to be inferior quality, more expensive and shorter lived than the one it replaced.  That is one reason I hate to be called a "consumer" and why I keep on  repairing something as long as I can before I replace it.  Usually I end up replacing it not because it is finally irreparable, but because replacement parts are nowhere available at any price and I find it impossible to fabricate one on my own.

What really pisses me off is when they "discontinue" a replacement part just about the time the original part would be expected to start to fail. I once had a  company employee tell me that I was being unreasonable, that I shouldn't expect to find a replacement part because the product was 15 years old.  What in hell do you expect, for a brand new one to need replacement parts?  That tells me the thing wasn't worth bringing home in the first place.

[Bill, KD0HG]

I was an early adopter and I will also mention my disappointment in the life of CFLs.

Here's an idea for you inventors. Some sort of cheap clip on photo cell and hour meter.

Clip meters on to your CFLs when new. After they crap out in 500-1000 hours, you have evidence, take them back to Home Depot for a refund or exchange.

Somebody will notice.

[K6IC]

Boy,  I have had very good luck with the life of my CFLs.  Have run them for 3-4 years,  and have never had one crap out.  They do run hot,  and putting in a fixture or lamp which does not have good ventilation will kill them very quickly.  Have run the re-lampable electronic ballast flourescents for about 10 years before the CFLs became popular,  and those,  too, were fine.

Have put CFLs in can type ceiling fixtures,  which were designed for incandescents,  and that was a great improvement in life vs the incandescents.

Our utility,  PG&E  was subsidising CFLs a couple of years ago,  so they were 25-cents ea.  I have not measured their power consumption ...  know that the CFLs have a very poor Power-Factor -- they draw 90% of their input current over very few degrees of the AC cycle.

I dunno,  am Fat Dumb and Happy!   Vic

[KB2WIG]

 Back in the late 90's, I had a screw in 120 v FL that I ran fer a while. If I remember, it was a philips. Lasted for a few years......  This thing wasn't made in China. It was a a short tube,about 5 in., bent back upon itself so the tube sections were "parallel" to each other. Werked FB.


klc

[Ed/KB1HYS]

My CFL's were in open can style sockets, with either no globe or an open bowl shaped globe. In either case heat shouldn't have been an issue.  The turn brown and crap out just as often as the cheap filament types did. 

I really don't have an issue with CFL's per se.  It's the fact that the idiots in DC have taken choice and market out of the equation.  If they were a really good product, that saved the boat loads of money (by saving electricity costs) you wouldn't need to outlaw incandecents. Same with the LED lights.  If a product is really good, then the market will take care of the competition.

Ah well.  Four pages on a light bulb post!!  amazing.

[K5UJ]

Slab:  go to town:  http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=sony+Trinitron+TV

Then read this:  http://kenrockwell.com/tech/everything-sucks.htm
I thought that was a pretty cool commentary.  I don't agree with all of it but it is entertaining  

I am selective on what I replace.  I am using CFLs but only in fixtures where they are an advantage such as hard to get to places where their longer life is a benefit, or in lamps that stay on a long time.   I have this one overhead fixture that is way up high over my basement stairs.  Getting to it is a PITA becuse I have to haul out a ladder from the garage and angle it in through the back door and prop it up, all to change one lousy bulb.   It used to be when I used an incandescent it would pop every 12 to 14 months always in the middle of winter with snow outside.  About 5 years ago I put in my first CFL in that fixture and it's been working ever since.    

The thing that is supposed to kill them is repeated on and off use where they are only on for a few minutes.   Any flourescent lamp is made to be left on for hours which is why they work better in offices and other places where the lights are on all day or all day and night.  

But, there are some things I need old bulbs for like lamps with dimmers on them.   I have a stash of various incandescent bulbs intended to last 10 years.

It's important to remember that the incandescent lamp phase-out only applies to a few types of bulbs.  For example small ornament bulbs like 5 watt Christmas tree lamps will still be around.   Ditto for refrigerator door lamps and other specialty bulbs.   Also before 2020 bulbs of wattage below 40 and above 150 are exempt as are the "rough service" bulbs which are popular with some readers here.  Most folks have an idea that all incandescent lamps are outlawed at the start of 2012.

For the full story read this Wikipedia entry on the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act which was signed into law by the President on December 19th 2007:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs

All my appliances are ancient.  I am keeping them until they can no longer be repaired.  I know nothing new is made as well as they are.  My microwave is a Kenmore that's 30 years old and weighs more than most ham linear amps.   My oven is a Norge gas oven that's over 60 years old.  Gas furnace is a 55 year old Luxaire.

Rob

[The Slab Bacon]

Rob,
       Ken Rockwell sounds like a man after my own heart. Like you, I dont agree with everthing he says, but I do agree with most of it!! Kool page!!

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Computers are twice the price and far less capable than they used to be.

Cars do not last nearly as long as they used to and they do not handle anywhere as good as in years past. They require far more maintenance.

I’m always replacing tubes in my new TV set, and that rotary tuner needs cleaning often.

Yes, things always get worse.

[N0WVA]

2007 Energy Independence and Security Act . Oh boy. Any time I see the words "safe" or "secure" I just know that our money is being spent wisely. I dont know about you guys, but this whole light bulb switchover thing has got me feeling much more secure about our energy troubles. After all, we wont be funding terrorists with this switch. Wait a minute, the grid uses domestic energy. Scratch that. But we will be sending more money to a Communist country to make us mercury filled light bulbs. Yep Im feeling safer already. Cmon guys, lets all feel warm and fuzzy together as we stamp out our energy troubles.

[w1vtp]

I pretty much have the same negative opinion of this whole debacle as the rest of you guys.  To put a little positive spin on things, at least the 3 way bulbs have been excluded.  Many of my floor lamps are of that variety.

I will admit to one travisty - the new pantry had two incandencent 100 watt bulbs put in place.  I immediately replaced them with two CFLs of equivalent lighting -- sorry.  I'm still planning on hoarding bulbs

[Ed/KB1HYS]

If the article on Wiki is correct. The whole world effort to eliminate all those incandescent bulbs will reduce CO2 emissions by ~55 million tons.  That is 1.1 x 10^-7 (0.00000011) percent of the earths atmosphere.

Which is roughly equivalent to a mouse farting in a pro-football stadium.

 The amount of mercury now floating around in all those CFLs is 17500 TONNES (metric - based on an estimated 3.5 billion CFLs in use for 2009 at 5mg Hg per bulb). Now I NOW everyone takes their CFLs and other fluorescent lights to the proper disposal facilities, who of course reclaim the materials properly... yea right.

The world is being run by idiots...

[W3SLK]

Steve said:

I’m always replacing tubes in my new TV set, and that rotary tuner needs cleaning often.

Where's my "Blue Shower"? 

[K6JEK]

As a counter example to old appliances were good, new ones suck, I offer my Kenmore dishwasher.

I bought it six or seven years ago when something big broke on the Kitchenaid which I'd repaired many times over a couple of decades.  The Kenmore cleans extremely well,  is quiet as a mouse, and uses damned little water.  Except for speed it works a lot better than the old Kitchenaid.   It's only six years old, but so far zero problems.

[k4kyv]

If the article on Wiki is correct. The whole world effort to eliminate all those incandescent bulbs will reduce CO2 emissions by ~55 million tons.  That is 1.1 x 10^-7 (0.00000011) percent of the earths atmosphere.

Which is roughly equivalent to a mouse farting in a pro-football stadium. 

About like the amount of energy saved by extending Daylight Shifting Time to start in early March while it is still winter.


Yes, the world is indeed run by idiots...

[k4kyv]

Franklin wrote a satirical article while he was living in Paris, after noticing that Parisians tended to sleep in later in the morning.  He never suggested anything like Daylight Shifting Time. The article was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

A writer in 1947 noted, "I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday.)

http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html

[WB2EMS]

I don't know about the energy savings, but I like the long summer evenings we get here in the northeast during DST. I'm not a big morning person, so what's going on at that end of the day, before I get my coffee, doesn't interest me all that much, but I like it when it's still light at 9 pm and hate it when the days start getting shorter. The switch to DST is the death knell of a number of my after work outdoor activities for the season.

Years ago I traveled on motorcycle to Alaska, and then down to San Diego. Even in September, the days were long north of 50 degree latitude. I remember it being 11 pm and still being light out (gloaming) at the harvest fair in the Matanuska valley. In contrast, a couple of weeks later down in San Diego, I remember the sun going down at 6:30 ish and commenting to my cousin how weird that was. She told me it rarely went down much after 7 because of the low latitude. I am not sure  I'd enjoy that at all.

I guess it's largely what you get used to. I don't particularly like the shift twice a year, and I have friends who are so whacked out by it that they stay on DST year round (they work at home). I'd be happy to stay DST year round myself.

YMMV. In face it most certainly will.

[k4kyv]

I stay on STANDARD time or use GMT year round.  The sun is supposed to be directly overhead at noon. I don't like to jump out of bed before the crack of dawn and I enjoy a couple of hours of darkness before bed time.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Time, as we measure it, is purely an arbitrary concept.  We need orderly scheduled lives, that are now disconnected with the natural order of things like the seasons, day and night, cycles of the moon, the passage of the stars and planets.  Once you accept an arbitrary concept as a rule, you have to accept that it can be changed arbitrarily.  Why 12 hours in a day? why 60 minutes and 60 seconds? Why not? Why not metric time of 10 hour days, 10 day weeks, and 10 month years?  We fallen into this method of time keeping because our ancestors had a need to keep fear at bay by having an understandable, orderly universe, and only had limited instrumentation to pin down that universe.

So it's all nuts.

[k4kyv]

Why 12 hours in a day? why 60 minutes and 60 seconds? Why not? Why not metric time of 10 hour days, 10 day weeks, and 10 month years?  We fallen into this method of time keeping because our ancestors had a need to keep fear at bay by having an understandable, orderly universe, and only had limited instrumentation to pin down that universe.

The French tried the 10 day week following the Revolution, but it didn't go over so well because of the extended work week between weekends, for those fortunate enough to even get a day off from work on the weekend.

[WA3VJB]

I went exploring in some of the higher reaches of the garage this afternoon and came up with a 6-pack of Ken-Rad bulbs.  25W, 115V, looks like a G-25 globe, standard base  The white frosting on the glass seems to be painted on the outside rather than on the inside as with newer bulbs.  A quick internet search shows the factory was torn down in 2007, and that the plant long ago was bought out. No idea what vintage these bulbs might be, then, but they look pretty cool in an old lamp.

Ken-Rad, by 1952, was already part of Westinghouse according to a magazine ad I dug up.

[w1vtp]

I stay on STANDARD time or use GMT year round.  The sun is supposed to be directly overhead at noon. I don't like to jump out of bed before the crack of dawn and I enjoy a couple of hours of darkness before bed time.

Don

I'm looking forward to retirement (maybe).  When I retire -- all the clocks in my house will be EST

[WA1GFZ]

When and if I retire there will be two times in my house. Day time and night time

[KB2WIG]

  "  When and if I retire there will be two times in my house. Day time and night time "



For me, I hope its Wild Time.


klc

[k4kyv]

Don't worry about the time.  Just take a walk on the wild side.