I just wish they would work as a light bulb should! I had to replace a bedroom ceiling incandescent light with a compact fluoro - one of these large round bulbs. I bought another one to check the first wasn't faulty. It takes the best part of five minutes to come to full brightness and is decidedly very dim for the first couple of minutes. What use is a bedroom light bulb if you have to turn it on five minutes before you need to use it????
I just wish they would work as a light bulb should! I had to replace a bedroom ceiling incandescent light with a compact fluoro - one of these large round bulbs. I bought another one to check the first wasn't faulty. It takes the best part of five minutes to come to full brightness and is decidedly very dim for the first couple of minutes. What use is a bedroom light bulb if you have to turn it on five minutes before you need to use it????
Yeah I've noticed that too. Have one in my bedroom and in the kitchen and the moment you flick them on, the bloody things are as feeble as the sunlight on Pluto! They need to "warm up" apparently.
Hopefully in another year or two there will be truly "Drop in" LED replacements for incandescent lights. Our place is badly in need of a lighting refresh and LED is teetering on the edge of viable for me. The existing lighting design seems to have been the "One here, one here and maybe one more over there" approach so you are forever in your own shadow when you are trying to do anything.
I don't like CFL's. I do like LED strips. I've lined the ceiling with 5 metre LED strips. They are 12V and run off either an AC adapter or in my case from a battery bank charged by solar panels. Instant on and very even lightning with minimal shadows. Works during blackouts too.
I don't like CFL's. I do like LED strips. I've lined the ceiling with 5 metre LED strips. They are 12V and run off either an AC adapter or in my case from a battery bank charged by solar panels. Instant on and very even lightning with minimal shadows. Works during blackouts too.
I still prefer the old incandescent globes (the ones that you can't seem to buy any more). As far as those "long life" flouros go I have yet to have one last more than a year.
As far as the economics go I have no problem with the extra power required. At the moment I have a negative power bill from the solar cells.
Yes and those flouros are certainly not environmentally friendly.
The jury is out on the led's. I haven't used one enough to form an opinion. They look OK but I haven't examined their spectral output yet.
I don't like CFL's. I do like LED strips. I've lined the ceiling with 5 metre LED strips. They are 12V and run off either an AC adapter or in my case from a battery bank charged by solar panels. Instant on and very even lightning with minimal shadows. Works during blackouts too.
A very interesting idea. Hmmm - a world without shadows?
I just wish they would work as a light bulb should! I had to replace a bedroom ceiling incandescent light with a compact fluoro - one of these large round bulbs. I bought another one to check the first wasn't faulty. It takes the best part of five minutes to come to full brightness and is decidedly very dim for the first couple of minutes. What use is a bedroom light bulb if you have to turn it on five minutes before you need to use it????
Hi Eric, we have the flouro bulbs throughout our place and find the same thing happens as well to some of them while others just come on straight away without warming up.
Yep, those fluoro bulbs are sometimes dimmer before they warm up properly (but not always - I have two, bought on the same day and one of them comes up almost instantly the other one needs a minute or two to really start doing it's job).
However, the efficiency (output light power versus used power) is higher than traditional bulbs (the exception may be halogen bulbs, they are good, very efficient, not so cheap ($3 or so) and dimmable as well).
However, the environmental issues with fluoro bulbs are really problematic: each one of them has a lots of electronics - rectifier, high voltage inverter... transistors and diodes, capacitors, ferrite transformer.. mercury and florescent material inside the tube (which is cancerogen and just plainly poisonous) I can't see how they can be more environmentally friendly, compared to just a small piece of wolfram wire.
The same goes for LED's, however the amount of material is significantly smaller, but more plastic is used (that comes from petrochemical industry).
However, the environmental issues with fluoro bulbs are really problematic: each one of them has a lots of electronics - rectifier, high voltage inverter... transistors and diodes, capacitors, ferrite transformer.. mercury and florescent material inside the tube (which is cancerogen and just plainly poisonous) I can't see how they can be more environmentally friendly, compared to just a small piece of wolfram wire.
The same goes for LED's, however the amount of material is significantly smaller, but more plastic is used (that comes from petrochemical industry).
This is a core problem with CFLs. The amount of energy required to manufacture 1 and also the use of mercury is a concern if the tube breaks.
Whilst CFLs are definitely more efficient, their reliability is very questionable in an application requiring high switching duty (ie most rooms when our power companies are telling us to turn off lights when not in use). The more you increase the quantity of components, the higher the statistical probability of failure of a single component and most likely resulting in complete failure of the device - ie throw away society. LED technology is the real future when it's price becomes competitive.
In summary, more efficient & less heat in your light fitting, reliabiliy is very questionable (for the price you pay), large energy input to manufacture, much higher % by weight of heavy elements such as Mercury. Are we really better off??
I switch the bedroom light on as it gets dark, then leave it on until we go to bed, regardless of where we are! So much for saving electricity. Too annoying to go to the room looking for something and have to wait a few minutes for it to warm up so you can see.
I switch the bedroom light on as it gets dark, then leave it on until we go to bed, regardless of where we are! So much for saving electricity. Too annoying to go to the room looking for something and have to wait a few minutes for it to warm up so you can see.
I switch the bedroom light on as it gets dark, then leave it on until we go to bed, regardless of where we are! So much for saving electricity. Too annoying to go to the room looking for something and have to wait a few minutes for it to warm up so you can see.
Ditto that Erick - I have to use my (astro) head mounted LED torch to make a cup of coffee in our kitchen as the lights warm up
Many LED lights currently available, can contain up to eight times the amount of lead considered 'safe' under some present legislations. The high intensity ones contain more than the low intensity ones.
They also contain high levels of Nickel and arsenic which can cause cancer. (Ref: January 2011 issue of Environmental Science & Technology).
The problem I find with the flouro ones, is that the down-rating factors they apply to them, seem to result in way lower amounts of light than the equivalent incandescent ones. The end result being, that I end up buying the higher power rating globes to compensate, which somewhat defeats the purpose of reducing energy consumption overall.
I was happy with turning off incandescent lights when they weren't being used. This reduces power consumption way more than changes in technology.
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