Strong magnetic field around Energy Saving Light Bulbs - Phillips

And could that person please also state why it matters a jot?

Hi, PWSlack!

While we don't know exactly how sensitive the human brain is to damage by emf, there are some pretty strong pieces of evidence that it is. Not that the amount is anything to speak of, just that there's more in the environment; and who needs that?

I guess now that we're importing even more of the mess into our own homes [and it's due to legislation that requires us to use the danged things, mercury and all (in Toronto, they are also required to be disposed of in toxic waste...but the average householder doesn't know this and just sends 'em to the dump....which is good for the city's finances until they have to pay for some kind of massive rehabilitation of our dumpsites... because the one (count 'em: 1,...? in the fourth largest city in North America!) bulb processing plant charges 50 cents per bulb to dispose of them)] we might as well expect the little buggers to offer more challenges.

BTW, at 50 cents per bulb disposal, eventual mercury contamination of dumpsites, a teeny-tiney bit of increased household heating costs, and now a mili-gauss or two of highly localized emf, what is it exactly we're trying to save in energy costs???? At least (he stated with dripping sarcasm) we're helping to stop Global Warming.

Mark

I used to use a bench light using a CFL, I always had to remember to watch out for spurious signals appearing in high impedance circuits at around 40 kHz because of the radiated electromagnetic signal from the CFL.

As most of my work is precision analogue design, in the end I ditched the CFL and bought a standard fluorescent bench lamp / magnifier with a normal ballast.

There is nothing so frustrating as chasing a problem signal through a circuit and then switching off the bench light to find it has gone!!!

John

Hi Electroman,

I agree with you entirely on this one, also these so-called energy saving lights are quite dangerous for certain epilectics!

I cannot use them as they interfere with my eyes to such a degree that I get migrain headaches, so I only use the normal incandescent light bulbs. I have bought a huge store full of incandescent light bulbs in case the law here in the UK changes as promissed.

Del, you want to watch what you are saying!!! Many people have a lot of problems with excesive EMF's

Spencer.

hello spencer,

if you can get your hands on thr livrpool news paper that carried the item abiut the 4 yr. olkd who was strip searched by a police officer when his parents were in a safeway store you will find real support for your theory about how emf's can afect people, apparently the store operator lost big bucks in the law suit, the cop lost her job and the company who make and installed the a.s.d. has yet to figure out why the kid kept tripping the alarm.

you posted this at great time for me, thank you very much.

as for lights and epileptics i don't kimow if your travelling circus shows have hawkers of brightly sparkling led toys, f they do and you are epileptic, run.

'da ber

Electroman wrote: If you had read my post immediately above yours you wouldn't have needed to repeat it, would you?

Sorry if you feel I stepped on your toes, but your post only seems to agree with the original poster, stating that the lights are indeed a source of EMI noise. You did not give an explanation of the reasons for this fact. I wouldn't call my post a repeat at all, it just gives my theory on WHY the lamps are so electrically noisy, which is what the original poster seemed to be asking.

Does anyone know why the energy saving bulb generates a magnetic field 100 times stronger than the incandescent bulbs?

Tom

I also can't understand why someone would rate my post as being off-topic, since it clearly was an answer to the original posters question.......

Tom

I gotta jump in the car with tdesmit on this one. 100%

• I also can't understand why someone would rate my post as being off-topic, since it clearly was an answer to the original posters question.......

I think you will find the negative votes are more to do with not being and answer that is deserving of being rated as a good answer than being off topic.

Keep in mind, off topic votes count as a negative in the overall score and therefore counteract positive or good answer votes.

It is actually the small inductors used in the high frequency switcher that produce the magnetic fields. They could potentially use more expensive toroidal or closed pot core inductors to dramatically reduce the leakage field. This could increase the light bulb price by 10-20%. Since nobody (with enough weight) has complained yet, they are not going to increase the production cost.

Mercury accumulation at disposal sites is another concern with these bulbs.

As has already been pointed out a CFL has what amounts to a switchmode power unit in the base which operates @ ~40 KHz or thereabouts and uses some inductive components which will explain the field measurements.

I guess when using sensitive equipment in the 40 KHz range CFL's are probably not a good idea.

<>However in my Ham station I don't notice any difference in interference between CFL's and Fluoro tubes, in fact the CFL's seem a little quieter perhaps at 10MHz or so.
BTW the fluorescent tubes must be generating a very high field @ 50 or 60 Hz as power is always flowing through the ballast choke!

perhaps you may begin getting the answer two ways, both of which i am sure will result in exchanges via the CR4 medium

1) start rooting around in the writings of a interesting chap named royal rife (sic?), if you can find any of them which have survived the years since his very ignoble death

2)dig out what the effect of the combination of the mercury(a canadian province energy department will admit some not all the products made by e.s.b. bulb makers have some mercury content and when the bulbs suddenly crack or exploded in operation are a R.R.P.I.T.A. to get rid off) and electrical energy can be on the coating of the glass(?) which the bulb is made of then do the same thing for another bulb manufacturers product, wanna bet they will be very much higher on the phillips sourced products, again my own idea, don't anyone jump on me for putting my own ideas into this mix.

3) and this one > IS DEFINITELY OFF TOPIC< since as far as i know it to be a gaussmeter is used to measure magnet or electromagnetic energy frequencies ( someone PLEASE correct me on that if i am wrong) maybe you might look in the writings of dr. paul martin the english endocrinologist and ask yourself what effect these comparatively high for the distance readings may have for my own visual acuity and what they may hold as the aging processes of the optical nerve blood vessels occurs. to my view it is apparent al and a few others promoting the use of the e.s.b. bulbs for some strange reason do not have time to answer a question along that line, litigation anyone?

'da ber

My immediate reaction was health related.

My wife suffers from age related macular degeneration (AMD) of the dry type.

We have slowly replaced all incandescent globes with the power saving flourescent systems. Since AMD reduces reading capability we try to use as high a wattage as is available (around 18W in South Africa) and include high wattage (300W) reflected incandescent bulbs specifically for reading. Has anyone any idea whether the fluorescent lights would have an adverse affect on AMD sufferers compared with incandescent lights. We know that UV light is not good for AMD and proper sunglases that filter both types of UV should be worn outside all the time. Does fluroescent lighting produce higher amounts of UV and thus we are maybe compounding the porblem by using them?

No worries about AMD DavidO! My spectroscope shows about 6 or 7 lines in the light output of a CFL bulb, varying with the colour spectrum of the lamp (daylight/cool white or warm). But none of them are in the UV area of the spectrum. The UV radiation from the interior of the lamp is very completely absorbed by the phosphors on the inside surface of the tube and reradiated as visible light. In this way they are very like old style Fluorescent tubes. However the lack of low frequency ballast losses and other improvements make them more efficient than those.
However I hope that your reading lamps do NOT use Halogen bulbs as these can indeed have a relatively high UV output.

My goodness, it's just amazing the amount of pseudo scientific rubbish that's around here and elsewhere these days.

I regret to say also that much of it comes from what I call "Hyper greenies" who seem to have two things in common. A lack of scientific knowledge with a refusal to learn any and, usually, a lack of practical efforts to actually do anything to help future generations.
Some members (not all) of our local Green party are rather like that. So although I have solar lighting, solar water heating, a heat pump, passive solar heating and rainwater collection, I don't vote for them!!!

Thanks for your reply. As you correctly surmise the high wattage buld is indeed halogen based. So we'll have to see how to attain a similar watage using other methodologies

,looks llike the last two posters have a more than just few missing lomks in thier roller chains, the harley reference suggests a sprocket tooth is missing as well.

any more ideas and very good anologies to put toward answering the original question?

thanks

'da ber

Well you could always try the new led based energy saving lamps, they have probably less EMF than the energy saving bulbs

Hi, Oriole!

Welcome to CR4! You've done an amazing job with the discussion your first posting has generated. Congratulations![:->)

Hope to see lots more of you in future.

Mark

I uses a electronic ballast which incorporates a small coil generating additional EMF where as an incandescent lamp is resistance only.

An incandescent bulb is an inductive coil *(resistor) in a vacuum.

I think this is misleading. First, "resistor" is not a synonym for inductive coil, as implied by the wording. Second, an incandescent bulb does not require that the filament be coiled, (although the filament often is, but not in the conventional "inductor" coil sense). In common parlance, incandescent bulbs and heating elements are considered primarily resistive devices, and motors, transformers, solenoids, etc (which have relatively large coils designed to create magnetic fields) are considered inductive devices. (Obviously any current produces some EM field, and some heat.)

The design intent is the important distinction, I think. Filaments are not designed as inductors; they are designed as resistive elements. Because of that distinction, filaments have low level of EM fields. The ballasts in fluorescent lights are designed as inductors and have higher level EM fields.