Why Aren't CFLs Selling Like Hotcakes?

With Europe running on a 50 hertz power distribution frequency, I'm surprised they can sell any fluorescent lights. I still find the flicker of some 60 hertz fluorescent lights bothersome. Possibly a EU standard requiring all fluorescent lighting systems must operate off of a frequency doubling full diode bridge.

What a bunch of grousers.

I have lots of CFL lights in my house. The one upstairs in the 25 long hall go on pretty quickly, but not instantly and it doesn't get very bright. But then I'm only walking down a hall I've lived in for 15 years to enter a room with another light. I incandescent I can make to to end without Klieg lighting. So far I haven't tripped or bumped into the walls due to CFL lighting.

We also use them in many other applications. I have track lighting over the sink and stove with a dimmer. I have to have one incandescent light to make the dimmer work, but the other five fixtures are CFL spots that work just fine.

Overhead fan/lights with CFLs are in all rooms but the dining room (I agree they do not look nice in the chandelier) are just fine for walking in to do something. Task lighting takes care of, well, tasks once in the room.

Is there danger from the mercury. Well, sure there is. The " proper procedure" for dealing with a broken CFL is extreme. I we were to read what to do to avoid exposure to many of the chemicals we are exposed to every day, we would be paralyzed.

Anyone pump their own gas? Do you ware a respirator??? Anyone strip their own paint, never mind fumigating the house while painting. I think the mercury scare is overblown and having a huge impact in terms of energy consumption. Putting off using them until a better, more efficient light comes out is asinine.

I can hardly wait for the LEDs to come out. I can hear the grousing now. They just don't look like an incandescent does. So bright! The color isn't natural!

Guest:

You underestimate the dangers associated with contaminating your home with mercury, if you believe there is utility in comparing it to the dangers of pumping your own gas.

There is no shortage of good information on the dangers of exposure to mercury. In short, even small amounts can have severe effects and it is accumulated in living things. There isn't even much real debate due to a lack of disagreement concerning the dangers posed....with the exception of you.

It is not wise to huff gas fumes. Contacting Paint stripper and breathing paint stripper fumes should be avoided (holding your breath is not an acceptable plan for avoidance) You weren't by any chance involved in any of the activities just prior to posting your comment, were you?

Benbenben

Ah, I am the only one here who remembers playing with mercury in school and at home for years.

Blah to the doomsayers in our midst.

People also used to play with asbestos. It is not because the harmfull effects are delayed that the danger is not real.

I actually used to have a bottle of it I would take to school. I cannot imagine what would happen now, they would probably evacuate the city. School kids used to make barometers with mercury for science projects.

Along with so much other stuff that has been misplaced in the "fear factor" category by the media and the government.

Poor kids today can learn nothing in the schools.

I remember taking a trip and getting credit for it if I wrote a report.

This is my slack time so I thought about taking my grandsons with me for a short and educational vacation; no way.

Can't even give them interesting things about what I do for science class either.

Oh well, that is a whole other thread to post.

I remember when I had a job with the gubment and we used mercury manometers. Sometimes we'd drop some mercury and it would scatter all over the shop and I'd get a broom and sweep it up, maybe play with some in my hands. I don't remember what we did with it - kept it? threw it in the trash? don't remember. That was 30 years ago.

Haven't noticed any health effects - yet.

There was an interesting programme on BBC Radio 4 on this very subject last week.

It turns out that the reason users perceive them as "not as bright as the incandescent to which they are compared" - and I fully agree they're not - is because they are compared to the illuminating ability of a pearlised incandescent, not a clear incandescent. I remember being very surprised as a youngster just how many more candelas I got from a clear vs pearlised incandescent.

Has anyone mentioned that they have a different colour temperature too - they have far less blue in them than daylight and less than incandscents. This has mood altering effects - it's the blue spectrum that affects SAD sufferers (more blue light = happier people!)

Hi ER,

CFLs can be found in a number of color temperatures. SAD suffers should opt for the so-called 'Daylight' colored CFLs which have a color temperature of around 6000 °K (high blue content).

So-called 'Warm White' or 'Bright White' CFLs have a CT much like regular incandescent bulbs (in the 2500-3500 °K range) and probably should be avoided by SAD sufferers.

Thanks -e-

I've not seen any "daylight" CFLs, so I'll start looking. My CFLs are definately "muddier" than my incandescents, so I've not even found the "Bright White" ones!

<_{^{ER scampers off to scatter some GAs about}}>

ga

and

Yeah, I am going to rush out and buy a gross of these today from China. On the other hand, maybe I should design and market a cleanup kit for these?

I suggest designing and marketing a clean up kit, and have China manufacture them....

p911

Hi,

How much mercury is in these lamps?

I found one (after buying 20) that had a mercury ball of 1mm diameter inside running back and forth at tilting the lamp so we could see it.

This near 10mg and certainly much too much.

Mercury will evaporate at room temperature so you will certainly poison yourself if there is mercury in the rooms air.

But how much is too much?

My father - chemist with much experience - advised us to follow ths procedure if we ever spoiled mercury: (at that time most likely from thermometers)

1.Remove any visible as described above. There will remain a lot as the very small balls will spray to everywhere and will hide in any small groove in and between wooden floors and at the floor to wall connection.

2. Dust with zinc dust if you can't remove totally the contaminated regions. Zinc dust will readily react to form an alloy with mercury and this is much more stable so no dangerous evaporate at room temperature.

3. Put some small open iodine-tray (100mg will be suffiicent if cleanup was god) near the place where you did the spill. This will evaporate and corrode everything - be careful with any steel, you will see magnificent rust. But it will react rapidly with the mercury to yield HgJ - once more a stable product.

4. If vacuum cleaning is unavoidable then get the exhaust supplied with a tight hose and connected to the outside.

5. If nothing helps then move quickly to another apartment!

6. Look at Draegerwerke, Germany for test tubes that can measure mercury in air and act accordingly.

This is not a small task!

So I switched back to ordinary bulbs except in my lab and garage.

The light is much better.

This may depend on not buying the nuclear-submarine proven true-lite lamps. Daylight spectrum. 10-times the life of ordinary ones. Also 10 times (?) the price.

RHABE

Add to that:

a) CFLs don't work in a whole host of dimmer applications.

b) the color temperature of many CFLs is "cold" and not at all pleasing to the eye for many.

c) CFLs don't do well outdoors; especially in cold weather.

d) CFLs don't fit in all the different types of lamps available.

e) CFLs look really freaking weird in that candelabra chandelier in the dining room.

What amazes me is that politicians and some people actually think that they should make CFLs obligatory and ban incandescent. Perhaps they've not heard of LEDs? And even those won't fill every application.

The public isn't stupid when taken individually. If you can prove that a technology has advantages people will pay more for it. That's not the case with CFLs.

..A couple of questions:

1. Who says CFLs aren't selling like hotcakes? I don't have any numbers, but I'd wager that CFLs have been outselling hotcakes on a dollar basis and perhaps even on a unit basis for several years.

2. Why is this blog in 'Motors' and 'Mechanical Power Transmission'?

Benbenben

Personally, I am waiting for LED technology to get cheaper. I believe that LEDs are the light of the future (they also don't contain mercury, which is a major disposal drawback for CFLs). It is of my believe that LEDs will only get better and better with time. CFLs may get better with time, but as long as they contain mercury, they will always be a hassle.

I use 4 LED bulbs in our ceiling fan in our home office. Summer gets very hot here and LEDs use and radiate 5X less energy and heat than the four 60 Watt bulbs that were in there.

I got them off of eBay as a 5-pack.

Why do so few people realize what you have obviously realized? In any clime where the temperature is hot enough to require AC more often than heat, LEDs will save energy cost related to cooling (in addition to light production) during the warmer months. Add in the months when neither cooling nor heating is required, and you've shut down or limited your AC use for a significant portion of the year. And heat from incandescents, rising, as it does, to the ceiling, will no longer be lost to the parts of the house/office we don't inhabit, ie, the ceiling spaces.

I use LEDS all over my house. Not to replace my incandescents, yet, because I haven't found the replacements I want, with the color I want. But, as I noted in my reply to Jaxy (#22 in the thread), I own stock in two of the companies that make the high power LEDs which are used in the replacement lights. So its only a matter of time before I own the lamps, also.

Good choices, IMHO

This is another factor against CFLs in climes where heating is required more than not: the projected savings due to the use of low (cf incandescents) powered CLFs is offset by increased heating bills.

Just seen #27

And are these DC LEDs ? Wouldn't powering LEDs from photovoltaics (via batteries obviously !) be a ecofriendly way to light places ?

"Wouldn't powering LEDs from photovoltaics (via batteries obviously !) be a ecofriendly way to light places?"

Much more ecofriendly, but slow to catch on because of the high initial cost. If only someone could find a way of making photovoltaics and LEDs as inexpensively as incandescent lamps ...

If only ...

Quantity purchase, which will come with widespread public acceptance, which, in turn, will come when the public sees/hears how well they work/how long they last/how little energy they use, will lower the price. It is the way the market has always worked, It just requires that we who wish it to happen either a) wait patiently, or b) get on the front edge of it, buy them now, use them now, and talk about them, both the positives, and the negatives (because the positives will indeed sell them, but the negatives will drive further improvement, both of which will drive sale in greater quantities, broader adoption, and lower prices).

I have been watching and waiting for about 5 years now, and expect that in the next 5 years, that market will take a strong uptick, with concomitant rapid rise in stock values, in the right companies. And therein lies the trick to making money on this trend. I only hope I have the right companies in my portfolio. They are doing OK, but they aren't world-beaters, yet! I expect they will be the next McDonalds, or the next Microsoft. I hope I'm right.

You forgot one other factor and that is the new technology (or new application of an old technology) that can reduce the selling price step-wise, rather than the gradual change brought about by the process you're describing.

I believe that's what - E - (Ritornere in pace) meant.

Yep. Missed that. You're right.

Hello English Rose. Your avatar is very pretty.

You are right about that. New technology can change prices over night. At school we are working on ways to make cheaper photovoltaic cells and solid state light sources that are efficient. We are making good progress in these areas.

Kharman

Thank you. At the moment my avatar is changing weekly as those nice admins have put lots of rose pictures in the avatar folder. It seems rude not to give them an airing, as they've obviously done it just for me.

I like yours too - hands around the world !

Does your school (university I see from your bio) have spin off companies that would market this product? Are you able to tell us more about it? There are lots of bright people on CR4 who might be able to offer some insights.

Can photovoltaic cells take better pictures than cell phones?

May be it is not worth the effort. New Nokia now take 12 megapixel

M.J. Yedidyahoo,

- On behalf of Yuval Sick Now

Are you talking about LDR or CdS photocell technology ?

Which light sources did you involve ?

If it's CdS you are talking about, it would be worth mentioning the Kazantzakis Effect.

ATC appointed research group found in 2006, that a closed-loop CdS and a 300 nm LED feeding each other, will hardly produce anything 1.00007 output energy ratio, for a standard 24-hour cycle.

Evidently, it was discarded as non-viable in economic terms, or as something we could term "not worth the effort"...

Not to discourage, but:

With CDR being a mere resistor, I cannot see a possible configuration, through which it could generate surplus light, let alone an energy-producing feedback.

"I disbelieve these findings completely"

Which is my point exactly. How can anybody take such a sloppy work into serious consideration ?

Not to mention the output figures.

How would you suggest to configure such a loop ?

THIS is also why I own stock in two of the companies that are most invested in the design and manufacture of the high power LEDs that go into the replacements for incandescents. I am in full agreement with Jaxy. In fact, I feel that flourescents of any kind are mere stopgaps in the march toward more efficient lighting.

The term "fluorescent" bothers me. Fluorescent bulbs give me headaches. They've been proven to trigger migraines which I get pretty frequently. That's not going to make me run out and fill my home with them.

Good insight and answer.

Never thought about how relaxed my eyes are with CFLs as opposed to old school fluorescents and incandescents.

That explains why I can see my monitor (well the the old CRT one) flicker "out of the corner of my eye".

Good to hear about the LED flicker too...I'll bear that in mind.

Thanks -e-

ER

Once LEDs take hold as the dominant lighting technology, you can bet there will be a sharp increase in the number of reports from flicker-induced-headache sufferers. I seriously doubt that any LED manufacturers will have considered the physiological effects of their products apart from the color temperature.

Flicker can be greatly reduced by the appropriate choice of phosphors used in producing white LEDs, thus eliminating the need for specialized high-frequency or DC power supplies to accomplish same.

Insofar as CFLs go, these so-called "energy-saving" lamps have a very poor power factor, not to mention the copious harmonics they produce which play even more havoc on AC distribution systems. The power factor of CFLs is often 0.5 but can go as low as 0.3.

Of course, this is never mentioned on the package. The consumer, once again, plays the dupe, this time with mercury as the Free Surprise In Every Box.

But with the economic and environmental benefits so clear

Yes they are, they clearly indicate we should wait for the LED light equivalent to be perfected and use them instead.

With all the panic and product bans regarding anything even remotely containing mercury it is still surprising that the CFL is ignored. Talk about double standards.

Within a few years LED lights will be a viable and economical alternative, CFLs will be banned (finally) and dumped in landfills. I will wait thank you.

An interesting anecdote about CFL's from Panama. Last year, the government passed out FREE CFL's in economically-challenged neighborhoods, to help the poor cope with ever-increasing energy costs. It seems that most people switched quickly back to traditional incadescent bulbs, either because they did not like the color, the bulbs did not last long, or whatever reason (no survey was done to determine what the complaints might be).

The point is, if you can't even GIVE these things away, how can you expect to develop a viable commercial business with them?

"The point is, if you can't even GIVE these things away, how can you expect to develop a viable commercial business with them?"

Lobby your government.

I was buying these back when they were $8 each

They are EXTREMELY temperature sensitive and will only provide a dim glow for the first several minutes if ambient is below 70F, the farther below 70 the longer the warmup

They never made 1/2 projected lifespan

So I dropped a bunch of bucks to replace bulbs more often and stumble around in the dark

The BBC Radio 4 programme also tackled the lifespan issue.

The lifespan is measured by switching on a large (~100) of these bulbs and measuring the time it takes for half of them to fail. This time is taken as the average lifespan.

It is inaccurate / misleading because:

1. Many of the bulbs fail well be fore this time
2. No account is taken of on/off cycling

Buy the bulbs? My electricity supply company sent me four for Christmas! Trouble is they are the long ones that don't fit into ordinary lamp shades and they aren't powerful enough.

On the "warm-up" period:

The one on my landing takes a couple of minutes, which is good when you wake up in the morning. Also, I tend to leave this light on all evening, so it makes sense to use a CFL there. On the other hand, the one I have in the bedroom in a table lamp on a timer to wake me up, comes on pretty much instantaneously. But being only 8W (ish), it's not bright enough to keep me awake....

The light signature by CFL's is creepy.

Soft incandescent bulbs don't attack the eyes like soft CFL's do. Florescent light is consistently efficient but aesthetically deadening.

Cannot imagine outlawing regular light bulbs, that's just too much like data overruling common sense via politics. At any rate, LED's are cool running and my LED flashlights burn forever compared to incandescent bulbs.

A direction has been taken. When LED's "rescue" us from CFL, the incandescent will be a forgotten technology. Hope not!

'Cannot imagine outlawing regular light bulbs, that's just too much like data overruling common sense via politics.'

In Europe the 'pearl' coloured bulbs have already been banned, you can only buy clear glass bulbs. It's difficult to buy 100W bulbs now & the remaining incandescent bulbs will be phased out soon.

The end result is a boom in companies supplying regular bulbs via the internet.

Really they are, its just that Hotcake sales are down this year!

Hi the CFLs are always compared with incandecent bulbs and their economy is boasted. Let us understand a 4 feet 36Watts tube light now used every where and its light output is quite high and uniform for larger area of the room and no shadows. These tubes last for more than 4 to 5years. (you can make it into night light after its useful life blackening ends etc - eco friendly) Let us compare CFLs with that - CFLs on the other hand expensive concentrated light with shadows, you requir more fittings to cover the same area. Though they claim long life etc. In my personal experience even the reputed brands/makes works for 1 to 2 years only. So my vote is for standard tube lights only 4ft or 2ft with electronic ballast. Hope you agree with me.

Seetharaman

seethasub@hotmail.com

Yes, tubes are good but not very decorative, so they end up being used mostly in industrial or kitchen type applications.
I have a couple in my garage/workshop with an incandescent workbench light for detail work.
Del

Humnnn. Mercury? Mercury comtamination? Mercury poisoning? Is that the problem? Are we talking about those little shiny balls of Mercury that we played with in science class 50 years ago? You remember don't you - - the ones we polished up our coins with so that they looked freshly minted?

I am wondering how many ounces of Mercury you need to drink prior to dying? How many pounds of fish per day you need to eat in order to commit suicide? How many CFL lights you have to break and breathe in in order to damage your lungs to the point that the effect is noticeable to your health? Is there no common sense left on this planet?

There is a reason why the phrase "mad as a hatter" came into the lexicon. Any mercury is going to cause some minor problems over the long term. Larger quantites will attack the liver and central nervous system. Pregnant women and young childern are more susceptable. In those cases any is too much. They banned mercury temperature thermometers years ago because there was a practical, safer, alternative. One LEDs are in place lamps with mercury will be banned because of toxicity as well.

Mercury positioning is only bad for you when it covers Mars over the horizon of Sagittarius. In all other instances, it may actually enhance you financial and love-making prospect.

M.J. Yedidyahoo,

- On behalf of Yuval Sick Now

a couple of weeks ago I was at the mechanics when the guy I was talking to saw something happen over my shoulder and .. well wen a little wild.

He jumped up and shouted!

BACK AWAY!..

DO NOT BREATHE!!

...NOBODY BREATH!!

There is NO safe level in your system!

....

Anyway... shouting.. klaxon's.. the works..

....meanwhile I'm all chicken headed.. looking around for the next big toxic spill.

..turns out a mechanic broke the CFL in his drop light.

________

.... I guarantee that people acting like that is a deterrent to sales.

____________

It did actually make me kind of sick to see all of it

_____________________________________

More reasons

CFL's were about $30

They didn't fit into many locations

they were more ugly

not very bright

not compatible with dimmers.. that save lots of power

3way

Unfortunately I do think they are taking off in sales.

1 They are too expensive for the return

2 They aren't as good for lighting an area

3. They look weird

Just watch. 10 - 15 years down the road, we'll have mass media coverage of heartbreaking stories of children with mercury poisoning and/or mercury contaminated water wells near landfills. Tort lawyers will stampede to the court houses filing class action lawsuits faster than the gov't is printing money today. (They probably already have Word templates set up and ready to go.) Congress will mobilize, mounting their portable podiums (podia?) in front of hospitals and landfills and demanding investigations. State attorneys general throughout the country will indict top management of the CFL manufacturers, saying "they knew these products were dangerous all along, but because of their unconscionable greed, they sold them anyway." Bet on it.

jhammond

_______________________________

http://www.patent-innovations.com

Additional note for you guys in the near great white North : Air Conditionning is not needed so much as heating for the major part of the year. For this major part of the year, savings associated with the lower wattage of CFL has to be compensated by a higher heating bill...

See my #24 post. I live at roughly 38 degrees North, and have already done the calculations. I will save money on the cost of lights, versus the cost of heating. Of course, I use gas heat. Their are differences in economy for electric and other forms of heating. But overall, I think the year round savings will beat the increased cost of heating in winter. and 38 degrees allows for a fairly severe seasonal tilt, already. The difference being 16 hour summer days that peak at 100 degrees F, vice 6 hour winter days, that drop to 10-12 degrees F, at the worst. Still saves money in the aggregate over a year.

And that ignores replacement costs.

I agree (I specified "for the major part of the year"). Thus, the potential energy and $ saving gets more marginal the further North you go, notwithstanding the difference in economy for the various forms of heating as you mentionned.

Otherwise, one must obviously take into account the various pros and cons ...

I only pay about £400 per year in total for electricity, it's hard to believe that I would make any appreciable saving by changing to CFLs.

If you have electric heat, and if you use air conditioning then CFL's would not be a big fraction of your load so the percentage saved would be small. You would probably notice a small difference. However, if lighting is a significant part of your bill then CFL's would save you a larger percentage.

400 pounds: is that about 800 dollars? That sounds like a lot to me. But I live in the NW USA where electricity is cheap and temps are moderate year round plus we heat with natural gas mostly. We use CFL's, they work great, and would not consider going back to incandescents.

To give you an example of the savings: We have a 5 bulb fixture hanging over the dining table. It came with 5 each 60 watt bulbs. I replaced those with 2 each 1.5 Watt LED's. That will work, but it wasn't enough light and I had trouble finding 3 more bulbs so I now use one 9 watt CFL. If I want to read, I reach up and twist another 9 watt CFL bulb slightly so it comes on. Total watts: 18 is sufficient to read the paper. Savings: 300-18= 282 watts. I like it. It's good for my bank account, it's good for the power system, it's good for my country, and for my planet.

ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU; ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY.

We could use a WHOLE LOT more of that.

Good question, they are all I use, even outside, and the bitter cold does not bother them.

My energy savings have paid me back well, and I have never had to replace one in 5 years of using, including a 3 way.

One gets used to their operation very quick, so I can't by the slow start excuse.

And remember that people here in the US have become used to the 3 or 4 for a buck incandescents in the dollar stores and aisles.

Laziness, like changing the battery in the smoke.fire alarms.

I've been using CFLs for 5 or 6 years as well and have had to change a good proportion - one within a couple of months of installation. All are inside, one one a three way. This one lasts longest, probably because it has fewest on/off cycles.

By contrast, I have incandescents that were in the house when I moved in that lastest me over 7 years.

Many larger companies are waiting for LED technology, which is already underway, before making a change. These draw only a small fraction of what CFLs draw, and have a very long operating life. It is estimated that a 17% reduction in power usage would be realized in the US alone with a switch to LED lighting. Many (especially large) companies will wait about 6 more months for LED lights to drop in price and then switch to them instead of a two phase switch.

Not sure when the LED's will be ready for prime time but the savings will be awesome. This, plus super insulated homes and refrigerator/freezers and other efficient appliances will make off grid living a reality for many people - it already is for a few people.

I've tried some LED's and they work but only in very specific applications. I'm guessing it'll be a few more years, maybe 3-5 years, before LED's are common for residential use the way CFL's are today. But that's a guess. I'm looking forward to it - in the mean time I'll use CFL's: they work fine, just takes a little getting used to them.

I like them and many lights in our home are CFL's. They cut the energy bills and I like that benefit.

I have some LED bulbs but those are not ready for prime time yet - eventually they will be THE main source but right now they are too spendy, the color is wrong and they cost too much. For people living off grid where conserving every watt possible is necessary LED's and CFL's are a must. They work fine - just takes some getting used to them.

Fact is that long term, the world energy situation will become a cataclysmic crisis - there is no way out of it - people will learn to conserve because the world is going to force them to do it, not the political world (well that could happen) but the cold hard facts of life world.

I've noticed this week that you can now buy a standard glass light bulb shape but with a halogen bulb inside. They come with bayonet or screw base & are very cheap so I think I will try a couple. Not quite the power saving of a CFL but should be a better colour, flicker free & dimable (is that a real word?)

I bought 2 of these halogen bulbs with a curious result.

I have 2 dimmer switches in the house, the first allows you to adjust the brightness down to perhaps 50% output then switches on/off by pressing the rotary control knob. The halogen works perfectly well here, good brightness, warm colour & no flicker.

The 2nd switch has a rotary control that allows you to turn the brightness down to zero then off. This one is great at full brightness but when you reduce to perhaps 75% some flicker is noticeable. This disappears as you reduce the brightness further until you get to, say, 40% when the flicker returns more prominently. It again goes as you turn it down further until it recurs at about 20% brightness. This time it strobes strongly at about 5Hz appearing to go fully off between pulses. The strobing disappears as the lamp is turned down to a barely perceptible glow then off.

I'm guessing that this effect has more to do with the dimmer than the lamp but don't know how to explain it.

CFL's light does not have pure whiteness which a electron flourescent tube produces. Its slight bluish tinge does not go well with our body pattern, both mentally and physically. Some of the areas, for example, where I have seen CFLs a big failure due to human body reasons are PCB assembly lines, cloth stitching lines. I have seen people fainting, complaining sluggishness, eyes strain and other problems due to CFL usage.

CFLs are, obviously, energy efficient and cost saving when used in "passing" areas like aisles, probably street lighting (if LED does not pick up), other not so important areas in home as well like rest room, porch, balcony etc.

I personally, at this juncture, somehow am not convinced with obvious saving potential since my initial investment on a CFL, for same wattage, is almost 4 to 5 times.

Leave a tag to digg further !!