How good are the new light bulbs?

Neither are continuous.

The "normal" flicker from fluorescents and inexpensive LED lamps come from the same source, the AC line. Either 50Hz or 60Hz depending on where you are.

Now DC driven LED lamp drivers do not demonstrate the flicker effect since they are switching at much higher frequencies and are usually current controlled for the more efficient designs.

As to efficiency .... Its more hype than anything when it comes to fluorescents .... how much energy does it take to make one or the other type of lamp as well as average lamp life? Nobody is saying.

I'm just curious, which part of Mississauga is the armpit, or is that how you view all of it?

The flicker from both leds and fluorescents driven directly from the mains will be at twice the mains frequency i.e. 100 or 120 Hertz...

If this is a problem the high efficiency fluorescents operate at about 40 to 60 kilohertz and the phosphor has a persistence that means you won't get any flicker at these frequencies.

So yes the new fluorescents with electronic ballasts will glow continuously.

As to their efficiency, that's under debate, the compact fluorescents do use less electricity for the same light output, BUT if you live in a climate where your house needs heating, then the loss of the heat output from an incandescent or old style fluorescent lamp will cause the heating to be used more, so offsetting the efficiency of the lamp!!

John.

But if you are depending on an incandescent light bulb(Very inefficient) to heat your house then you have bigger problems. The efficiency of the bulb is not rate by how much heat it puts off but rather how much heat it does not put off. If a bulb is heating up, that is power wasted as heat, and not light. Making a filament glow or to become hot is a very inefficient way to use electricity. This is one of the things that make LEDS and Compact Flourescents so appealing is they produce very little to no heat, not to mention their lower energy use to produce similiar light output. Think about it, when you cook in the summer time does you air conditioner run less? NO! It runs more to remove the excess heat introduced into the house. Just like the air conditioner will run more to remove the excess heat put off from the incandescent!!

Guest, that is precisely why I stated in my post that "....if you live in a climate where your house needs to be heated...."

Also, the bulb IS rated for the amount of power it uses, which is mainly the heat output.

Thankyou for agreeing and repeating me!

John.

I like these power-saver bulbs. Being older I need more lux and 2 x 14 watt instead of a 100W must save a lot.

Also I am in an area with 250v supply with some spikes and dips. normal lamps goes fast These new bulbs last noticeably longer.

The new lamps do last longer, but I wish they would do something about the actual light it produces! It seems very cold and artificial like a kitchen light (yes, I know it is artificial) The old filament bulbs gave a warmer feeling to the room! I think the biggest watt bulb I use is a 40W and the rest are 25W. If I need a brighter light, I wait till the sun comes up and then go outside!

Uhm, you can buy usually "Warm-Glow Instant On" bulbs. Heck I got a discount on some at Home Depot several years ago... haven't replaced a bulb in the house since.

Don't use the "daylight" CFBs, they are the ones with the cold bluish light.

First off the new fluorescent bulbs are expensive at the onset compared to incandescent.

I purchased some for my lanterns on the front of my garage. The main problem I had was that the circuit with the lanterns also has two banks of kitchen can lights on two separate dimmers (actually four wired as threeway). When the garage lantern lights are on, both sets of lights in the kitchen on the dimmers blink and flash terribly. The garage lanterns are not on dimmers but they drastically affect the ones that are.

I removed the new bulbs and reinstalled the incandescent -- the problem went away.

I have learned that there are dimmers available that will solve this problem but they are $80.00 US each. I would need a total of eight of these in order to equip my entire home with the new style bulbs. I suspect that I would never see payback in my lifetime.

I think you have a wiring problem! If you like, I am in Sacramento about once a week, and could stop by to check it out...

Dick

My electricity (including all taxes and fees) is currently costing me about $0.15 per kWh (June/July '07 PG&E bill), so a 100W bulb costs about $0.015 per hour to run. Your SMUD electricity may be cheaper, so your value may be less. If, as Hendrik suggests and I agree, 2-14W CFBs replace 1-100W incandescent, then the energy cost drops to about $0.005 per hour. The average lifetime of the last CFBs I bought is listed as 10,000hrs, which give a lifetime energy cost of very close to $50. The incandescents would cost over $150 to run the same time, not mentioning the cost of 5 to 10 incandescents to last that long, nor your time involved in changing the bulbs. So The energy saving of a single CFD would pay for the corresponding $80 dimmer.

I still don't understand the problem with the garage lights and the kitchen dimmers. I have a dimmer on my dining room incandescent lights, and CFDs on the same circuit breaker in my kitchen and other nearby rooms with no problems. If you are using dimmers on the CFDs, you're not supposed to! Replace the CFDs with smaller ones to get the dimmer light and save even more energy!

Dick

While the new compact fluorescent (CF) lamps save energy, they are an environmental nightmare! Not only do they cost far more than they will save you over the typical life of these bulbs, but they do flicker noticeably and turn yellow as the lamp ages towards eventual failure. Because these contain mercury, albeit a small quantity, but still more than the EPA allows. This means that they must be disposed of as HAZARDOUS WASTE and if you should break one the EPA requires a HAZMAT team come over to your house to clean it up (the few grams of mercury) at a cost of thousands of dollars.

the more I learn about these CF lamps, the less I like them. As several other members have already pointed out: LED technology is a much better way to go.

Gee whiz...through carelessness, I dropped one, I dropped something on another, I've broken a few. Is it too late to call the HAZMAT team? I don't recall where I broke them.

Don't worry sail4ever, I've spilled a few kilos of mercury in my time when refilling manometers...

AND it hasn't done me any harm.... I think, I'm still waiting for the test results.

John.

I wouldn't worry much about the hazardous nature of mercury. Long ago and far away we used to play with mercury all the time. Never had any serious issues. While mercury can be hazardous in the air our if ingested, I suspect the restrictions placed on disposal are similar to those being considered for protection against global warming.

Does anyone ever consider that our politicians spurred on by radical environmentalists are aiming at the same ends as the Taliban? [i.e.: Prevention of progress].

If the stinking cesspool we have turned much of this planet into (in the name of "progress") is your idea of "progress", or an indefinitely sustainable cost of "progress", perhaps you should re-think the definition. Look what's happening in China, a fine example of old-school "progress". Big industry and short-sightedness threaten our planet and our children's future, not environmentalists, politicians and concerned citizens who question the status-quo definition of "progress".

Sure, many of the new "green" technologies have flaws. Any baboon with a halfways pointy stick can poke holes in new technology. But they are steps in the right direction, which underscore the need to keep going in that direction, by pure virtue of the fact that consumers (citizens) are backing the impetus with their purchase power, votes and tax dollars. Polititians didn't give a damn about what environmentalists thought until they realized that the voters did. This is free enterprise and democracy at work, and a sustainable definition of "progress" that I, personally, can get behind.

P.S. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, et al are not about prevention of progress, but control of it. Neither is it about religion, morality or God. It's about power.

P.S.S. I also think LCDs will soon render CFBs obsolete. Good progress.

"Big industry and short-sightedness threaten our planet and our children's future, not environmentalists, politicians... "

Munky, I can't believe you are letting politicians off the hook. Big industry speaks through politicians. They are even worse than big industry. At least with big industry you know where they stand. As for politicians, well they group very nicely with lawyers. What more can I say (I feel safe saying this here. I can't imagine a lawyer or politician anywhere reading an engineering blog).

In fact, I'm digressing for a moment, there is a creationist theory that life on this planet was started with lawyers and politicians. (Hitchhikers Guide To The Universe) They were all collected from another planet because they werre useless and sent off into space and they landed here.

I think you misunderstood the statement. You have to finish reading the sentence.

"...politicians and concerned citizens who question the status-quo definition of "progress"."

No doubt, this is far from being all politicians, just a select few with their ear to the ground (or nose to the air), vision beyond their own bellybuttons, and perhaps even a twinge of conscience.

BTW, my wife is a lawyer, but she understands what you mean, and harbors no bad feelings. She despises most lawyers too.

The mercury issue is the same with linear fluorescent fixtures. We commonly find these in garages and kitchens in CA and accross the country. Batteries are also a hazardous waste but we use these every day. There are many easy ways to discard these materials safely. For instance, San francisco has enlisted hardware stores througout the city to collect these. They also offer a rebate on a new one. I imagine other cities have similar programs.

People that dismiss energy savings and the environment simply because they don't want to make a little extra effort is one reason we are in the state we are in.

You are either creating or propagating an urban legend!

Go look up the EPA factsheet on CFLs. The one I found is from 2002. It states that the average CFL has 4 milligrams of mercury, and that over a 5 year period, the energy required to run it causes emission of 2.4 mg of additional mercury. Over that same 5 year period, the energy required to run an equivalent incandescent lamp causes emission of 10 mg of mercury! I don't know, but I suspect that since 2002, the makers of CFLs have found ways to reduce the mercury content below that 4mg value.

The EPA does NOT require a Hazmat team to clean up a broken bulb. They simply recommend cleaning it up carefully, and of course do recommend they be disposed of appropriately.

As to the cost, see my post #19. They save all around!

All that said, I too am anxiously awaiting the availability of screw-in LED replacement lamps, and will begin buying them as soon as they are available. If they are available now, please post the source.

Thanks

All the ones I saw there were rather specialty lamps. I want something equivalent to the standard CFL that emits more or less uniform light in all directions. I will look around...

Dick

You are correct: I was unaware that household spills are exempt from the HAZMAT requirement, with actual requirements being the juristiction of your city, county and state health department; so do check.

How to properly clean up small mercury spills:

http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3307_29693_4175-11751--,00.html

Dangers to human health:

http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/mercuryspills.htm

This means that I can finally throw away those spent CFLs. :)

The last piece of the picture is YOU SHOULD NOT BE TOSSING SPENT CFLS IN THE GARBAGE.

They should instead be RECYCLED! That way, the Hg never is landfilled or released into the environment.

Most Municipalities (at least in the US) sponsor periodic household hazardous waste drop-off days. At those designated locations, CFLs, linear fluorescent tubes, as well as a wide variety of HOUSEHOLD hazardous wastes can be disposed of, typically at NO COST.

This of course applies only to households, not businesses. Businesses have to pay to properly dispose of "mercury containing equipment" as the USEPA refers to it. (NY State refers to these items as "Mercury-Added Consumer products")

The place I work at recently entered into contract with a "lamp recycling company". Pricing for disposal of spent linear fluorescent tubes is based upon a per linear foot cost for intact bulbs.

They should instead be RECYCLED! That way, the Hg never is landfilled or released into the environment

I always find this statement slightly odd, the bit about "....it never being released into the environment"...

Doesn't anyone else think its strange that a mineral obtained from the earth should be described as never being allowed into the environment or to be released to poison the earth??

Just my weird sense of humour perhaps! ....... John.

Electroman,

Would you say the same thing about Arsenic, or Uranium, both of which are naturally occurring in minerals.

Or how about crocidolite ("blue" asbestos). It's a naturally occurring mineral as well.

While mercury is indeed a naturally occurring element, it is not found as pools of liquid. The most common form of mercury "ore" is a mineral called cinnabar, which is mercury sulfide (HgS). This mineral forms typically as a vein filling mineral in hydrothermal deposits, and/or from recent vulcanism.

Historically, mining for cinnabar (mercury) was relegated to slave or prisoner labor forces, and the mortality rate was quite high...

Lewis Carroll had it right more than 150 years ago. The Mad Hatter was insane because of all of his exposure to mercury vapor! The felt making process involves lots of mercurous nitrate. Insanity was actually an occupational illness associated with the hatmaking industry.

Not to mention the modern day hazardous waste sites that have resulted from these hat making operations!

You have to consider the purity of the processed material, and its concommitant toxicity, vs. that of the substance in its "raw" unpurified form. And of course, you have to consider the exposed population.

Which is more dangerous, a lump of uranium ore (e.g., carnotite or uraninite) sitting in some remote area, deep in the earth somewhere (typical purity <<0.1%), or "spent" pellets from a reactor's fuel rod sitting in a landfill where they can leach directly into the percolating rainwater, and from there into the drinking water aquifer ?

Just my $0.02...

Blimey!

I was only stating that it was an amusing statement to make about a naturally occuring element.

No need to go off at a tangent eh?

Sorry if this is getting a bit off topic but in the name of energy savings and bulb life if you don't want to use cfb's just add a dimmer. Dimming your bulbs to 90% light output saves ~10% energy and doubles the bulb life. If you can do with less light dimming the incandescent bulbs 50% saves 40% on energy and extends bulb life 20 times. I have lights in my house on dimmers that have not been changed in years and do get used on a regular basis. Just another option to consider.

Shawn

THANKS, guys & gals! Your comments are enormously helpful.

The problem with traditional fluorescents is what I would call a LOW speed cycle (120Hz in the US - they peak in brightness on both the positive and negative voltage peaks of 60Hz). The compact fluorescents use much higher frequencies, and the light output time of the phosphors greatly exceeds the time between peaks, so the CFs do not flicker (unless their power supply section is failing).

LEDs illuminate and go out at speeds that can be considered instantaneous as far as the human eye is concerned, so whether they flicker will depend on the method of powering them. Whereas fluorescents need voltages higher than household power line voltage to work, LEDs require much lower voltages (between 1 and 2 Volts, depending on the color). They can of course be connected in series to use higher voltages. If they use small high-frequency switching power supplies, then the flicker should be at too high a rate for the human eye to discern.

I personaly love CFL and everytime a old incandescent bulb goes I change it over...EXECPT...for the bulbs in my unheated garage. If you live in a place where it gets cold in the winter then do not use any flourescent bulbs where it is not heated because they will take 1-2 minutes to actualy turn on and produce full light. Very annoying, so I still use the old ones outside.