Re: Do good energy-saving bulbs exist?

[Mal Lansell <mal@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well it's problem solved as far as I'm concerned - I just ordered 130
traditional bulbs of various types from tlc-direct.co.uk (total cost
around £50 - or the same as ~20 CFLs?), which should be enough to last
me at least 20 years at the current rate of consumption.  That's plenty
of time for the alternatives to sort themselves out.

Mal



Laurence Mason wrote:
> We are in the process of migrating from "proper" bulbs to
CFls. We are
> switching to the Megaman candle bulbs which claim to be the same as a
> 40/45W tungsten - and they probably are. The colour is not the same
but
> I guess we will get used to it. Mostly we don't have any dimmers and
the
> one room where we do they are used only as soft start so I will
replace
> them with standard on/off.
>
> The advantage the megaman ones have over the cheap Tesco ones is that
> they are virtually the same size as the tungsten (so they look all
right
> in fittings) and they also last 15,000 hours rather than 8,000. I
> thought I read somewhere that it was the switching on and off that
wore
> them out so the statement about assuming so many hours per day use
might
> be a way of relating to switching on and off rather than pure on time.
> Yes they do take time to come to full brightness.
>
> Of course now we are saving all the electric running the bulbs we have
> to burn more oil to keep ourselves warm instead and in the summer it
> tends to be lighter in the evenings so we don't need the lights on
anyway!
>
> NZ has recently changed it's mind over the transition:
>
> http://national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=29097
>
> Regards,
>
> Laurence
>
> Neil Ball wrote:
>
>> Was the dimmable CFL from Varilight? This works well enough with
my Helvar
>> Digidim system (which has all of the dimmers set to trailing edge
dimming)
>> although it is not smooth as it dims - it kind of steps in stages
as it dims
>> down and up. It is completely useless in a fitting that has a
leading edge
>> dimmer, it goes out completely while still quite bright and is not
really
>> controllable. I?ve still to source a Megaman CFL which promises a
stepless
>> dimming range of 10-100% although again I don?t know if it will be
dependent
>> on the type of dimming technology used. I did notice that both
companies
>> recommend switching them on full for at least a minute before
dimming for
>> best results, not really what you want with a scene-setting
lighting control
>> system.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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