Re: Compact Fluorescent Noise

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4548e504.259797875@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >Another thing that I've found changes the equation is that none of the
CFL's
> >I've purchased have come anywhere near lasting their rated lifetime.  It
> >seems that the early "lifetime" guarantees given when CFL's first hit the
> >market have been slowly replaced by ten and then five year guarantees and
> >some packages I've seen have no warranty at all.
>
> Well, I didn't mention that because every time I've mentioned it in the
past
> it has triggered a lengthy harangue from the local village idiot. ;)

I didn't realize we had selected a leader among the many highly qualified
candidates for LVI. ;-)

> It's hard to get reliable statistics but a Google search will turn up
enough
> reports of short lived CFLs from reputable sources to indicate this is a
> real problem. I've read that the quality of the phosphors available in
China
> are the problem.

It's a real problem for me, despite any chewing out, declamation, diatribe,
jeremiad, philippic, screed, sermon, spouting, tirade or harangue to the
contrary.  I write the date of installation and the alleged warranty period
on each bulb base.  While I don't keep actual "hours used" statistics, I
know that I've replaced a lot of "ten year" bulbs in less than three years
of ordinary use.  The worst offenders are the ones mounted base-up that
allow the bulb's heat to rise into the bulb's electronics.  That's a failure
mode quite similar to the small lamp socket modules that X-10 sells.

> I think the economics are marginal but I have to qualify that somewhat
> because I've recently had a rash of sort-lived incandescents. Either the
> change in ownership of Cinergy (now Duke) came with a change in power
> quality or the bulbs I've been getting in the past year are much lower
> quality than those I got in the previous 8-9 years.

I've noticed the same thing and went Googling a while back when you first
reported premature failures on bulbs connected to an LM14.  We're not the
only ones to notice lightbulb longevity ain't what it used to be.  Still, an
incandescent bulb costs me a quarter and most CFL's cost at least 10 times
that amount.  Whether it's bad voltage spikes, bad manufacturing processes,
bad QC or just plain ol' bad luck I don't know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#Comparison_of_electrici
ty_cost

Claims that:  "The average lifetime of incandescent light bulbs is about
750?1000 hours. It would take at least 6-11 incandescent bulbs to last as
long as one compact fluorescent, which have an average lifetime between
11,250 and 15,000 hours. This causes an additional total cost of using
incandescent bulbs. Another additional (potential) cost may be incurred if
the bulbs are not in a readily accessible location and special equipment
(e.g., cherry picker) and/or personnel are needed to replace it."

That and a number of other paragraphs illustrate that the tradeoffs between
the two types of bulbs involve a number of disparate factors and that no one
solution fits all situations.

--
Bobby G.