Re: N:Vision CFL's

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4605cede.802587109@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >What will the power factor tell us?  I tested the 23W floodlight and the
14W
> >bulbs and their PF is .61.  The old GE helical CFL comes in at .65.  A
new
> >60 watt incandescent reads .99 "pee effs" (-:
>
> Here's another URL that shows why Power Factor may become more important
> with increased use of CFLs, whether voluntary or mandated.
>
>      http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/an/4042.pdf

PDF?  I don't support no stinkin' proprietary document formats when you
consider all the effort that's gone into the Web to make it free from such
lunacy.  (-:  But I've read about the problem elsewhere.  It threatens to
become an issue, as you note, only if there's a large scale conversion to
CFLs.  Australia's wholesale switchover will probably tell us soon enough if
it's a serious issue.

The PF of the N:Vision bulbs doesn't matter much to me because the bulbs are
*not* working out as well as I hoped.  There still seems to be no way to
turn the porchlight bulb OFF after turning it on when equipped with an
N:Vision 14W helicoid.  I have 23W helicoid attached to an appliance module
and shortly after screwing it in, it began to slowly flash at precisely two
beats per second.

This one is probably behaving differently than the floodlight that turns
itself back on instantly because it was put into the lamp socket cold.  It
will be interesting to see if it eventually warms itself up through flashing
to trigger the local sense current detector.  So far it's been flashing for
20 minutes.

I really had high hopes for these bulbs working in my X-10 setup without
bizarre issues like the porchlight that won't turn off remotely and the
low-level flashing caused by the local sense circuitry.  I *really* hate
having to snip the local sense detector diodes because the ability to use
local control is a nice feature when using table and floor lamps.  )-:

The quest for the Holy Grail of low cost, high efficacy/efficiency light
bulbs that actually *work* with my setup as fluidly as incandescents
continues . . .

--
Bobby G.