Re: Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity; Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dan Wright" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:wzwZh.27197$n_.21475@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:EfSdnWtUi4FiqqvbnZ2dnUVZ_hSdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxx
>
> > FWIW, my N-vision CFL floodlight has begun to take a very long time to
> > warm
> > up and appears never able to reach its initial brightness level.  Too
bad,
> > because it looked like a real winner at first.  My wife wants it gone
from
> > the kitchen!  I concur.  Slow warmup is really, really annoying when you
> > want to look at something right away.
>
> I have a house full of those N:Vision PAR-30 floods equivalents.  They
come
> in 2 or 3 colors.  The warm ones are pretty good.  Yes they take a long
time
> to warm up (30-90 secs).  I commented on that in a prior post.

I might have missed that because what surprised me the most when I first got
them was they were "instant on" - the speed at which they reached full
brightness floored me (and my wife).  However, she, not I, was the first to
notice the ever-lengthening "warm up" times.  Why would they work so
remarkably well right out of the blister pack and worsen, drastically, in
such a short amount of time?

I believe the trickle current from the X-10 autosense circuit has damaged or
is damaging something internally.  I've had CFL bulbs plugged into appliance
modules begin to burn at the base while operating.  Not sure if they would
have caught fire if I didn't happen to be standing there, but the areas
around the tube ends were burned dark black and brown.  Lots of acrid, nasty
smoke too.  SAF for CFL's dropped to an all time low, which is why I posted
the WaPo summary!

It might be a good idea to get two more new test bulbs and run one off a
mechanical timer vs. one on a appliance module on the same schedule as the
timer.  That should tell me if the trickle current is ruining the bulb.  I
may even get a third one to leave on all the time to see if it's repeated
on/off cycles that do the bulbs in.

> Currently I have 5 recessed cans in my kitchen and primary lighting, 7 in
> the master suite, 4 in the great room and 6 more elsewhere in the house.
If
> I used incandescent in all of them the whirring of the electric meter
would
> be deafening.    We have learned to adapt to the warm up.

We have very different lighting schemes.  Nearly all table and floor lamps.
The floodlight produced a very interesting effect with one of the table
lamps and really was astoundingly quick to reach full intensity.  Now it
take 30 secs and from what you're saying, might soon take 90.  This sounds
like another interesting problem to run to ground.  Trickle current with
these bulbs may be quite destructive.  With the local electrical rates
doubling and tripling here in the DC metro area, I want to try to get CFLs
to work.  If it means some workaround of the trickle current problem, I'll
give it a shot.  But I gotta test first and find the time to do it according
to CHA standards! (-:

> Check the "color" of yours.  The non-warm ones were pretty stark.

It didn't seem so bad and my wife's *really* picky about light color as it
relates to cosmetics and food preparation.  Lots of CFL and fluorescent
solutions have had low SAF for that very reason.  The N-Vision bulbs have
been much more acceptable than past bulbs.  Too bad the arthritic warm up
and the GE bulb beginning to burn up have caused CFL's to lose more ground
in her mind, approval-wise.  And we're not talking about losing just a
little ground. We're talking about Poland-sized chunks.  (-:

--
Bobby G.