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Re: Anyone moved to LED Lighting?



"Robert Green" wrote:
>
> "Jeff Volp" wrote:
>>
>> Except for the "intricately curved delicate glass tubes"...
>
> That's a pretty big exception. As a guy who custom
> builds electronics by hand, I am sure that you realize
> that even one delicate step in a process, say
> soldering an SMD component to a circuit board by
> hand...

That's misleading at best, Robert.  None of the processes are done by hand,
except packaging and that step is largely the same for either type of product.
Once the patterns have been made and accepted, the glass tubes are made by
machines.  Modern plants use robotic systems to "blow" the glass tubes.
Electronic circuit boards for inexpensive devices like CFL's are not made by
hand any more either.

Here's a link to a CFL-manufacturing firm.  There's no one soldering anything.
No one is blowing glass either.  That's another fully automated process done
elsewhere.  Circuit boards are assembled on a robotic line and dip-soldered en
masse.  The final product is then assembled on fully automated systems.  You
won't find a single person using a soldering iron.  This kind of robotic
assembly is nothing new either.  Manufacturers in the alarm industry have been
using it for better than 20 years.  Heck, computer system makers such as
MOD-COMP (now defunct, I think) were using automated manufacturing systems 35 or
more years ago.

http://www.lightsindia.com/products.html#cfl-manufacturing-machine

> Take a look at some of the spiral shapes of bulbs and I
> think you'll realize that it takes some significant heat and
> tooling to create narrow but even diameter glass tubes...

That is all supposition, Bobby.  You don't know to what temperature glass for
CFL's is heated let alone if it's greater than, less than or the same as in
making incandescent bulbs.  You clutter the discussion with wild guesses, then
argue the merits of CFL's as though whatever you suppose is established fact.
That is disingenuous and does nothing to help readers discern the benefits or
negatoives of CFL's.

Here's a link to an article on CFL-Haters (I didn't realize there were enough of
them around that they need to be categorized)   :^)

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/927/the-four-types-of-cfl-haters-and-what-to-tell-them.html

> that then must be twisted into spiral shape...

> ... Forgive me for taking a technical note and
> turning it into polemic, but this is an important
> issue.

If that were what you did, I'd happily forgive.  Unfortunately, you have built a
fire of guesses and wishes as fact, then shoveled personal preference into the
mix.  Now you stand back and warn, "See, this stuff burns very hot."

> Even if LED and CFL production costs were equal,
> manufacturing CFL's means increasing the mining
> for mercury and causing much more of the neurotoxin
> to enter the world at large....

That is pure, unadulterated, male bovine excrement.  CFL's cost more to build so
they cost more than incandescent bulbs.  In the process of making them, more
people are employed (not exactly a bad thing given the current economic
situation).  The benefits are twofold.

(1) Quality CFL's last long enough to repay the investment by not buying many
more incandescents *and* by using less electricity.

(2) Using less electricity means burning less coal.  This reduces mercury
contamination far more than the small amount of mercury in the bulbs themselves.
Furthermore, the mercury in used CFL's can be recycled.  A number of
manufacturers are now accepting used bulbs back from the public, as well as from
institutional users.  That which is not recycled goes into land fills where a
small percentage may eventually seep back into the earth.  By comparison, the
mercury emitted by coal burning electrical plants goes directly into the
atmsphere and from there enters the food chain.

> It may very well turn out that  CFLs looked good
> on paper but turned out not to be so good when
> all costs are computed, just like biofuels.

It *may* be that CFL's will be just one step on the path to restoring the
environment.  More likely, they will be one of many methods in simultaneous use
as various technologies develop.  Only time will tell.  Meanwhile, there's
nothing better that performs effectively at a reasonable cost so CFL's should be
used wherever possible.  It's the right thing to do.

> While one dot of mercury might not seem so bad,
> almost 300 million CFL's were sold in the United
> States last year...

Without knowing how big the "dot" is and how much mercury they *don't* use by
reducing electric consumption, that proves nothing.  If you want to understand
the real affect of mercury in CFL's vs coal, you must first you learn how much
they introduce into landfills.  Then you have you learn what portion of it gets
out of the landfills (in all likelihood, the major portion does not re-enter the
environment but I can't prove that; it's supposition).  Next you have to measure
the amount of mercury *not* introduced because CFLs use less power.  Finally,
you have to quantify the effect of mercury sent directly into the air from
electric usage.

Do all that.  Report back next week.  There will be a quiz on Tuesday.  :^)

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

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DIY Alarm and Home Automation Store
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