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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/11/08
12/12/08
12/11/08
Needless to say, the experiment was short-lived and we've switched back to incandescent flood lamps for our recessed can fixtures. We're waiting for affordable LED lamps, which I think will prove to be more practical and less costly than CFLs, although LED lamps still are expensive today.
CFL's do reduce energy-use and theoretically, costs, but they are based on an outdated technology and contain harmful toxins. Since many are manufactured in China, they may not be reliable. Consequently, the technology proved to be too expensive for us, and a great disappointment.
12/12/08
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12/12/08
The oldest ones have an un-naturally high color temp (almost like HID car headlights) and they are not instant on.
The middle generation I have, are instant on but don't have much better color temp.
The newest ones I have put out nearly the same color temp as the few old incandescent bulbs I have left, they are instant on, and they seem to produce less heat than my older ones.
From my experience, buy CFLs in bulk (more than 4 in a pack), and buy name brands: Phillips/GE/etc.
I bought a couple of cheapo brand CFLs a few years back and they literally lasted less than a year. I have some old first gen Phillips CFLs that are 6+ years old!
12/11/08
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12/11/08
[www.ikea.com]
12/11/08
Think of it as perfect substitute instead of an imperfect substitute.
12/12/08
It's still an imperfect substitute. An incandescent bulb can be made brighter by just increasing the size of that tiny little filament in the middle of that big hollow ball of glass. A flourescent bulb can only be made brighter by increasing the surface area of the tube. More surface area means bigger bulb. You can get a 300w-equivalent CFL at Lowe's, but the coil alone is about the size of a large peanut butter jar. A CFL that's small enough to pack into that small a bulb couldn't be much more than a 40w-equivalent, and unless you put at least half a dozen of those into a room, that's just about enough light to confirm that yes, you are in fact about to be mugged by that person dressed in black.
12/11/08
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12/12/08
WTF? Does your landlady cover your electric bill? Does she cover the cost of replacement lightbulbs? Every apartment I've lived in, I've bought my own bulbs and paid my own electricity...aside from when I was living in on-campus housing.
Anyways, it's all a matter of picking the right ones, and making sure you don't use underpowered bulbs. I use 100w-equivalent daylight-spectrum CFLs because cool-white flourescents are hard on the eyes, and CFL wattage-equivalent numbers always seem to be inflated beyond the amount of light that they actually produce.
12/11/08
I suppose if the inside is vacuum, then the heat would be carried along touching paths to the fixture - if so, that's a neat bloody trick.
12/11/08
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12/12/08
...says the guy who apparently never touched a CFL that's been on for a few hours. They do get hot, just not hot enough to cause 1st degree burns like you could get with incandescents and halogens.
@freelunch:
CFL coils are remarkably easy to break, just by screwing them into a light socket. I've yet to have an enclosed CFL or a standard incandescent break on me just from being screwed into a socket, so there's the safety issue up front. Also, some smaller lamps (especially older ones) have shades that clip onto a standard-size incandescent bulb with two metal rings instead of being bolted to a harp. Without a glass sphere of roughly the same size, it would be very difficult to refit those fixtures with CFLs.
12/12/08
The ballast does get warm, but even after it has been on for hours, you can touch it without being burned. But the bulbs get HOT, hot like MELT YOUR FACE HOT if you set the light so the reflector is facing you. I have a heater in the tank, but it barely ever kicks on while the light is on...
12/12/08
The problem comes when they are frosted, your friends will come over and thing you are an earth hating electricity monster because you haven't switched over to CFLs yet, because they look just like incandescent bulbs
12/13/08
Save a few when they fail, so you can smash them over said guilt-tripping "friend's" head and show them all the extra stuff inside.
11/06/08
11/05/08
really? cheaper, more efficient, brighter/adjustable..?? LED
11/05/08
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11/05/08