Toshiba Ends Incandescent Bulb Production After 120 Years

angry tapir writes "Toshiba has stopped production of mass-market incandescent light bulbs, putting an end to a 120-year manufacturing history of the products. The company, which is one of Japan's largest makers of lighting products, had planned to halt production next year but brought up the date by a year. It will now focus on more energy efficient products, including LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which contain a handful of white LEDs and draw a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs."

Comments

so long...

[eexaa]

....and thanks for all the friendly warm light.

Re:so long...

[BeardedChimp]

And now for the entirely predictable posts claiming low power lighting causes cancer, are crap, and cause global warming...

The first argument goes the mercury in CFLs is going to kill us. This argument comes up and is destroyed every time. It will suffice to say there is little mercury, isn't that dangerous and burning coal puts out a lot more.

Then we attack the lights. They are crap, taking too long to turn on, not being bright enough and so forth. Arguments that might have been true 10 years ago but have been entirely overcome unless you insist on buying the cheapest pos you can find.

I titter when I hear that because incandescent bulbs warm your house it means you don't need as much heating so you are saving energy and helping the environment! This argument is so weak all I'll say is heating in summer?

Then there is people claiming that CFLs give them headaches, if I had more time I'd point out the studies where people are shown to have similar sensitivity as those who sense EM fields.

This time instead of continuing to spout discredited crap, do a bit of research.

Re:so long...

[sesshomaru]

"There's your answer, fishbulb"

Re:so long...

[Lord Ender]

How about this: the color of the light emitted by CFLs and LEDs is ugly, and sometimes even hard on the eyes (especially with LEDs).

For me, this is reason enough to stick with incandescent bulbs for the places I spend most of my time.

If you consider my above statements to be "crap" then you shouldn't have skipped class on the day they talked about the light spectrum. The spectrum emitted unquestionably differs between lighting technologies.

Re:so long...

[nomadic]

Agreed, even high quality CFLs gives off harsh light, and LEDs are even worse.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>>unless you insist on buying the cheapest POS you can find.

I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness. And no it wasn't just a bad set, because identical bulbs I bought a year later still exhibited the same behavior.

I was not aware Philips make crap products?

And then there's the expense. Why should I spend $3.50 per bulb when I can get an incandescent for around 25 cents. And the incandescents have not been stagnate. New laser-carved filments inside old incandescents can produce the same brightness as a 60 watt, but only use 40 watts.

So CFL v. old bulb == savings of about 25 watts * 1 hours a day (typical) * 30 days == 3 kWh saved off my 3000 kWh bill. Wow. Times 9 cents per kwH == 27 cents. Holy crap. Now I can buy one-third of a twinkie!

POINT:

Shouldn't our priorities be focused on more energy-expensive things like heating/cooling? If all new home standards were increased to "PassivHaus" standards, which bring heat/cooling to almost nothing, we'd save HUGE amount of energy.

I tried the whole CFL deal.
For fifteen years.
And now I'm switching back

Incandescents are the better technology due to simplicity (it's a resistor), cheapness (even poor people can afford them), ease-of-disposal (no need to empty the room like EPA recommends), cleanness (not reactive power), and does not interfere with radio waves (like radio, tv, wifi, et cetera). After fifteen years of testing CFLs, I've concluded they are inferior.

Re:so long...

[b06r011]

Wow... take it easy. For what it is worth, i really like some of the low-energy bulbs. I can move my angle poise lamp without burning my hand now. But I'll still be sad to see the end of incandescent bulbs. After all, what am i going to do with my Lava Lamp?

Re:so long...

[Algan]

Get CFLs that provide light with a color temperature of 2700K. That's approximately the color temperature of an incandescent bulb, and, to my untrained eyes, the color seems identical.

Make sure you look for 2700K on the package. "Soft, warm white" might be 3000K, and you will notice the difference.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

Now that most of the European Union has effectively outlawed incadescents and replaced them with CFLs, has the EU power demand dropped?

Nope.

Giant. Waste. Of. Legislators' Time. It would have made more sense for them to mandate all homes meet PassivHaus standards, such that heating/cooling is virtually nothing. Figure 66% less heating/cooling energy use per home, or about 2000 kWh for my house, equals $180 saved each month.

Re:so long...

[russotto]

And now for the entirely predictable posts claiming low power lighting causes cancer, are crap, and cause global warming...

CFLs are largely crap.

Then we attack the lights. They are crap, taking too long to turn on, not being bright enough and so forth. Arguments that might have been true 10 years ago but have been entirely overcome unless you insist on buying the cheapest pos you can find.

They do take too long to turn on, the quality of light still sucks, and many of them still have noticable flicker and buzz. The passage of time has not decreased these arguments; that's just marketing. Put the same old crap in new packaging and claim the new stuff doesn't have any of the problems of the old stuff.

Oh, yeah, and they largely don't live up to their lifetime claims, which throws the whole cost and energy argument into doubt.

Then there is people claiming that CFLs give them headaches, if I had more time I'd point out the studies where people are shown to have similar sensitivity as those who sense EM fields.

I can sense the EM fields coming out of a CFL; if I couldn't, they'd be useless. Headaches caused by flicker (and yes, some of them DO flicker) aren't in the same category as headaches caused by wifi.

Re:so long...

[ircmaxell]

Then there is people claiming that CFLs give them headaches, if I had more time I'd point out the studies where people are shown to have similar sensitivity as those who sense EM fields.

While I don't get headaches directly from CFLs, if I do have one, I typically find that some CFLs will make it worse (When I get a headache, I'm typically very sensitive to light. The fact that some bulbs make it worse than others leads me to believe there may be something about sensitivity to certain light frequencies) The difference, is that it's only SOME CFLs that cause it... The light output varies from model to model, and while I wouldn't avoid CFLs because of it, I may avoid certain models... EM sensitivity I think is largely psychological, but I do think that light sensitivity is a very real effect (But definitely does have some psychological effect)...

As for the mercury argument, it only plays if you break a bulb. Sure, coal may put out more, but what's the average effect on each person with coal? I'd bet it's less than if you broke a bulb (and were directly exposed to the mercury). However with that said is the amount that's contained in a CFL dangerous? Is it beyond the LEL? The amount of mercury in a typical CFL is around 4mg (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_mercury)... Based on the MSDS http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/M1599.htm, that amount is WELL above the airborne exposure limits (40 times the OSHA upper limit). So the dangers of mercury are real, but the flip side of that argument is how many bulbs are broken? If you have a habit of breaking them, then perhaps it's a real concern. If you've never broken a bulb in your life, perhaps it doesn't concern you (Since exposure one time isn't nearly as bad as a repeated exposure)... But to say that it isn't dangerous is extremely short sighted and blatently ignoring the facts. Sure it's not a mitigate-able danger (just don't break the bulb), but it still exists...

This time instead of continuing to spout discredited crap, do a bit of research.

Ummm... No comment...

Re:so long...

[interkin3tic]

Then there is people claiming that CFLs give them headaches, if I had more time I'd point out the studies where people are shown to have similar sensitivity as those who sense EM fields.

I'm very sensitive to the placebo effect, you insensitive clod! Now I'm going to have to replace all my bulbs AGAIN in addition to making a new tinfoil hat!

Re:so long...

[xaxa]

You claim a:
(X) medical ( ) economic ( ) environmental (X) aesthetic
issue with CFL or LED-produced light. Your view is incorrect and/or irrelevant, here's why:

( ) Double-blind tests have proved people don't notice the difference anyway
(X) There is no evidence that CFL or LED light causes headaches
(X) The bulbs are available with different colour temperatures
( ) Modern CFLs attain full brightness very quickly
( ) LED bulbs attain full brightness instantly
( ) You are basing your argument on a 50-cent bulb bought at a discount store.
( ) Producing the extra electricity required to use an incandescent bulb releases more mercury into the atmosphere than is in a CFL
( ) Your oil/gas central heating is more efficient than using lights to heat your house
( ) You have to cool your house using inefficient air conditioning for most of the year
( ) The savings are negligible, compared to other efficiency gains that could be made
( ) As demand increases new bulbs will reduce in price

Re:so long...

[mdarksbane]

A few thoughts.

I have tried three or four different brands of CFL's. All of them take longer to turn on than an incandescent. Some of them are still usable. However... with incandescents, I can buy whatever cheapass brand I want, and they still work. I now have several packages of generally useless light bulbs that combined cost me $30 to find out that they suck. Moreover, I have to remember which brands do and do not suck, and no, just buying the expensive ones doesn't cut it. This is a lot of annoyance for something as simple as a light bulb.

The argument about heating during the winter is weak? Not everyone lives in California. I spend $1,000 in propane every winter. I spend zero dollars on air conditioning during the summer. Any excess heat put out during the winter is definitely going to work. Central Ohio isn't exactly the frozen tundra, either. I'm working on improving insulation in my house for the winter, but that's not going to make me suddenly grow a giant air conditioning bill. Now, the excess heat shouldn't be as cost-effective as the propane, but it's not waste inherently.

Finally, a point that no one seems to mention - what about all of the legacy light fixtures that CFL's don't fit in? I tried three different CFL bulbs and none of them fit in my garage opener. The same holds for three or four other fixtures in the house, as well as several of our lamps. Time to buy all new fixtures for the house and install them just to save a $3 a year in energy costs?

Look, I use CFL's in a lot of places in my house. In some spaces I really like that they don't burn out as often, or that they don't put off as much heat. In some use cases it doesn't matter that if you pick a random one off the shelf at a hardware store there's a 50% chance it's not going to turn on before you've already walked across the room. But they aren't a unilateral improvement over incandescents, and it'd be nice if people stopped pretending that they were.

Re:so long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that most of the European Union has effectively outlawed incadescents and replaced them with CFLs, has the EU power demand dropped?

Nope.

They aren't outlawing existing incandescents, and I don't know about you, but in my house the (few remaining) incandescent bulbs didn't all suddenly die when the supposed ruling on sales of lighting changed. Did you consider that perhaps it might take a little bit of time for this to have an effect?

Re:so long...

[poetmatt]

in case you're wondering, the first 2 arguments are not surprising. The rest are beyond outlandish.

The mercury in the CFL isn't going to kill us, but I think it's something easy for people to have irrational concern over. Really, people probably think "mercury = bad", and then drop it at that. That part wouldn't even be unfounded, even if the amount in a CFL is ridiculously small.

The second issue is also a concern - I don't have a factual basis but when comparing 60 watt incandescents to 40 watt LED's, there definitely seems to be a huge difference in the lighting of a room. I do understand that technically, the LED's should be more efficient with significantly more lumens, but maybe someone else with an actual science background might be able to explain why better than I can. I'm sure it could have been the specific set of LED's I purchased but the difference was huge for equal wattage.

Meanwhile, I'm talking about LED even. they should be *brighter* than CFR's.

Re:so long...

[jockeys]

I'm not going to take sides, but you CAN buy CFLs in different color temperatures. Incadescent bulbs put out light at around 2500k or so, and you can get CFLs that range from about that all the way up to nearly 10000k, which borders on actinic (12000k).

Myself, I use different "colors" and strengths of CFLs depending on the area of my house and what's going on. examples:

garage - very bright, very harsh lighting: 150w CFL floods with no diffusers running at either 8500k or 9500k, can't remember. cold, blueish light. too bright to look straight at
kitchen - warm, diffuse light: 50w CFL diffused globes running at 4500k. faintly yellow and pleasant
bathroom where wife does makeup - golden light, intended to mimic sunlight: 75w CFL naked coils running at 3000k. yellow and fairly bright.

Re:so long...

[jitterman]

Just wondering (i.e. not a flame), are there socket enclosures (so that the LEDs are "hidden" within) that have perhaps a plastic/glass filter that can warm the light up a bit? I could Google for it to try and find out, but I'm afraid laziness has reached a new height.

Re:so long...

[Dr. Spork]

I agree that those are the best fluorescent lights, but they're still not good. A part of the problem is that there are huge bands of wavelengths where they don't emit light. A real filament emitting 2700K blackbody radiation will include every wavelength and make light that's far less tiring to work in. In my fixtures with multiple bulbs, I always include at least one incandescent bulb to fill in all those colors of light that fluorescents just don't make.

Re:so long...

[mikael_j]

...has effectively outlawed incadescents and replaced them with CFLs, has the EU power demand dropped?

You can still buy regular light-bulbs here in Sweden, the first step was apparently only to outlaw the sale of certain lightbulbs (not the common 25, 40 and 60W bulbs that are the most common ones).

It'll probably take a couple of years before the results (if any) can be seen.

Re:so long...

[Mycroft_514]

And you are so wrong. It is a simple problem.

I have already put the new lights into almost all of my home lighting now. Eventually, all but ONE light will be replaced. That one 5 bulb chandelier REQUIRES 1 incadescent bulb in order to turn on correctly. The other 4 bulbs are the lower power lighting. They are a smattering of other bulbs still as incadescents, but as they burn out they are getting replaced. (Or as the one required incadescent burns out, I use one of those others to replace it and swap it for one of the low power ones.)

And before you get on with the "oh they have special bulbs for that" - tried them - they don't work.

So, GE, please keep manufacturing incadescents.

Re:so long...

[ircmaxell]

There's more to light than just color temperature... There's also emitted frequencies. So while an incandescent typically emits light evenly across the visible range, a typical CFL emits light in a more grained spectrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Spectrum_of_light). So to emit the same "color temperature" and luminosity (brightness of overall effect), a CFL will need to emit more light in certain frequency ranges to compensate for the missing frequencies. And since the human eye doesn't perceive all frequencies equally (We're typically MUCH more sensitive to green than red or blue) it can lead to the light not "feeling" right. The net combination of the colors looks the same, but they are processed differently in the eye which leads to a real, measurable difference. A CFL can never be identical to an incandescent. It's a matter of the physics behind it. Sure, they can "approximate" the light output, but the difference will always be there (and hence why some colors are less discernible under a CFL than under an incandescent)... In situations where color is very important (Artists, designers, etc) an incandescent bulb will be far better than a CFL. In situations (like every day life) where it isn't important to get colors exactly right, then it doesn't matter. But the point is that there is a difference...

Re:so long...

[Dr. Spork]

I love the passiv-haus movement. I think it's absolutely brilliant, and I wish it were more widespread. I would definitely want to live in such a house. But a very small percentage of the houses in Europe are new, and there is no way to convert an existing house into a passiv-haus. But yes, I think that subsidizing the difference in costs between ordinary building and building by the passiv-haus code is something that sane governments should do. It makes much more sense than subsidizing photovoltaic panels at a latitude like Germany's.

Re:so long...

[Anonymous Coward]

"color temperature" is only the beginning. The color-resolving power of CFLs is horrible, and this is absolutely obvious to me and others. This might have something to do with the fact that I'm a photographer and might be a little more visually-tuned than others. Maybe you can't notice the difference, maybe most people can't, and that's fine. However, CFLs put out ugly light; I have yet to see one that doesn't. LEDs too. Not slightly ugly, like extremely ugly. While they are light bulbs in the first-order sense (they put out light) and thus are good where you simply need some light (I use them in my handheld shop light) I can't imagine anyone using them to light a well-decorated interior or do anything else, really. Switching to an incandescent is like a breath of fresh air, even my wife can notice after adapting to those horrible, horrible phosphor emissions. Human eyes are adapted to looking at black body radiators.

captcha: "spectrum"

Re:so long...

[twidarkling]

You know what? This. 1000x this. Rather than mandate what lighting a home uses, mandate that they need to be upgraded for heating efficiency. And NO GRANDFATHERING IN OLD HOUSES. Unless it's a historic site that would have its character irreparably damaged by energy efficiency alterations, it fucking needs to get fixed up. Give tax incentives, or pass out a stimulus. Whatever needs to be done. Give a 10 year time frame for older places (I say that long since demand for materials would be massive during this time frame, and same with labour to have it done), but places currently under construction absolutely must meet the code by the time they're finished construction. If every place in North America, Asia, Australia, and the European Union did that, we'd probably hit those insane targets in things like the original Kyoto Accord.

Re:so long...

[Lord Ender]

Your response is bogus because:

(x) I never said anything about headaches
(x) LEDs/CFLs with the spectrum of sunlight or incandescent bulbs do not exist

This is not even close to a continuous spectrum.

But thanks for trolling by!

Re:so long...

[MadShark]

I've mostly switched over to CFL bulbs in my house. In my bathroom, I've got a six bulb array above the sink with a mix of incandescent and CFL bulbs. In the last year I've tried every brand of CFLs that I could find locally in the proper size for that fixture. EVERY single brand takes a significant amount of time to reach full brightness when compared to the incandescent right next to it. The color is noticeably different until they are fully warmed up. Once warmed up, you can't tell the difference, but it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to over a minute to do so. The effect gets worse over time as well(probably caused by the humid environment). The newer bulbs are MUCH better than the bulbs from a few years ago, but they still warm up slowly in my experience.

Now maybe I can get better bulbs online. I don't know. But very few people are going go through the trouble. I like CFLs but I'm not going to switch all of my remaining incandescent bulbs until they warm up to a proper temperature in less than 2 seconds.

Re:so long...

[Chris Burke]

I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness. And no it wasn't just a bad set, because identical bulbs I bought a year later still exhibited the same behavior.

Maybe you should have tried a different brand then? I have CFLs in almost every fixture in the house. The only ones that take more than 1s to reach max brightness are a recessed light and my 200W-equivalent porch light.

Some of these lights were rather cheap, too. :)

I was not aware Philips make crap products?

Every company has at least the occasional piece of crap in their product line. Phillips has a good reputation, but that plus you holding a crappy Phillips CFL in your hand does not prove all CFLs are crap.

cleanness (not reactive power)

Huh? Is this your way of slipping in Power Factor as a reason CFLs are bad? Well at least you aren't still claiming it means CFLs don't save any energy. LOL.

Shouldn't our priorities be focused on more energy-expensive things like heating/cooling? If all new home standards were increased to "PassivHaus" standards, which bring heat/cooling to almost nothing, we'd save HUGE amount of energy.

Yes indeed! We need to push energy efficiency from all angles and insulation is a huge one. It is being pushed, too, but hey I agree it should be a bigger priority than it is.

After fifteen years of testing CFLs, I've concluded they are inferior.

Why do I get the impression you concluded that long before fifteen years had passed, and at best kept up the "experiment" in the form of buying a new CFL every year or two just to stave off people that you should try em, not all of em take forever to get bright, etc.

I mean, fifteen years and you haven't found a single CFL that performs well? It took me all of two trips to Home Depot to accomplish this. They exist. Your inability to find any after fifteen years is, um, shall we say, in conflict with the idea of this being a neutral unbiased experiment that you were conducting.

Re:so long...

[rubycodez]

no, the argument about mercury hasn't been "destroyed every time", break one CFL bulb in your home and you will be exposed to more mercury than in ten years of breathing the air 25 miles from a coal fired plant. What a crock of marketing spew.

It doesn't help doing research if you can't reason and believe a load of bull from those with an agenda.

Re:so long...

[gilgongo]

How about this: the color of the light emitted by CFLs and LEDs is ugly, and sometimes even hard on the eyes (especially with LEDs).

So fruckingh what? I also love the taste of bluefin tuna, but at least I wonder whether I should be eating it.

In any case, the fact that you're used to yellowish light is just personal preference. I assume you've never stayed in a house in a place like Japan or China, where the default domestic light is usually provided by cold white neon bulbs.

Re:so long...

[gilgongo]

Now that most of the European Union has effectively outlawed incadescents and replaced them with CFLs, has the EU power demand dropped?

Nope.

Citation needed (sigh).

Re:so long...

[VolciMaster]

Then there is people claiming that CFLs give them headaches, if I had more time I'd point out the studies where people are shown to have similar sensitivity as those who sense EM fields.

Fluorescent lights *do* give me headaches - whether they're of the bar, ring, or compact varieties. The synchronicity of the light pulse with the phase of the power supply bothers me. Low-refresh-rate monitors (under 75hz) give me headaches, too. Due to the nature of incandescents, the synchonicity of "pulses" is far less noticeable (if at all since it stays hot even during the down phase of the alternating current, therefore still giving-off its normal light) until the filament is close to the end of its life-span.

And the spectrum emitted is distinctly not the same as with incandescent lights. The same is true of mercury vapor, LED, xenon, and halogen lights - they are all different from incandescents.

Re:so long...

[Coren22]

How about some of the other arguments that are frankly quite valid:

Flicker
Ceiling fan use
Cost
Negligible power savings when you consider the manufacturing and real life time of the bulbs

Flicker and Ceiling fan sort of go together too, When I used proper incandescent bulbs, no problems, when using CFL, they would randomly start flickering or just shut off, now I have compact halogens that work pretty decently, but I am unsure of their real power savings and they tend to shut the fixture off randomly (remote controlled switch, possibly RF fields?)

All of these "energy saving" bulbs cost way too much, it is a green cash cow like so many other things

The bulbs don't last anywhere near what they say, I only ever got a year or so out of CFLs, when using incandescent, it is the same, but at least they are inexpensive. And Halogen pretty much lasts forever, beat that.
.

I can't talk to LED as I haven't seen any with decent light output or color reproduction, but they better be good to replace halogen and incandescent.

Re:so long...

[Yvan256]

I see RGB spots in that photo, so what's the problem? /duck

Re:so long...

[SharpFang]

I've seen some "warm light" LEDs recently. Their light was pretty sweet, with a nice warm golden-orange tone (like sunset or IR bulb) and more than acceptable.

Unfortunately, they still cost arm and leg comparing to normal "ultra-bright white light" and "daylight" LEDs.

Re:so long...

[gilgongo]

Never mind, I got one:

"Over the period 2004-2007 the final energy consumption in the EU-27 Member States decreased, while electricity end-use consumption in EU-27 continued to grow, but at a lower rate than the economic growth."

http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/energyefficiency/pdf/EnEff_Report_2009.pdf

So - nice try Mr Trollhat, your bullshit has now been called.

Re:so long...

[tbannist]

has the EU power demand dropped?

Nope.

Actually, it has. Almost 10% in fact.

Of course, that has a lot more to do with economic conditions than the replacement of light bulbs, which as another poster points out has barely begun. Expect demand for power rise by 10%, possibly more, as the EU pulls out of the recession.

The problem is going to be identifying the impact of switching from incandescents to LEDs and CFLs. That's not going to be easy because there's no accurate way of measuring adoption and it's impact on power demand, so it will have to be estimated.

Re:so long...

[ircmaxell]

Tuna contains on average around 10ug (Yes, that's 10 x 10^-6) per ounce (as per the FDA). So a typical tuna steak would have around 50 to 60 ug of mercury (and that' methylmercury, not pure murcury)... Whereas a single CFL (according to EnergyStar) contains around 4mg (Yes, 4x10^-3) per bulb. So to get the same amount of mercury from fish as you get from a CFL, you'd need to eat 62 lbs of fish. And that's for a single exposure. Considering the current recommendation for fish is 12oz per week (per FDA), it'd take over 83 weeks (That's 1.6 years) to get the same exposure as from a single bulb. Sure, there's the argument that you're not ingesting the bulb (Well, I hope you're not), but if you average one broken bulb per year or more, the exposure to mercury from broken bulbs would dominate (Especially considering it's a more concentrated dose when it happens)...

Re:so long...

[Golddess]

Excellent post, but as for the debunking of CFLs giving headaches, I'd just like to point out that, while I've not yet seen a CFL suffer from flickering, I believe it is the flickering commonly associated with FLs in general that result in headaches.

Re:so long...

[SharpFang]

Could you pick a piece of Amethyst, look at it in this light and tell me what you see?

Amethyst is the uncanny probe of all these light sources. In daylight, it's a rich, deep violet. In most if LED, fluorescent and the likes, it looks like a piece of quite transparent, slightly greenish ordinary glass. The difference is obvious to any, even completely untrained eye.

Re:so long...

[DerekLyons]

And now for the entirely predictable posts claiming low power lighting causes cancer, are crap, and cause global warming...

As well as the equally predictable slew of posts filled with handwaving and smokescreens declaring that anyone who doesn't rush out and buy a cartload of CFL's is mentally and morally deficient, and that any problems they have with the bulbs are figments of their imagination. After all, if you most be intelligent and perceptive to see the Emperor's new clothes.
 

The first argument goes the mercury in CFLs is going to kill us. This argument comes up and is destroyed every time. It will suffice to say there is little mercury, isn't that dangerous and burning coal puts out a lot more.

It suffices to say "there is a little mercury" only to someone with an agenda or who is bad at math. "A little mercury" multiplied by " (eventually) millions of bulbs in service" equals "a lot of mercury potentially entering the environment". That coal produces more is irrelevant.

Re:so long...

[hoboroadie]

What's the state of the art on 60Hz noise? I find fluorescents unacceptable if I'm recording the sound outa my Super Beatle. (It kicks out plenty of weirdness on its own, thankyou). I don't want to put Humbuckers on the Frankencaster, and maybe modern amps have better shielding, but I use incandescents in my studio because of this; They are not devoid of merit. BTW I'm pretty sure it's psychosomatic, but I find I get headaches if I don't keep my monitor's refresh @90Hz or more, maybe that explains why the tinfoil doesn't help those CFL whingers.

Re:so long...

[iangoldby]

I agree with most of what you wrote, nevertheless, it is true that CFLs can take a long time to warm up.

It is a particular problem for the physically smaller CFLs. Manufacturers are doing all they can to get the size down so that they fit in the same space as an incandescent bulb, but as they reduce the size so the startup time seems to increase.

These small bulbs are the ones that are particularly difficult to replace with CFLs. Mind you, if I had my tinfoil hat handly I would probably claim that GE and the like are deliberately obstructing the adoption of CFLs by making conventional bulbs smaller and encouraging light fitting manufacturers to make their fittings smaller to suit.

The other problem I have is that the centre of the region from which the light is emitted is always further from the base of the light fitting than with an incandescent bulb. Even the most compact CFLs have this problem. It isn't the size of the tube that is at fault. It is the size of the bulbous plastic bit just behind (which I believe contains the ballast).

The effect is that when you put a CFL in a conventional light fitting, the light emerges at the wrong angle. It is particularly noticable with uplighters.

Having said that, I'm replacing all of the incandescent bulbs in my house with CFLs.

Re:so long...

[SharpFang]

Officially outlawed 100W bulbs in Poland vanished from official shops but can still be found at flea markets in abundance.

Another interesting market catch was a "99W bulb" :) Unfortunately it appeared to be a hoax.

Re:so long...

[Attila Dimedici]

No, the move to lower pwoer lighting is so that the companies that make them can make more profit. The reason that the U.S. Congress essentially outlawed future sales of incandescent light bulbs is because all of the patents on incandescent light bulbs have expired and the big companies couldn't make lots of money on them. While the "energy efficient" bulbs are all patent encumbered so you have to license the technology from the patent holder, which means the companies can get greater profit margins on them.

Re:so long...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

I can't imagine anyone using them to light a well-decorated interior or do anything else, really. Switching to an incandescent is like a breath of fresh air, even my wife can notice after adapting to those horrible, horrible phosphor emissions. Human eyes are adapted to looking at black body radiators.

Yet architects and decorators have been utilizing fluorescent lights for decades in commercial and industrial settings.

I personally find incandescents to be far, far too yellow. Give me a 'bright white' CFL any day.

Re:so long...

[thannine]

Yeah, well, where I live we have the heating on 9 months a year. And for the 3 months we don't use heating, the need for lighting is minimal. And no, it's not saving energy, but it's not wasting it either. And it still takes a lot less poisonous materials to produce.

Re:so long...

[dnahelicase]

I've got decent quality CFL's throughout my entire house. I do get headaches if I read by a CFL as opposed to an incandescent. I wish you did have more time to point out studies that show that sensitivity is crap. I consider myself a scientist, and it would be nice to know why the headache I get by reading by a CFL is crap. I'd love to use one if it didn't give me a headache.

I do have a problem with them warming up. In outside lighting during the winter I had to try 3 different models before I found one that would reach a decent brightness in a reasonable number of seconds as opposed to minutes. I have 4 candelabra base bulbs in my bedroom ceiling fan that cost more than the ceiling fan itself. They take about 2 minutes to warm up. For the first 30 seconds or so they are so dim that it's not worth turning them on if you just want to get something out of the closet.

The move to CFL isn't going to happen until the technology catches up to the price. I've been nearly all CFL for 2 years, and had 5 bulbs die. That's about 20-25 bucks I've wasted. I've had 3 incandescent in that time that are still going. I figure I have an average of about 2-3 bulbs on for around 4-5 hours a day. I'm not sure that I've saved any money. I've tried 2 different types of $5 led bulbs that both died in a number of months and had terrible light. Neither I, nor most the people I know, can afford to spend $20/bulb to light their house.

Re:so long...

[kmac06]

How about this? In a free country, don't tell me what kind of lightbulb I can buy.

Re:so long...

[c6gunner]

After all, what am i going to do with my Lava Lamp?

Add a heater coil? It's easy enough.

Re:so long...

[bkr1_2k]

True, but there are some options now that are "full spectrum" or some other such thing that are getting much better. The light produced by these comes much closer to a "natural" light and is thus much less painful on the eyes. It's also quite a bit more expensive, but it's out there.

Re:so long...

[c6gunner]

The amount of mercury in a typical CFL is around 4mg (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_mercury [energystar.gov])... Based on the MSDS http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/M1599.htm [jtbaker.com], that amount is WELL above the airborne exposure limits (40 times the OSHA upper limit).

How were you planning to get all that mercury to go airborne? Do you normally fry light-bulbs on your stove?

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>>>>Nope.
>>
>>Citation needed (sigh).

Unfortunately I cannot prove a negative, but if YOU would like to prove the positive that "Yes banning incandescents dropped EU power usage," and justify why this was good policy, then be my guest. :-)

Re:so long...

[T-Bone-T]

Now with more identity!

Your lights are on only an hour a day? That's astounding!

Let's do correct numbers:
60W incandescent: 60W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 5.6kWh
13W CFL(60W equivalent: 13W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 1.2kWh

That's a difference of 4.4kWh/month or $4.77/year/bulb. That means my CFL will pay for itself in a only few months.

Re:so long...

[SnarfQuest]

My complaint about LED's is that they are too directional. Regular light bulbs light in all directions (essentially), while LED lights point in a specific direction. You can't turn on one light to work, you end up needing several to point at the various places you are working.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>> "while electricity end-use consumption in EU-27 continued to grow"

Um. Problem. This demonstrates that switching to CFLs did NOT reduce electrical usage.

Re:so long...

[djupdal]

I have CFLs in almost every fixture in the house. The only ones that take more than 1s to reach max brightness are a recessed light and my 200W-equivalent porch light.

But what if you need lights where it is cold? My experience with CFLs in low temperatures (non-heated areas during winter) is not so good.

Re:so long...

[DigiShaman]

Yet architects and decorators have been utilizing fluorescent lights for decades in commercial and industrial settings.

Because they're cheap, have a high MTBF rate, and use less electricity per lumen. Other than that, the color temp sucks and have been known contributors to Sick Building Syndrome (failing ballasts main cause).

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>>Maybe you should have tried a different brand then? I have CFLs in almost every fixture in the house.

Which brand?

In my experience ALL the brands (Philips, GE, Lights of America) have a warmup time, unless you buy one that don't have the instant on function. (Instead they sputter and flicker for 2-3 seconds.) I've tried to find the non-instant-on CFLs but they don't seem to be made anymore. Bottom Line: After ~15 years of CFL use I've reached the conclusion they simply are NOT an identical replacement for incandescents. There are too many flaws, like trying to use a netbook when what you really need is a full-sized laptop or desktop.

Re:so long...

[Belial6]

CFLs are strobe lights. That is just what they do. I cannot perceive it in most bulbs, but there is a good reason that they tell you not to plug in the florescent lights in you garage to the same circuit as your table saw. In theory they strobe fast enough that humans cannot see them, but given that florescent lights can trick your eyes if they are in sync with your table saw, it is clear that the strobing is not 100% outside of human perception.

I tried to move to CFLs early on, and had to go back to incandescent until recently. The problem was that the IR the CFLs would produce would cause so much noise that remote controls frequently didn't work, and even worse, sometimes the bulbs would issue commands on their own. The first time that I was sitting at home alone with the curtains closed, and the TV started changing channels on it's own, I got a bit freaked out. After searching the house for whoever was screwing with me, I eventually figured out it was the CFLs changing the channels and volume.

I am 95% CFL now, and this seems to be a problem that has been resolved.

Re:so long...

[Lumpy]

Nope....

Low power lighting simple works crappy with dimmers and lighting controllers. Oh and the fact that a 40watt incandesant costs $0.59 while a 40 watt lumen equivalent LED lamp costs $94.00

It's lighting for the rich only...

Re:so long...

[Lumpy]

your above statement is crap.

They have LED lighting that is darn close to incandescent warm light colors. have you even looked to see what has been available for the past year?

Re:so long...

[hardburn]

Sick Building Syndrome comes mainly from magnetic ballasts. Electric ballasts are far better.

Even with magnetics, I would dispute that SBS comes mainly from ballasts. Heavily-insulated walls and windows are the main culprit, and houseplants are the best solution.

Re:so long...

[raju1kabir]

Um. Problem. This demonstrates that switching to CFLs did NOT reduce electrical usage.

Not really. If we assume that all other economic activity continued at its prior energy-to-outputs ratio, then it proves that switching did reduce electrical usage.

Of course, that's a very large assumption. But your conclusion requires an even larger one.

Probably the fairest conclusion is that without better data, it's difficult to say.

Re:so long...

[T-Bone-T]

I'd take that over literally tons guaranteed to enter the environment thanks to coal plants.

Re:so long...

[Lumpy]

If your home is full of led lighting and CFL lighting and the designer is using Incandescent, then the designer is a uneducated moron.

you look at colors under the light the items will be in. Designers or artists that have any decent knowledge and skill already know this. Current trends also are moving to RGB lighting in homes. To make it warmer or cooler as desired. This trend makes designers Florry and convulse on the floor. Something I think is a good thing. RGB lighting into a properly designed light diffuser is fantastic and incredibly smooth.

Re:so long...

[Joce640k]

Ummm...you get the mercury by eating stuff, not by breathing. It gets in the food chain.

Re:so long...

[Lumpy]

CFL's and FL lighting has not used Ballast systems for a decade. Everything is electronic start since the 80's. every single fixture around here has no ballast and a tiny circuit-board in it.

Re:so long...

[hardburn]

The thing about lighting is that it only accounts for about 11% of home energy use. Over 50% comes from some form of heating or cooling (be it refrigerators or water heaters or central heating or whatever), and space heating alone accounts for 31%. The trick is that it's a big one-time expense to swap your water heater out, but switching to CFLs is relatively cheap, and you can spread the cost out over the year (e.g., buy a 5 pack once a month).

Of course, going to more efficient heating or cooling will get you further, but the cost/benefit ratio of CFLs is still pretty good.

Re:so long...

[compro01]

The flickering is a case of old magnetic ballasts vs. modern electronic ballasts. Magnetic ballasts do flicker at either 60hz or 120hz, which definitely can be noticed, whereas electronic ballasts "flicker" at 20-40KHz. I've seen a few cheap crap CFLs that use magnetic ballasts.

Re:so long...

[Joce640k]

Are you also not fooled by the checkerboard illusion?

Hint: Your eyes don't have any absolute color reference, not even from one part of the visual field to another. The brain constantly adjusts things.

You might say that in an A/B test you prefer one color but we also find in A/B audio tests that people say that music which is 10% louder is 'better' even when it's played on the exact same hardware (ie. you tell them you're switching to different amp/speakers but all you do is change the volume level).

Psychovisual models ... it's all in the head.

Re:so long...

[orange47]

I titter when I hear that because incandescent bulbs warm your house it means you don't need as much heating so you are saving energy and helping the environment! This argument is so weak all I'll say is heating in summer?

there is no summer in basement, you insensitive clod!

Re:so long...

[raju1kabir]

You lost me with the hand-waving portion of your argument at the end.

I eat tuna.

I don't eat CFLs. Even if they're broken, I still resist the (admittedly compelling) temptation to eat them.

So how can you directly compare the quantities of mercury? In order to be making any sense, you'd have to figure out by what means the mercury from a broken CFL might get into someone's body, and then figure out how much of it would make this voyage, and how likely it was to happen. Maybe some people would touch it when cleaning up the broken bulb, and then lick their fingers (or absorb it through the skin)? I'm not sure; when I've seen broken CFLs I haven't seen anything that looked like mercury pooling on the floor, so either it's trapped inside something within the bulb that doesn't usually break, or, well, I don't know what.

My money's on the tuna remaining the primary culprit, by a large margin.

Re:so long...

[hoboroadie]

If you read the report, it says residential use went down 1.55%. That may not be due to lamp replacement, but it shows a good trend may be developing.

Re:so long...

[compro01]

If you're getting 60Hz (or 120Hz) noise (or flickering at said frequencies) out of a CFL, pitch it. It's a piece of junk using an cheap old style magnetic ballast. Modern fluorescents (both CFL and long tubes) use electronic ballasts and run at 20-40KHz.

Re:so long...

[hardburn]

The newer electric ballasts are much, much better than the old magnetic style. IIRC, the magnetic ones ran at the frequency of your house current (60Hz in the US), while electrics go up around 50,000Hz.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

I don't like that word "assume". It's a bit like saying "If we assume all women are horny and instinctively want babies, then no virgins will exist past age 20." Of course we know that's not true.

Let's stay away from assuming/guessing.

As for my own assumptions, they are based upon my own observations in my own house. I wasted soooo much money on poorly-lit CFLs or heat-killed CFLs that it FAR exceeds the few pennies I might have saved. I would have saved more money sticking with incandescents. That's my opinion and I'm entitled to it, without some Legislature holding a gun to my head and saying, "Buy CFL or go to jail."

Re:so long...

[Ichijo]

I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness.

How long does it take them to turn on and put out useful light? That should be instantaneous. And the fact that they don't achieve 100% full brightness instantaneously is easier on darkness-adjusted eyes.

Re:so long...

[IndustrialComplex]

Rather than mandate what lighting a home uses, mandate that they need to be upgraded for heating efficiency. And NO GRANDFATHERING IN OLD HOUSES

This post was paid for by the Electricians and Home Builder's lobby.

Nice plan there, nothing like several thousand dollars worth of labor and equipment that would have be be put into 90% of homes. What would you do with the old equipment? Trash it? You know you waste more energy in not using tools and components to the end of their life than by replacing them by more efficient models in most cases.

Re:so long...

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

they're not exactly stobe lights.

fluorescents don't emit visible light on their own, only UV light.

what emits the with light is the product that lines the interior of the bulb. remove that and leave the glass clean and you get a black light. basically, that stuff is a reactive material that glows when exposed to UV light.

thing is, it keeps glowing for some time after the UV light is cut. some of my CFLs keep an eerie green glow for almost a minute after I turn them off. this alone would prevent the stobo effect. since the interval when it's not emiting UV light is far too short, you don't get strobing.

I've did some work on lathes on colege workshop some years ago, and all the lights there were regular fluorescent tubes. had no problem with strobing.

The problem was that the IR the CFLs would produce would cause so much noise that remote controls frequently didn't work, and even worse, sometimes the bulbs would issue commands on their own. The first time that I was sitting at home alone with the curtains closed, and the TV started changing channels on it's own, I got a bit freaked out. After searching the house for whoever was screwing with me, I eventually figured out it was the CFLs changing the channels and volume.

that's plain bullshit you just made up, OR your remote is busted. buy another one.

Re:so long...

[hardburn]

An experiment I'm planning for my office space is to spread 5-10 ultrabright white LEDs around the room and bounce them off the walls. Even with conversion losses, it should take less than 1W and be quite bright. The main problem I'm seeing is line losses from using low voltage power from a single AC/DC converter. I could add two or three, but then there's more conversion losses and more plugs used up.

Re:so long...

[dunkelfalke]

There are CFLs with a CRI of 96 (CRI of 100 is real daylight). So much for that.

Re:so long...

[ircmaxell]

Well, the mercury contained in a CFL exists in a gaseous state (well, suspended in other gases). So when it breaks, you're inhaling the mercury. Inhalation is typically more dangerous for some materials than ingestion because when you inhale the substance, it can go straight into the blood stream, where ingestion has to be absorbed via the intestines... Given the current inhalation upper limit of 0.1 mg/m3 (from the MSDS I cited in the GP), if you broke a CFL in a room that was 40 m^3, your average exposure in that room would be at the upper limit. If the room was smaller, or you were right near the bulb when it broke, you'd be exposed to greater amounts. So no, you don't need to "eat" the broken bulb or lick your fingers afterwords to get dangerous exposures to mercury. Simply being in the same room could be enough...

Re:so long...

[rubycodez]

if you break a bulb in your house, you will get mercury by breathing mercury vapor. Mercury levels in the atmosphere which gets into groundwater via precipitation have plummeted in last 20 years mainly due to clean air act, proven by ice core samples.

Re:so long...

[raju1kabir]

without some Legislature holding a gun to my head and saying, "Buy CFL or go to jail."

Lucky for you, nobody has passed such a law, nor seems vaguely likely to.

Re:so long...

[snspdaarf]

Mercury can be absorbed by the lungs, as it evaporates at room temperature. You have to use UV to see the fumes, IIRC. Also, it can be absorbed through the skin. I don't remember the issue, but years ago there was a very interesting National Geographic story on mercury.

Re:so long...

[rubycodez]

from food it's mainly a concern eating large fish, which accumulate many magnitudes the level of small fish. Most americans don't eat much fish. So I consider food chain mercury to be a non-issue for a majority, more reason the CFL argument about comparison to coal plant smoke stack bullshit.

Re:so long...

[bendotcom]

to the ancestor post: your heating argument ("duh, summer") is retarded. what you meant to say is, "using a lightbulb to heat your house is moronic. why don't you put your spaceheater inside a glass box, too?" to ancestor and parent: incandescents are not better lighting technology. they are older, simpler technology, fine. but as ancestor said (or tried to), you are purchasing a LIGHT bulb not a HEAT bulb. parent: burning something is one of the LEAST efficient ways to create light. is that clear? let me name some better ways: diode resistance (LED) electron relaxation plus fluorescence (CFL) those two technologies convert electricity into visible light. they are imperfect (as all electrical systems) so do create some heat due to inefficiencies (as all electrical systems). "incendiary" incandescent technologies burn a filament. they create heat. *as a side-effect*, a bit of light is created. that's why 20watt CFLs are brighter than 60watt incandos. so, parent post, "better" is the wrong word to use for a less efficient technology. much less efficient, BY DEFINITION. sure, if you like pretty lights to put on your makeup, then maybe "less pretty" was the word you were going for. I don't care if it only costs 27 cents more to use my lightbulb than it does for you to have a firepit lighting your bedroom. we're scientists here and i'm willing to champion an efficient, correct technology while it is being perfected. also, stop testing your lights with the same microwave for 15 years. i've never heard of a CFL interfering with a microwave. and if you don't like things interfering with your precious radio, use ethernet instead of wifi, too. must I continue?

Re:so long...

[IndustrialComplex]

I'd take that over literally tons guaranteed to enter the environment thanks to coal plants.

If we switched over every single bulb in the entire country, how many coal plants would that eliminate? (Don't forget the new feeling that it is ok to leave the lights on longer since they consume much less power)

Re:so long...

[magus_melchior]

I suppose if you want something marginally more efficient, you could use halogen bulbs, unless you don't like the spectra on those either.

Or if you're hardcore, you could try gas-discharge bulbs-- though to be honest, they don't make 'em for the usual Edison socket (heat/power issues and all).

Re:so long...

[raju1kabir]

Well, the mercury contained in a CFL exists in a gaseous state

Okay, you win. I was not aware of that. That's the part that was missing at the end of your previous post, which now causes it to make apparent sense (not that I am in a position to verify the substance of the scientific claims).

Re:so long...

[Oqnet]

I got all excited when I bought my first place 2 years ago. The place wasn't well taken care of and when I was fixing it up I put in a bunch of CFL's for my place. But it just didn't seem right, seriously. My wife in her work space was getting annoyed with the lighting so finally I had some old bulbs laying around and I popped them in, she noticed a difference before I even told her that I had changed them. I still want to use CFL's so I have them pretty much everywhere, except in places that I will be reading. This seems to be a good combo for the most part.

So reasoning here is this, I might have got a lower end CFL or a shotty product, but then I have to ask you, did you ever get a bad colour or light coming from an incandescent bulb? I've bought cheap ones all over the place and never had the issues people seem to have with buying cheap CFL bulbs. It would be my hope that they would make sure that the cheaper ones(probably older 15 year old technology) would disappear and make people more willing to switch over.

So while there might be little difference between the two if you get a high end CFL you will probably find most people get the cheap ones that give off funny colours(at least they seem to to me, but I think Incandescents give off too much of a yellow glow) and people will be less apt to go out and buy them.

I think CFL's will eventually be replaced by better LED's than we currently have. They don't have the mercury, they don't waste any heat creating light(yes CFL's still do) and they last longer. Currently they kind of suck(only currently get bulbs up to 60watts) and they cost a lot more than CFL's(cost of white LED) and the colours arn't quite right compared to the sun's spectrum. But I think that LED's have more of a future as they are still being developed and hopefully they can fill the void with a better spectrum of light than CFL's.

I ramble on too much, basically I like the idea of CFL's and I think people should use them as much as possible, but I can see the benifit of still having incandecent lighting at least for the time being, and this news is sad.

Re:so long...

[radish]

Something else I forgot to mention: You can't put CFLs in enclosed fixtures, or upside fixtures which trap heat, because the CFLs will die within just a few months

Huh, I must be hallucinating every time I walk into my living room and switch on the 2 year old CFL lights then. I put around 30 ceiling mounted CFL bulbs in my house a couple of years ago and not one has failed (one was a DOA though). They weren't expensive - maybe $1 a bulb from costco with a rebate. They have a slight warm up time (around 20-30 secs to full brightness) but other than that no problems at all.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

CORRECTED:
(60 watt equivalent bulb vs. bulb)
40W laser-produced incandescent: 40W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 3.7kWh
13W Compact fluorescent light: 13W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 1.2kWh
.

>>>That means my CFL will pay for itself in a only few months.

Assuming your CFL does not die within a few months, as many of mine have done. And don't give me a load of crap about "buying poor quality" or "maybe you have bad electric". It was the enclosed fixture causing the internal CFL componenent to literally dryout and die. Furthermore the old incandescents I had in there worked perfectly for YEARS.

This is nothing more than a WASTE of money.
- Why should I settle for a netbook when I really need a full-sized laptop or desktop?
- Why should I settle for Linux that won't play games or run Word, when a Windows or Mac works near-perfectly?
- Why settle for an inferior CFL when the incandescent does the same job, and much much better?

I'm not the type of person to settle unless there's good reason to do so (my $15 DSL is not as fast as $30 DSL, but it still lets me watch online tv). Especially when the reward is so small (pennies), or the hassle too great (prematurely dead CFLs), to be worth it.... it's like worrying about a speck of dust in a mud-flooded basement. It makes zero sense.

Basically I'm not Californian. (just joking)

We should be focusing our efforts on the big energy users like heaters and air conditioners (measured in 1000s of kilowatthours), and not trivial crap like lightbulbs which clearly don't work as well as the old technology.

Re:so long...

[drinkypoo]

So while an incandescent typically emits light evenly across the visible range,

False! There's tons of peaks and valleys in the typical emissions chart.

a typical CFL emits light in a more grained spectrum

Still true. They produce a very narrow spectrum you can't even see, then use phosphors to change it to two or three frequencies of visible light, with lots of scatter across the spectrum.

Re:so long...

[jonbryce]

The ban hasn't been fully implemented yet, and if you want incandescents, there are still shops that sell them. The 150W and higher incandescents have pretty much completely vanished, and the 100W bulbs are getting rare, but you can still find 60W and lower bulbs which is what most people use.

Also, halogen bulbs haven't been banned, and they are getting more popular.

Re:so long...

[Buelldozer]

The "cheapest POS" incandescent bulbs come up to full light near instantly in my garage in the winter. The mid-range CFLs that I buy can take over a minute to reach full light output in the same environment.

It always excites me when I get to spend more money for less functionality. It's doubly exciting when some iTard can blather about how I'm wrong and how it doesn't matter anyway.

FYI, empirical tests in my garage show that the CFLs I'm buying last roughly twice as long as an incandescent and cost at least four times as much.

Congratulations iTard, for making my life just a bit more expensive and a little bit harder.

Re:so long...

[osvenskan]

Shouldn't our priorities be focused on more energy-expensive things like heating/cooling?

Well, since 90% of an incandescent bulb's electricity usage is lost as heat, and central air-conditioning is responsible for the greatest share of household electricity use, I'd say that incandescents and cooling costs are intimately related.

If all new home standards were increased to "PassivHaus" standards, which bring heat/cooling to almost nothing, we'd save HUGE amount of energy.

Amen.

Re:so long...

[Algan]

True, but unless you're a professional that cares about the spectral composition of your light sources, it doesn't really matter. 99% of complaints about CFL light are related to color temperature, since most people grew up accustomed to the warm yellowish light provided by incandescent bulbs.

Re:so long...

[Steauengeglase]

I titter when I hear that because incandescent bulbs warm your house it means you don't need as much heating so you are saving energy and helping the environment! This argument is so weak all I'll say is heating in summer?

Modify that and apply it to well houses and you have a valid argument for keeping incandescent bulbs (in a very low, limited production albeit). All in all I'd say that is the one thing I'd miss if they were completely banned. They are great for keeping tiny, small spaces warm with the added benefit of providing light. Everywhere else I'm fine with CFLs. Though I don't imagine them being around too much longer as LED technology gets better; soon they will crawl (and in some ways already have) into the realm of "socially unacceptable".

Re:so long...

[T-Bone-T]

So, CFLs are a bad choice for you so everyone else must stop buying them. Gotcha. That settles it. I'm throwing out my CFLS that have been working fine for me ever since I got them because they break in your fixtures.

Re:so long...

[jonbryce]

Depends which Philips model you get. My experience is with their 230V EU ranges, so it won't be directly applicible in the US.

Their Tornado range (£2.95 in John Lewis, or just under £5 in Robert Dyas or Homebase) are very good. They get to full brightness almost immediately, and I have no problems with interference or anything like that.

Their Genie range (sent out free from your electricity company, or £1 for a ten pack in Poundland or a similar pound shop) are rubbish. They take about 5 minutes to reach full brigtness, and for the first 30 seconds or so, you wonder if they actually work at all.

Re:so long...

[painandgreed]

...or it could just be that you are used to incandescent and find anything different as ugly. I switched to CFLs years ago and like their lighting better. Now I find incandescent to be ugly and make everything in their light ugly.

Re:so long...

[hoboroadie]

Thank you. Not I, nor any of the Club-Owners I've met, were aware of this. There's probably modern alternatives to the old lamp-in-series trick for speaker protection as well...

Re:so long...

[T-Bone-T]

There's nothing wrong with assuming/guessing if done properly. You assume things all the time without even realizing it. You assume things to keep things from becoming needlessly complex.

Re:so long...

[drinkypoo]

How about this? In a free country, don't tell me what kind of lightbulb I can buy.

Free country? At that price, I'll take two.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>>So, CFLs are a bad choice for you so everyone else must stop buying them.

No more like: I'm tired of politicians trying to shove things down my throat. I will "go green" where it makes sense like with my hybrid car, or extra insulation on the house to keep the heat inside, but not where I have experienced one failure after another (like with CFLs).

What's that saying? If you keep doing the same thing over-and-over, and keep failing, then you're probably insane. Well I've tried CFLS and they have failed to work again and again, and I will no longer use them. I'm not insane.

And I object to the Legislature trying to FORCE me to use CFLs. I don't like them. I don't want them. They fail repeatedly. I want to continue using incandescents.

Re:so long...

[radish]

Right, but these are designed for use in enclosures. I was simply disputing the assertion that you can't use CFLs in recessed lighting - you can if you use the right bulbs, and further, they're not expensive. The ones I have are similar to these, but I paid about half the price quoted there.

Re:so long...

[Reziac]

Is that why the alt-lightbulbs all seem to put "fuzzy edges" on everything? Can make doing precision work difficult, and very annoying in kitchen or bathroom.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>>>>I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness.
>>
>>How long does it take them to turn on and put out useful light?

Good question. The answer depends on the application. In the kitchen a dim light is not a big deal because it's bright enough to reach the frig in the middle of the night.

BUT above my basement steps I want full brightness *immediately* not four minutes later. Using one of these CFLs there would be a safety hazard. Unfortunately if the Legislature has its way, soon I won't have any choice but to get a CFL. That's wrong.

Re:so long...

[daem0n1x]

If you look closely, the colour temperature is written on the box. If you prefer warmer light, choose lower colour temperatures (2700K). I use high temperatures (6400K) in places of work like kitchen and garage and use low temperatures in places of rest and leisure, like bedrooms and the living room.

Or maybe you live in some remote place where low colour temp CFLs are not available...

I can't see any difference between the low colour temp CFLs and incandescent, except on my electricity bill.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>> incandescents are not better lighting technology. They are older, simpler technology, fine.

Sometimes older, simpler is better. I and many others argued for years that the older XP with Service Pack 2 or 3 was a superior OS to the newer Vista. I considered Vista to be crap, even after I upgraded from 1/2 to 2 gigabytes, and still use XP-SP3 even today. ----- Well I have the same view in regards to Edison incandescent bulbs and CFLs.
.

>>>you are purchasing a LIGHT bulb not a HEAT bulb.

CFLs generate a lot of heat too. They are better than incandescents, but still only about 5% efficiency (the other 95% is wasted as heat). So CFLs are also heat bulbs.

Re:so long...

[Reziac]

The other thing with the CFLs is that when they start toward the final fail, they get HOT. I don't mean overly warm, I mean fire-hazard hot. I've learned that as soon as they lose that annoying white edge and dim down a little, I need to start checking them regularly for excess heat output.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>>and central air-conditioning is responsible for the greatest share of household electricity use, I'd say that incandescents and cooling costs are intimately related.
>>>

Not really. Related yes, but not "intimately". This past winter I tried an experiment (to save money) and rather than heat my second floor, I used nothing but waste heat from my lights and my computer and television.

It was still fucking cold.

The amount of waste heat produced by these products is sooooo small as to be negligible for residential customers. We're talking about three orders of magnitude difference. (1 versus 1000 kilowatthours each month).

Re:so long...

[__aavqan3009]

where did you buy CFLs fifteen years ago??(please supply a link or address or reference of some sort.I would like to verify.)

Re:so long...

[Mantrid]

CFL only lighting ignores certain negative factors, like three year olds obsessed with light switches....install $5 light bulb that's supposed to last a bazillion hours...leave the room. click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click poof....install $5 light bulb that's supposed to last a bazillion hours...leave the room. click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click click poof

I don't think I'm saving money or carbon emissions this way.

And if you take a break from bending over to enjoy your own farts you'll realize that CFL's are in fact quite harsh at times and not nearly as pleasant as the evil incandecsent bulbs.

Re:so long...

[richard.cs]

If you don't have a problem with computer monitors at over 75 Hz then I'm surprised you do with any fluorescents. The old ones with magnetic ballasts flicker at double the mains frequency (so 100 or 120 Hz), the newer electronic ones drive the tubes at about 40 kHz and the persistence of the phosphor will even out any variations in light at those frequencies. Some tubes that are very nearly dead (burnt out cathode) might conduct in only one direction and give a mains frequency flicker that most people would notice but these should only be exceptional cases.

I'll agree with you on the spectrum though, although halogen is very similar to other incandescent lights. Given that humans can't perceive absolute colour I seriously doubt a slightly shifted black body spectrum would be noticeable apart from that when side-by-side with a conventional incandescent the halogen is slightly less yellow.

Re:so long...

[Belial6]

I've did some work on lathes on colege workshop some years ago, and all the lights there were regular fluorescent tubes. had no problem with strobing.

Strobing is a pretty well known effect with florecents. The fact that someone set up a shop properly for you in college doesn't negate the effect.

that's plain bullshit you just made up, OR your remote is busted. buy another one.

Well, both NEMA and Consumer Reports say that you don't know what you are talking about. Where are your citations showing that CFL does not interfere with IR?

Re:so long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should have tried a different brand then?

I've tried nvision, philips, ge, and bright effects and they've all taken 30+ seconds to reach full brightness. What brand/model do you believe reaches full brightness in 1 second?

I mean, fifteen years and you haven't found a single CFL that performs well? It took me all of two trips to Home Depot to accomplish this. They exist. Your inability to find any after fifteen years is, um, shall we say, in conflict with the idea of this being a neutral unbiased experiment that you were conducting.

Or perhaps you should consider that you may lack the capability to detect the change in brightness as well as he does. Wetware varies, and some people see far greater differences in luminosity in the same way that some people see more colors. And how some people see no flicker starting at 20hz, while other see flicker all the way up to 90hz or higher.

I'd be more inclined to say that since you so readily found good CFLs that your perception is just very weak in these areas. You may want to have your vision tested, so you'll know to stop judging other by your limitations.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

Thanks for backing me up.

For awhile there I felt like I was in a Green Party convention. ;-)

Re:so long...

[forgottenusername]

The other part of the equation is figuring out the number of incandescent bulbs in use in the US, their power requirements, then the savings that would be produced by switching those to CFL.

No individual contribution seems very interesting or worthwhile.. it's when everyone makes these small changes that you see dramatic results.

Also, reducing everything to base level current cost isn't being a very good steward for the future. Until there is strong demand there is no efficiency in production - once enough people start consuming an item, manufacturers start to get very efficient at producing the item in question in order to fulfill demand and compete with other manufacturers

Re:so long...

[stfvon007]

I have actually had one burn out, with smoke and melted plastic. No flames fortunately.

Re:so long...

[kmac06]

Link. Summary: regular incandescent light bulbs will be illegal beginning in 2012-2014 in the United States.

Re:so long...

[rschwa]

Say, could you link to a source for the 'laser-produced incandescents' you're talking about? I'm very interested. I agree with you on many of your points, and would add that I have yet to find a CFL that can be dimmed for crap. I've tried 3 different brands of very expensive bulbs marked 'dimmable', and brought each of them back to the store the same day.

Re:so long...

[evilviper]

How about this? In a free country, don't tell me what kind of lightbulb I can buy.

If you'd stop polluting my air and water, I'd be happy to...

Re:so long...

[hardburn]

Yes, not the really high end ones. More like these. 1W Luxeons are advertised as 45 lm, whereas these are 10 and I can spread a bunch around the room. They take 0.02A * 3.4V = 0.068W each, or about a third of a watt for 5. Plus AC/DC conversion loss, of course.

I have a single enclosed fixture in the office. CFLs overheat in there very easily, but I'm loathe to put an incandescent in there. This is probably the most used light in the house, since I work at home. The only light I have right now is a 10W halogen reading lamp that covers my desk somewhat adequately.

Re:so long...

[DerekLyons]

The you fall into the "has an agenda or is bad at math" category and can safely be disregarded. Willing and cheerful denial of the facts is not a sign of intelligence.

Re:so long...

[Radical Moderate]

"....there is a good reason that they tell you not to plug in the florescent lights in you garage to the same circuit as your table saw"

I understand how strobing works, but that doesn't make sense. For the blade to appear to be standing still, it has to be rotating at the same frequency as the lights' strobe, or a multiple thereof. How would being plugged in to the same circuit affect the speed of the saw's motor?

I'm not saying strobing doesn't happen, I've seen it myself using variable speed drills under fluorescent lighting, but I don't see how which circuit your saw is plugged in to matters.

Re:so long...

[T-Bone-T]

What's wrong with accepting a small amount of mercury that I'll probably never be exposed to over guaranteeing that a large amount of will enter the environment?

Re:so long...

[noidentity]

I recetly got some cheap Sylvania incandescents and three of the four burned out within a few weeks of being installed. I'm guessing that they've lowered the quality of them, due to less demand.

A few years ago I got some N:vision CFLs, have used them about 8 hours a day since, and they still haven't given me any trouble. They're EDXO-23, giving 500K white. It's quite close in color temperature and brightness to the incandescent I was using before, and I've never had any desire to go back. I tried their other two color temperatures. The daylight was very blue in comparison, and the other end was too orange/yellow. Before I found this brand, I wasn't really wild about CFLs.

Re:so long...

[Belial6]

I'm not sure why a different circuit helps. I just chalked it up to different noise or resistance on another leg throwing the 60hz frequency just enough out of phase between the two so that the effect doesn't happen. A quick look on the web makes it appear that the problem is that the magnetic ballasts would be in sync with the spin of the blade. So, it may be that the CFLs don't exhibit this with their electric ballasts. As with most technologies, things just keep getting better.

Re:so long...

[NJRoadfan]

I got one for you...

CFLs yellow plastics like their big brothers. That and they don't seem to last as long as they claim. Even on the "quality" brands, the ballasts are failing left and right and seem to last just as long as those dinosaur incandescents. Also there is still no CFLs ideal for extreme temperature applications. They certainly won't replace your oven light and they can be spotty outdoors in freezing weather.

Re:so long...

[Steavis]

I don't know about him/her, but I bought six 10W CFLs to replace the 75W incandescent bulbs in my bedroom in 1988. Having a west-facing upstairs room in Arizona during the summer is hot enough without an extra 450W of space heat from lighting (along with my 286, some tube-based HAM gear, CRTs, etc.). Changing to CFL made a huge difference.

The CFLs I bought were made by Commercial Electric, and weren't the spiral type. These had four 4" glass 'rods', 3/8" in diameter, which were connected together in such a way as to make one continuous tube. They would flicker and blink for about a second when first turned on, but once lit were at full brightness (unlike the CFLs in my current home which take 30s to warm up). The tubes were also replaceable (they unplugged from the base with 2 pins) but I never had to replace one in the 12 years I lived there. It's been a long time, but I think they were actually for commercial lighting purposes, not residential. IIRC they were about $12/ea (1988 dollars).

I guess my point is that they have been around for a long time, just not cheaply. Oh, and the store was the Home Depot1/2 mile from where I lived at the time.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

Thanks for the link.

Never heard of "TCP" brand. Also those would look pretty ugly in my kitchen or bathroom lights, which were designed for standard round bulbs.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

>>>>>"Buy CFL or go to jail."
>>
>>Lucky for you, nobody has passed such a law, nor seems vaguely likely to.

The European Union Parliament has. Although it hasn't taken full effect, it will be phased-in by 2015. I don't like politicians forcing me to adopt inferior technology. It's like if they suddenly announced, "Desktop PCs will no longer be available due to excess energy use. Everyone must buy laptops." I hate laptops (poor lifespan).

Re:so long...

[raju1kabir]

The European Union Parliament has.

No they haven't. They are prohibiting the production and commercial import of certain incandescent bulbs. Nobody is going to jail for buying anything.

Re:so long...

[m2shariy]

How were you planning to get all that mercury to go airborne? Do you normally fry light-bulbs on your stove?

Mercury evaporates pretty good at room temp.

Re:so long...

[ross.w]

So if you break a CFL, the first thing to do is open the window before you sweep up.

How often though do you actually break a CFL? that limit is based on continuous exposure over what period?

Mercury is cumulative, but I'm pretty sure that rate takes that into account and the body can safely deal with continuous exposure at that rate. An example would be that exposure coming from a nearby industrial contaminator, for example.

A one off exposure to a broken CFL is unlikely to cause any harm unless i is on top of exposure from other sources.

If you did it every day, you might have a problem, and ventilation is always a good idea.

Re:so long...

[Tubal-Cain]

It's a matter of conditioning. When we first tried a "cool white" CFL, I found it bright and harsh. Now I find incandescents dim and crude.

Re:so long...

[AK Marc]

Unfortunately I cannot prove a negative,

You are not smart. You are not pretty. You are not a good person. I'd tell you why I think that, but I can't prove a negative.

That's just silly. You made a positive assertion. You asserted that usage remained the same or increased after the outlawing of incandescent bulbs. That can be checked and isn't proving a negative. Not to mention that proving a negative is easy. "I'm not alive." Well, still breathing and with a heartbeat, so that's proven false. And if I had no heartbeat and no brain function, then then I'd have proven it the other way. You have heard too many religious arguments or something and took something someone said there about proving the absence to proving the negative. I can't prove there isn't a monster in Loch Ness. It could be proven there is by presenting it to the person asking the question, but to prove there isn't is impossible. But that's not proving a negative, that's asking to prove the absence of something.

Go take some more rhetorical classes before you elucidate above your pay grade. Oops, too late.

Re:so long...

[AK Marc]

What was it Ben Franklin said? "Penny wise and dollar foolish."

I think the Ben Franklin quote closest to what you were thinking was "a penny saved is a penny earned" And "Penny wise, pound foolish" was around, as far as I can tell, before Ben Franklin was born. I didn't even know that people said the non-alliterative version of "penny wise, dollar foolish" until I looked it up for this response. Damned butchery.

Re:so long...

[AK Marc]

No more like: I'm tired of politicians trying to shove things down my throat.

The issue is that when you internalize the costs of power, the price would triple or so. The politicians know that doing that is suicide. So they mandate changes one thing at a time. Personally, I think we'd be much better off if we just internalized the costs of the power and took the economic hit and moved on. We could have done that without too much disruption in 1999, but now, it'd be harder until the economy recovers.

Re:so long...

[Reziac]

No disagreement here, on either count :)

Only reason I use some CFLs at all is because it cuts about $100 off my electric bill -- CA's rates are THAT high. But I still don't like the damned things, mainly for the irritating fuzzy light. Have found that if I put one regular and one CFL in a given fixture, this helps the light quality considerably.

Does sound like I better go forth and find a few boxes of the real thing to hoard against future shortages :(

Re:so long...

[rhyder128k]

"...or bathroom." You're probably better off doing some practice in low light environments. Handy if you need to urinate outdoors at night.

Re:so long...

[Reziac]

Haha... actually the problem is with things like pulling slivers, cleaning contacts, anything that needs light with a hard edge.

Having lived for extended periods without electricity or running water, I've already had THAT practice :)

Re:so long...

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

right here in my room. and in my room mate's room. and in the homes of everybody i know who have CFLs.

never seen any interference on remotes. plus, anything that emits heat also emits infrared radiation. like your body and mine. like regular incandescent bulbs.

Re:so long...

[kestasjk]

Personally I prefer candles or kerosene lighting, I don't go for all this electricity bullshit.
You see light is a part of the electro-magnetic spectrum and therefore the candela SI unit of light-- [... incoming wall of text about my stupid choice of lighting]

Re:so long...

[kestasjk]

Table saws and long-resolved IR problems? Jeez we better go back to campfires or our eyeballs will surely explode..

Re:so long...

[evilviper]

You stop, first.

No. I'm not the idiot who suggested we should be allowed to do whatever the hell we want "In a free country" no matter what affect it has on everyone else...

I'll go for the reasonable regulations we all have to live by, rather than the pretend world where we can all do whatever the hell we want, and it doesn't affect anyone else...

Re:so long...

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

meh. It would be nice if you did research *with your eyes and mind open* instead of reading only that which conforms to your preconceived notions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

-- The mercury is not insignificant. There are milligrams to tens of milligrams of Hg per CFL. Cheap CFLs contain up to four times as much as high-quality ones. On a *household* scale, it is not HUGELY significant. But as mercury leaves the system at a tiny fraction of the rate at which it accumulates, it's something you really should consider when handling the bulbs. If you break a bulb you ABSOLUTELY should open the windows and exit the room if pregnant. Let the room air out and return to clean it up *after* the already-evaporated mercury has dissipated.

Where the mercury *IS* hugely significant is landfills. And transport. And mining. And some of the supposed 'recycling' centers.

-- The lights, they are crap, they take too long to turn on. I've owned some rather spendy ones from local hardware stores, as well as the 'cheap' versions. They all sucked for 'quick' use fixtures ( e.g. bathrooms ). Fine for lights that stay on for a while. Color has certainly improved. Perhaps you know where to buy really nice CFLs: next time, say where. Personally, I think that you are just more forgiving than I am.

-- Also on heating: heating the ceiling is rarely helpful even in winter time. Although here, again, you fail to do any reasoning and choose simply to debate through insult. Turns out that if you bother to do even a little math you find that, in some climates *it does NOT make sense to buy CFL bulbs*. Funny thing: winter has shorter days, and the further North, the greater the difference between long summer days and short, short winter days. Makes all the difference. Of course, fuel prices have gone up, and CFL prices down since 2003, when I actually bothered to do the math for Chicago - but all that means is that the break-even line has moved North. As for heating the ceiling: fans are cheap. You should use ceiling fans regardless of your source of heat if you live in a cold climate.

-- CFL's give people headaches because the ballasts induce a 60Hz harmonic to the lights. This gets *very subtly* worse as the cheap ballasts age. Even some of the more expensive ones have the problem. The oscillation is easily noticed with the motion-sensitive portions of the eye (your peripheral vision) if you happen to be young/have good eyes. If not, you wonder why the hell you get headaches, but only with florescent lighting. Same reason heavy computer users got headaches back in the day, when 60Hz was the default refresh rate on big fat CRT monitors.

I also encourage everyone to do their own research. And please: read even those articles were the first paragraph makes you uncomfortable.

Re:so long...

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Except for that damned hum. WHY - for the love of $deity!!! - can humanity not seem to develop a SILENT ballast that contractors will BUY.

Oh, yeah. Because contractors have to be cheap bastards.

I don't think he was referring to EMF; I think more the headaches caused by ballasts that don't properly suppress the 60Hz flicker. So, *really* cheap ballasts, or really old ones. Or building maintenance which doesn't change bulbs on a schedule, but waits until a bulb 'burns out' (which is long after those four and 8 foot tubes should actually be replaced).

Re:so long...

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

that tiny circuit board == electronic ballast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_ballast

Re:so long...

[Belial6]

Ahh... Well, I guess if you've never seen it, it must not exist. That explains it.

Re:so long...

[Belial6]

You are too stupid to be a part of this conversation. If you had reading comprehension beyond the 2nd grade you would have understood that...

I tried to move to CFLs early on, and had to go back to incandescent UNTIL RECENTLY. The problem WAS that the IR the CFLs would produce would cause so much noise that remote controls frequently didn't work, and even worse, sometimes the bulbs would issue commands on their own.

is in the past tense, and thus it acknowledges that the problem was already resolved, and thus is no longer a problem. And, having a table saw that looks like it is turned off when in fact the blade is spinning is a very serious problem that can cost people their lives, if not just their fingers. The fact that you live in an apartment, and get all your furniture in particle board kits, doesn't meant that the grown ups don't like to keep their fingers.

Of course, perhaps you are just a troll...

Re:so long...

[Arterion]

This is true, but you can also purchase "full spectrum" CFLs, though they're usually more expensive. I have bought lots of different kinds, and the quality of the light varies quite a bit between them.

I personally don't like the light given off by an incandescent bulb. It seems "dirty" to me. The neodymium bulbs gave off much better light. My favorite was a 5000K CFL I got at a local light bulb store. I only paid a slight premium for it over what you'd buy elsewhere.

I think a lot of the problems comes from the fact that sending a current through tungsten in a glass bulb full of argon gas is very simple, and produces nearly identical results every time. The technology of fluorescent lighting is a lot more complicated by comparison, and there are a lot more variables that can alter the results in subtle ways.

A lot of consumer products are like that, and your choices are limited. You try different brands until you find what you like. You see what your friends and family use, you check consumer reports, you check online (forums are great for this), or most likely, you are influenced by price and the packaging, or brand recognition.

There are two factors causing a lot of the poor reception of CFLs, I think. First, with incandescent bulbs, any brand performed the same and you could buy solely on price. Second, the major names (I am looking at you GE and Sylvania) have products that are mediocre at best, and their labeling is not very helpful.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

Something else I forgot to mention: You can't put CFLs in enclosed fixtures, or upside fixtures which trap heat, because the CFLs will die within just a few months.

CFLs don't like heat. Incandescents don't care.

>>>Why do I get the impression you concluded that long before fifteen years had passed

Well if you want to be anal, I reached the conclusion at about year 13. I thought CFLs were okay at first, but they seem to have degraded in ability, plus I moved into a home where CFLs don't really work (too many enclosed fixtures).
.

>>>you haven't found a single CFL that performs well? It took me all of two trips to Home Depot

Oh that's all? Two trips and a few hours wasted. PASS. You think I'm supposed to pay around a hundred dollars (on gasoline driving back-and-forth, plus the actual bulb) trying different Brands/bulbs just to save a few pennies?!?!? What was it Ben Franklin said? "Penny wise and dollar foolish."

I repeat: Pass. I'll stick with the incandescents because they work.

Re:so long...

[commodore64_love]

In effect forbidding the purchase of incandescent bulbs.
Effective 2015 I will be FORCED to buy CFLs because
the EU government will not allow me to get incandescents.

Re:so long...

[raju1kabir]

You said you would go to jail for buying them. There is no scenario under current law or any proposed law I have ever heard of in which this is true (unless you are referring to importing them for resale, which from the context you quite clearly were not).

Re:so long...

[koick]

I'll tell you what's crap. I want to use CFL and (even better) LED bulbs, but it's very difficult (if not sometimes impossible) to find sockets which support them properly. I'm talking about 3 way (low/med/hi) switches, dimmers, motion detecting, dusk/dawn, etc. I've found no CFL or LED bulbs which work in existing 3 way switches, nor dimmers, even any specifically made for those types of bulbs, and a vast majority of motion detecting sockets and dusk/dawn sockets don't support them either.

Come on inventors! We need these new fancy bulbs to work in these situations before we can really phase out incandescent bulbs!

Re:so long...

[jakykong]

Nobody has really mentioned dimmers yet. I use CFLs in much of the house -- kitchen, bathroom, etc., but stick to incandescent in my bed room simply because I like to dim the light about half-way when I hit the sack and read for a while.

Haven't found a CFL yet that I can read by. ;)

Re:so long...

[lucian1900]

I agree. I'm actually annoyed that most CFLs I find are way too warm (read orange) for my liking.

Re:so long...

[kestasjk]

Hopefully one day I can be a smart "grown up" that formulates long, tedious posts justifying their (past) choice of light-bulb by calling other people stupid.

Is it worth spreading FUD about strobe lighting with buzz saws, and resolved IR problems in undisclosed light-bulb brands, when they make clear energy savings? I guess it doesn't matter

Re:so long...

[Belial6]

Strawman argument? Check.

Still stupid? Check.

Re:so long...

[kestasjk]

Don't know what a strawman argument is? Check.

Going to respond to this post even though you say you think I'm a stupid troll? Check.

Maybe I never noticed...

[Pojut]

...but are Toshiba bulbs available over here in America, possibly under a different name? I don't recall ever seeing Toshiba-branded light bulbs on shelves here...

Re:Maybe I never noticed...

[Nadaka]

The supposed longevity of led lights is highly overrated. By law, traffic signals have been switching over to LED for a few years around here. within months of installation you can see random gaps in the face of the light as individual LEDs fail. In many cases more than half the LEDs in those lights have failed.

Re:Maybe I never noticed...

[PPalmgren]

Maybe its because they aren't worth the cost of shipping. I'd imagine standard incandescents are less dense than packing peanuts, and likely have one of the lowest $/sq ft values in shipping. I think all the ones I've seen and used are definitely GE.

Re:Maybe I never noticed...

[Anonymous Coward]

The commercial units of the major bulb brands (Philips, GE, Sylvania) sometimes cross-purchase and rebrand bulbs for retail sale. I would not be surprised if rebranded Toshiba bulbs were available under another name in the US.

We (Philips) have written down our incandescent production assets and we're preparing to write down most of the halogen assets as well. Incandescents are not permitted for retail sale in most of the western world now, and halogens are about to be phased out in Europe. Halogena will stick around for a while because it passes the US efficiency standards, but we've been moving toward all LED for a while. The business is moving from production to luminaires (installation and design, computerized light management and efficiency systems). It's kind of funny because that's basically our original international business (the first international contract for Philips was lighting a museum in Russia). You should see some of the cool shit that Philips Color Kinetics is doing these days, and we've been buying up smaller "boutique" luminaires businesses lately.

Another possibility is "fashion" lighting with replaceable light components. There are models for a continued lighting business in the absence of bulb production. The reality is that bulb production has become even more commoditized over the last ten years or so than it was. Incandescents were moved to Mexico, then to China, and the same has happened with CFL. TL might be next (we still have TL production in the US, but we also have it in China). Halogen/HID could be the last man standing.

You can argue about the quality of the jobs in the production vs the luminaires business, but the reality is that the production jobs have been centered in less-developed parts of the country, often rural, with a less-educated workforce (the original "offshoring"). The luminares jobs require more education and are primarily centered in urban areas (the jobs are located near the customers). It's a major change for us.

Break over, back to the real job.

Re:Maybe I never noticed...

[marcansoft]

The LEDs are probably wired in series strings. If one fails open, the entire string fails. If one fails short, the rest are subject to more current and are more likely to fail.

This isn't a problem with LEDs, it's a problem with bad circuit design.

Re:Maybe I never noticed...

[UnknowingFool]

There are many advantages of LEDs over other bulbs. The main reason many traffic signals were switched over to LED wasn't all about longevity.

• Brighter
  LEDs don't really dim over time and are noticeably brighter than incandescent
• Longevity
  On the average an LED will last longer than an incandescent
• Redundancy
  If one LED fails, the others should still work if they are wired in parallel
• Efficiency
  LEDs use a lot less power than incandescent bulbs. This was probably the #1 reason. Cost wise, LEDs cost more but make up for the cost difference with 1 year of usage. With multiple years of usage, it would save money over an incandescent.

Re:Maybe I never noticed...

[sabt-pestnu]

LEDs in traffic signaling probably undergo a bit more mechanical stress than LED lights in your apartment, or in household devices undergo. Vibration in some, but also weather effects.

However, a traffic light likely does not need replacing if only a few, or a few strings, of LED components go out, where an incandescent bulb is an all-or-nothing proposition.

Perhaps a better LED light use to look at is in automotive lights. Tail lights I'm familiar with, and a quick google shows headlights available too.

Re:Maybe I never noticed...

[marcansoft]

Except they're in series for a reason

I know, and this problem has been solved for ages now (think christmas lights). All you need is a device in parallel with each LED that will deliberately fail short when exposed to higher voltage (an antifuse), in order to bypass the bad LED. Then you use current regulation for each string, so other LEDs aren't affected when one fails (the current going through them is still the same).

The issues aren't a result of the series string, they're a result of a poorly thought out design based on series strings.

Flashlights

[jimbobborg]

I love my LED flashlights. I was a fan of Maglights, but the stupid bulbs would break. My five LED flashlights last a lot longer and I have yet to break and LED. Plus they put out more light than incandescent bulbs while using the same amount of battery charge.

Re:Flashlights

[jaymz666]

Mag makes LED torches too

Re:Flashlights

[polar red]

indeed, I have one that's already 3 years old. Still working fine. 10+ Hours of light with 1 set of batteries.

Re:Flashlights

[Hognoxious]

I love my LED flashlights. I was a fan of Maglights, but the stupid bulbs would break.

You can have both: http://www.maglite.com/AA_Cell_LED.asp There's even conversion kits that you can use to upgrade your old ones.

 

Re:Flashlights

[Anarki2004]

They appear brighter when you look at them, but the light doesn't carry nearly as far. I have NEVER seen an LED flashlight that can shine as far as a Maglight. Plus I just like the feel of a steel maglight with 6 D-Cell batteries.

Re:Flashlights

[Andy Dodd]

A perfect example of how Mag hasn't done any innovation or design work since the creation of their original lights.

How the FUCK can you have a gigantic chunk of aluminum and fuck up your thermal management so badly that your emitter/power supply circuitry overheats!

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=119665&highlight=mag-led

Re:Flashlights

[Scutter]

I tried Mag LED lights, but I couldn't find one that was as bright as even the cheapest off-brand out there. They used to be among the best, but I think they've stagnated in their development and now they're trying to play catch-up. The Rayovac Energizer Sportsman Extreme series is my new favorite. The 4W, 3-C cell light is $18 at Meijer and pumps out 150 lumens. Even their mini lights put out 55 lumens. There isn't a Maglight out there that comes even close.

Re:Flashlights

[Scutter]

They appear brighter when you look at them, but the light doesn't carry nearly as far. I have NEVER seen an LED flashlight that can shine as far as a Maglight. Plus I just like the feel of a steel maglight with 6 D-Cell batteries.

Go try the Rayovacs I mentioned a couple of posts up. You can set trees on fire from 100 yards with those things!

Re:Flashlights

[xaxa]

They appear brighter when you look at them, but the light doesn't carry nearly as far. I have NEVER seen an LED flashlight that can shine as far as a Maglight. Plus I just like the feel of a steel maglight with 6 D-Cell batteries.

My bike lights are LED. The best thing is I use them for about half an hour every day and only need to replace the 4 AA batteries every six months or so. Older people tell me you used to have to carry round spare batteries and bulbs in case the light failed.

Having said that, I only cycle in a well-lit city -- mostly my lights are to be seen, rather than to see by. If I was cycling in the countryside I'd want something brighter, and that'd probably mean a halogen light and regular recharging of the battery pack.

Re:Flashlights

[icebrain]

Streamlight survivor. I have one on my turnout gear. Plus, it has a low-power mode and a flasher mode (good for getting attention).

Re:Flashlights

[ickleberry]

3 years is nothing for a flashlight. but a 3 year old fleshlight would be a different story :)

Re:Flashlights

[OrangeCatholic]

>mostly my lights are to be seen

Get two, and space them horizontally. The reason cyclists (and motorcyclists) get run over is because they are one-dimensional objects.

I've seen avid cyclists with orange jackets and flashing lights all over the place, but as long as you're 1-D, the driver's eye will not be able to perform depth-perception on you.

Imagine how many motorcycle accidents could be prevented with TWO headlights (and tail lights). Mass stupidity makes me cringe, especially when the fix is 0.2% of the cost of the bike. But hey, my LOUD pipes will save me...not.

Re:Flashlights

[Like2Byte]

You can replace the incandescent bulb with an LED module - IIRC, it didn't cost that much, either. I found mine at a sporting goods store in the lights section.

Good hunting!

Re:Flashlights

[rubycodez]

the purpose of a maglight isn't to provide light, it is to provide light while allowing you to wield a weapon sufficiency stout to bash in the skull of two-legged vermin.

Re:Flashlights

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If you "like the feel" of a 6D cell Maglight you should probably consider switching to an LED emitter anyway. Conventional lightbulbs are slightly better for blinding people; but when you go all Rodney King on somebody, they tend to break(unless you are very careful about which end of the flashlight you are using). LEDs, by contrast, are substantially shock resistant.

Re:Flashlights

[natehoy]

No, you want it bright enough to blind them before you take the risk of getting in close enough to bash their skulls. If you can generate enough candlepower to set fire to their clothing from 75 feet, all the better.

Re:Flashlights

[imakemusic]

Why does it matter when you clearly understand?

Re:Flashlights

[hoboroadie]

The three-C model was my ultimate choice. The five- and six-D models tear themselves up from the inertia of the cell stack. The other guys thought that three Cs lacked tonk factor, but I compensated by being much more of a baddass. The six-D and the Mag-charger can also throw a pretty dazzling beam, which is sometimes a viable tool.

Re:Flashlights

[xaxa]

>mostly my lights are to be seen

Get two, and space them horizontally.

Sounds very reasonable if it's dark -- but I don't think it would make that much difference in London, where I live. The roads are extremely well-lit (not so well lit that I'd go without any light at all, but some people do) and traffic speeds are generally pretty low.

Being hit from behind is quite rare (PDF source). The best thing a cyclist can do to avoid injury in London is not cycle alongside a vehicle, especially at junctions, and super-especially long vehicles (30% injuries).
Surprisingly (and the drivers won't like this, but it's in that report...) the next thing to do is look out for cars running red lights or not giving way when they should (17% injuries). Two lights might help here, in some cases where the driver thinks "the cyclist is far enough away, I can get out in time".

Re:Flashlights

[bkr1_2k]

So what do they call a fleshlight in the UK? I don't think dicktorch or skintorch quite has the same ring...

Re:Flashlights

[jaymz666]

What UK English, it's Australian English.

Re:Flashlights

[Anarki2004]

I suppose I've never pummeled anybody with a giant maglight, but I can't imagine the thing giving way before a skull. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Do you have experience beating people with both of the lights in question?

Re:Flashlights

[Raptor851]

10+ hours one one set of batteries? I've had a LED mag lite for years now, and it's got the original batteries still in it. It gets used probably about 1-2 hours a day, as by the time I get home it's dark and I need to take care of our horses. I absolutely love the thing, I wouldn't even consider using one with a normal bulb again.

Re:Flashlights

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Cracking skulls isn't my line, fortunately. The fondness of cops and rentacops for the larger D cell maglights (plus the wide availability of products like this) is a fairly strong suggestion that they are valued for more than their illuminating properties. Especially since Mag has, in general, lagged rather badly in technology. Assorted little specialist outfits had been doing LED setups that outperformed their C-cell and smaller stuff in a much smaller package for several years before they woke up and bothered to release a rather slapdash LED conversion module for their units. Surefire, and their ilk in the high-power-halogen market have always offered greater light output than a D-cell maglight in a smaller package. Utility as a blunt weapon, and fairly low cost compared to superior flashlights, has always been a strong selling point for the larger mag lights.

My remark on durability comes from having dropped both LED and filament lights a fair number of times, I can be a bit klutzy, especially if the light is damp. The maglight's fairly solid construction does not, indeed, do much more than scratch slightly when it falls on concrete; but that nice rigid aluminum body transmits shock to the delicate filament quite handily. The flashlight suffers only the mildest of cosmetic damage; but the lightbulb dies instantly. LED modules, by contrast, take hits like you'd expect solid-state hardware to. Repeated, significant stresses could well crack a soldier joint; but I've never seen one die from just being dropped(even the time when I had one in my back pocket, slipped on ice, and hit the pavement flashlight-first-and-me-on-top. The aluminum scratched and bent a touch, but the LED didn't even notice).

Buggy Whips?

[jaymz666]

Are they still making buggy whips?

Re:Buggy Whips?

[localman57]

Yeah, but people don't use them for the original intended purpose, so the company doesn't really talk about it. Hitachi is in the same boat.

Re:Buggy Whips?

[jaymz666]

Do you no longer live in a world with horses?

Better to burn our than to fade away

[elrous0]

At least they'll be able to trash their remaining stock without getting mercury all over the goddamn place.

Re:Better to burn our than to fade away

[Drethon]

And that way their remaining stock wont be used to produce extra mercury from coal burning power plants!

Re:Better to burn our than to fade away

[Drethon]

Hmm, good to know. I didn't realize there were as many critters eating coal as breathing air.

Go, go LED

[Geoffrey.landis]

Excellent! Glad to see that they're moving into LED lighting; I love LED lights. I've been testing out several of the early model LED lights in my house, and they have been working great-- low power requirement, long life. And the technology has been getting better very rapidly.

(And, unlike incandescent and CFLs, they're not particularly fragile).

Re:Go, go LED

[click2005]

Are they making dimmable LED lights yet?
Last time I looked nobody was.
I ended up making my own by using arrays of LEDs.

Re:Go, go LED

[Mashdar]

There has been dimmable LED lighting for years. Good luck finding quality LED fixtures for under $400, though.

Re:Go, go LED

[homey1337]

(And, unlike incandescent and CFLs, they're not particularly fragile).

Amen to that; I dropped two LED lights from 7ft onto a concrete floor and they bounced... and then worked.

Re:Go, go LED

[Mashdar]

LED is a bunch of hype with very few advantages over fluorescents. They are not much more efficient, and while they have advantages if you have extremely tight beam requirements (ie for LEED outdoor purposes), they cost so much more than fluorescents that no one with a normal budget should even be considering. The best trait of LEDs is how small they are, which is not usefull in typical home and office lighting (but is for task lighting, flashlights, etc). LED is a very powerful world in today's faux-green marketplace, so the LEDs-are-great myth will live on.

There is a reason why LED lighting products are always compared to incandescent for ROI purposes. LED to CFL is not impressive at all. Maybe a 30 year ROI for the same lumens output. And if you try to go the cheap LED route, they will not be properly heat-sinked and you will end up with very dim LEDs in no time.

Re:Go, go LED

[JaredOfEuropa]

I love LED lighting too... when I get good quality bulbs. Currently, LEDs suffer from the same problems as the early CFL lights. There are good and bad LED lights on the market, but I've found that buying the more expensive ones or even the better brands is by no means a guarantee of getting a good one. Right now I will not buy any LED light unless it's a known good one, i.e. I have seen it in action.

The most common problems that persist in many of the LED bulbs on the market are:
- Less bright than advertised
- "warm" LED light is actually a horrible yellow/green tint
- "white" LED light is an awful cold blue tint.

Re:Go, go LED

[xaxa]

I bought some 1.5W LED lights a couple of years ago to replace some 50W halogen lights. They weren't as bright, had a narrower "spot", but they were whiter (which some people don't like). They're also noticeably dimmer now compared to when they were new -- I'm sure they'll last the 10000 hours (or whatever), but probably at only 25% of their original brightness. I still use them in my bedroom (where I don't need much light) but I've taken them out of the kitchen.

Conclusion: spend more than £2 per bulb next time.
(The halogen bulbs they replaced were about £1.)

Re:Go, go LED

[xaxa]

There's more mercury in a can of tuna.

(Apparently.)

Re:Go, go LED

[OrangeCatholic]

Wow you're right, efficiency of LED's and CFL's is roughly the same. That sucks, I thought LED's were better.

However, LED's are improving exponentially (like Moore's law), so if that continues, we could be in for a treat. Source: Wikipedia.

Re:Go, go LED

[ickleberry]

Philips A60 Master LED is dimmable. Might be 230v only though

Re:Go, go LED

[natehoy]

CFL are a lot cheaper, and are easily cost justified.

LEDs are extremely efficient, and can be built extremely durable, and lack the mercury vapor issues of a CFL, but until recently a single 60W-equivalent lightbulb might set you back $75 or more compared to $2-3 for a CFL or a less than a buck for an incandescent.

So, from a cost perspective, CFLs are clearly cheaper over their lifespan than an incandescent. They cost an 4-5 times what an incandescent does, but they last a lot longer and they draw something in the vicinity of 10% of the incandescent's power. Even the cheapest of cheapskates can justify a CFL conversion for frequently-used fixtures, because they pay for themselves in a big hurry. I kept all my old incandescent bulbs and I install them in fixtures I rarely use (makes more sense than throwing them out, and since the fixtures are rarely used I wouldn't be saving much power anyway).

LEDs have come down, but a 60-watt equivalent can still cost $50-60, over ten times what even a CFL does, and only reduce the power draw by about half compared to CFL. Most LED bulbs I've seen have been in the 25-30W equivalent range and still cost over ten bucks.

Between the garage, the basement, etc, I have about 20 light fixtures in my house. If I did a complete CFL conversion, I would expect to pay about $50-75 and probably save about $5 a month on my electric bill, so overall they'd pay for themselves in about a year, give or take. CFLs last about 5 years, so I get 4 years of pure savings. Assuming I had to replace each bulb about once every 5 years, in 20 years I'd have an average of 16 years of savings. That was easy for me to justify (though I didn't do a complete conversion - as I said before rarely used bulbs are still incandescent because it made no sense to convert them, plus I have a few dimming fixtures that need incandescent).

If I did a complete LED conversion, I could expect to pay somewhere in the vicinity of $1000-1200 and are marginally more efficient than CFLs so I'd probably save about $7 a month on my electric bill over incandescent. That means it would take almost 12 years for the LEDs to pay for themselves in energy savings. LEDs last about 20 years, supposedly, so I'd enjoy 8 years of savings. Even if I only converted the most-used bulbs I'd still be looking at an outlay in the $700 range and it would take 8 years to pay that back in energy savings.

LED is far, far better than incandescent in terms of long-term costs. However, CFL beats them quite handily and requires a lot less of a cash outlay today.

When 60-100W equivalent LEDs get down to $10 a bulb, they'll be worth the premium over CFL. Not at $60, or really even $20.

Re:Go, go LED

[QuantumRiff]

If you have dimmers, then CFL's are a no go. The "dimmable" CFL's go from about 80% - 100%, which sucks. LED's are wonderful in a dimmer. I've tested one, and loved it, but it was $120 for one that fit in my recessed can light, and I have about 12 of those recessed can lights in my house. I'll have to wait till they really drop in price!

Re:Go, go LED

[N Monkey]

Are they making dimmable LED lights yet?

A quick search turned up this. I'd imagine there are other makes.

Re:Go, go LED

[GNious]

Seems to be a simple solution:
buy 5 different kinds, from 5 different manufacturer and with different colour-specs .. hook them all up together.

Not only is it likely that 1 of them has the light you expect, you get a wider spectrum, and more brightness.

Uhm, as for energy, well...

Re:Go, go LED

[Overzeetop]

That's nice. Only one of those fits in a standard socket. That one is an a19 form factor, not an R/PAR form factor popular in recessed lighting (R20/PAR20 CFLs don't exist either). And to top it all off, it puts out less than 1/3 the light of a standard 50W lamp (155 lumens per the Philips website, a 50W PAR20 produces 550lumens). Dimmable must also mean "already too dim to care about."

So I get to use only 7W of electricity, pay 10x the cost of a halogen lamp (100x the cost of a standard lamp) and I have to install 3.5x fixtures to get the same lighting level, and in return I get to save 60% on my lighting bill. Lets see, I pay 8.5c.kW. I need 3.5*7W of these to equal the output of a 50W halogen, so that's 25.5W/hour savings , or $0.000021 per hour savings for a $175 in lamps. It will only take me 81,000 hours to pay back the cost of the lamps, presuming the fixtures are free (a recessed can runs about $100-$150, installed, for new construction). Note that I haven't accounted for cost of money, nor increases in power - I presume both to be between 7 and 15 percent, and will likely cancel one another out.

Re:Go, go LED

[SimonGhent]

i for one don't like the idea of something fragile containing mercury

Ever suck on a thermometer?

Re:Go, go LED

[gilgongo]

There's more mercury in a can of tuna.

(Apparently.)

Apparently? Citation needed.

Re:Go, go LED

[Geoffrey.landis]

CFLs last about 5 years, so I get 4 years of pure savings. Assuming I had to replace each bulb about once every 5 years, in 20 years I'd have an average of 16 years of savings.

I have to say, I haven't verified that five year lifetime for CFLs in my own home. I have a whole drawer of failed or burned-out CFL bulbs that I have to take over to recycling one of these days when I find the free time. It may be a quality control issue-- I suppose it may depend on manufacturer. (Also, the big wear on CFL bulbs is done in the on/off cycling-- the CFL bulbs that I have in fixtures that are continuously or near-continuously on have been behaving superbly.)

Cheapest LED bulbs that I've gotten are a couple of strings of Christmas lights, at five dollars for five watts of LED lighting. I'm tempted to just buy a bunch of these, and string them all over the house for lighting.

Re:Go, go LED

[guruevi]

I've got LED's too and unless you buy the very cheap ones not even available at Home Depot, they are very good. They are much faster than CFL's (full brightness almost instantaneous), they use 3W vs. 60W and give out very good quality light (halogen-like). The only problem is that they're very directional (15 degree angle) so they are only good for track and recessed lighting (spotlights).

Philips also makes omnidirectional chandelier lights (1W) which they finally made dimmable so I can try them out whenever I got 6*$20 to spare.

Re:Go, go LED

[SnarfQuest]

The rectal, or the other kind?

Re:Go, go LED

[natehoy]

We got a bunch of nVision "globes" for a bathroom light fixture that took 6 bulbs (the old 40W bulbs meant we were drawing 240W on that single fixture, which means 4 hours of running it was costing me 16 cents).

The globes cost $5 each, and I figured they'd pay for themselves in about 8 months or less. But the first one burned out in three months.

Fortunately, nVision was really good about mailing out certificates for replacement bulbs, but I went through three complete sets in the two years I've been running the bulbs, and applying for the refunds is just a pain.

I spent $40 on a new fixture that has nice glass bits that cover the bulbs and diffuse the light, and reduces my bulbs to three. I got three 60W equivalents spiral bulbs at $1.50 each that have been going for about 5 months now with no issues so far.

I think the globe just allowed too much heat to build up, and the bulbs would fry out. Props to nVision for their good warranty support, but the bulbs suck.

Re:Go, go LED

[natehoy]

I meant to amend that with...

Other than that, we've been running CFLs exclusively for well over two years now (other than a handful of rarely-used fixtures), and I have had exactly one bulb burn out.

I'm even running a handful of the really old "big plastic enclosure" CFLs with the straight fluorescent bulbs enclosed in the huge plastic-y dome. They take a while to fire up after a couple of decades of use, but they are useful in areas where bulbs are really hard to change because they JUST WON'T DIE.

Re:Go, go LED

[xaxa]

There's more mercury in a can of tuna.

(Apparently.)

Apparently? Citation needed.

Sorry, it's Slashdot, you have to find your own citations

(When it doesn't suit me, anyway. My comment of a couple of minutes ago includes a PDF produced by the government.)

Re:Go, go LED

[SimonGhent]

Your choice.

Re:Go, go LED

[bkr1_2k]

Where the hell are you buying your cans? I can go to any home depot (or similar big box store) and buy 6 recessed lighting cans for $150 easily. Even if you buy the "better" quality, they're only about $40 apiece. You can even get the "fire barrier" ones for about $65 apiece.

Re:Go, go LED

[jonbryce]

No way will a 1.5W LED replace a 50W halogen. 12W to 15W would be closer to the mark.

Re:Go, go LED

[Mashdar]

Most commercial dimming CFLs go to 10% or 20% brightness. If you have one with a minimum 80%, it must be pretty junky. See the Advance Mark 7 and Mark 10 ballasts, which are very popular.

The real bummer is that the color doesn't change when you dim them :)

Re:Go, go LED

[Mashdar]

PS the vast majority of LED lamps are (and will be) non-dimmable. The dimming ballast circuit (just like in CFLs) is significantly more complex than the on-off ballast circuit. For this reason dimming lamps will always be an added cost, and features such as color changing and particularly low dimming will be extra expensive.

Re:Go, go LED

[Overzeetop]

Do you imagine they install themselves? Sure, I can pick up a rough-in box for a 7' can for $15 and a cheap trim for another $7. If I want an airtight RI, it'll be closer to double that. If I want something other than generic 7" (say, a 4" with a nice baffle) it will be shade more. But that's just for the hardware. If you ask your builder to put cans in your remodel, or an electrician to install cans in your house, you'll find the effective - installed - cost is about $150. Not too surprising, actually, since installed product in residential construction is typically 3-4x what material costs are. I happen to know, as I'm in the industry.

Re:Go, go LED

[bkr1_2k]

Fair enough... I believe you did say new construction. I tend to do most of that kind of work myself so I often consider it as a "hobby" and therefore forget the cost of my labor.

Famous phrase....

[GPLDAN]

Kids in 2082 studying history:


Teacher: And in 1960, it was John Kennedy who said 'It is better to light a LED than to curse the darkness....'"

Efficiency

[wh1pp3t]

It will now focus on more energy efficient products, including LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which contain a handful of white LEDs and draw a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs.

That use much more power and materials to manufacture than incandescent bulbs.

I just love corporations using global stewardship to cover up apparent profit motives.
/sarcasm

Re:Efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

And cost 50 times as much! I happen to love incandescent bulbs and can buy a four pack for around $1. Home depot is selling LED bulbs and the cheapest one is $49.95! How many decades of use will that take to pay for itself?

Re:Efficiency

[bluesatin]

Don't forget the price of convenience, changing a bulb can be incredibly annoying when they're in an awkward location or housing.

Re:Efficiency

[Scutter]

Don't forget the price of convenience, changing a bulb can be incredibly annoying when they're in an awkward location or housing.

That's why I never step it up to Red Alert.

Re:Efficiency

[jackbird]

CFLs were double-digit expensive in the '90s too. Now I can get a 4-pack at Home Depot for $1.67 (albeit subsidized by the power company to the tune of $4 or so).

Re:Efficiency

[selven]

Is that power and materials per lightbulb or are the numbers adjusted to account for the fact that fluorescent lights last a heck of a lot longer than incandescent ones?

Re:Efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, this is Slashdot! Using Google for a few minutes you get you the answer?

A 13 W LED produces the same amount of light as a 40W incandescent bulb. According to studies, LEDs have an expected lifespan of roughly 50 times that of an incandescent bulb (1000 hours), albeit with reduced efficiency. Apparently the US Department of energy uses a factor of 25. (sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led#Sustainable_lighting and http://www.ehow.com/facts_5551995_incandescent-vs-led-power-consumption.html) so lets go with 25000 hours for a 13 W LED to be conservative.

So your LED will last at least 25 times as long and use a third of the electricity.

You will need to factor in your local electricity costs, but using an average of 12c/kWh (source http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html), you will save 0.027(kW)*25000(hours)*12(c/kWh) 8100 cents over the lifetime of the LED. Add to that the fact that you would have bought $25 dollars worth of bulbs in that period as well, you will have been $56 better off over the lifetime of the LED. This of course does not include any environmental costs saved by the two thirds reduction in energy requirements or incurred by the higher production costs of the LED.

And to try to answer your question directly: taking 3.4 hours a day average light use (just picking a number here, fill in your own if you want) means you save 3.4(h/day)*0.027(kW)*12(c/kWh) = 1.1 cents a day. That means you earn back the extra $49 in a bit over 12 years. This does not factor in the fact that your normal bulbs will have needed to be replaced several times during that period, adding to the savings, nor the fact that we can pretty much count on electricity getting more expensive over time, not cheaper.

So how many decades? 1.2, using these numbers.

Re:Efficiency

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That use much more power and materials to manufacture than incandescent bulbs.

Numbers and links to the respective studies, please.

Re:Efficiency

[Hurricane78]

What numbers? He brought up NOTHING to back his empty statements.

If I would say, that monkeys are green and have bat wings, so they can eat cups of moon ice cream, because the numbers prove that... would you also ask if those numbers account for the fact that the moon-earth distance gets bigger over time? ;)

Re:Efficiency

[brkello]

As the market shifts to LED bulbs they will get cheaper. So, just wait for the price to drop.

Re:Efficiency

[Strider-]

That's why I never step it up to Red Alert.

Yeah, I always hate changing the bulbs. I stick to Purple Alert most of the time because I'm lazy.

LED (light-emitting diode)

[Culture20]

I think by now you can stop expanding the LED acronym, especially on slashdot. Or are you someone who insists on putting devices for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation on sharks' heads?

Re:LED (light-emitting diode)

[DarthVain]

Just be glad they didn't say LED diode...

Re:LED (light-emitting diode)

[xtracto]

mmm I pronounce LED like "led" that's in Spanish "Un led", "Dos leds"... I don't use "el eeh dee" or "ele e de"

Re:LED (light-emitting diode)

[Hurricane78]

Pff, that’s so last millennium!

Nowadays we use matter amplification by stimulated emission of radiation on sharks’ heads!
Think about it! Interfering waves of matter, amplifying each other! If that isn’t cool, then what is?

Re:LED (light-emitting diode)

[Hurricane78]

Damn, that Wikipedia farticle has it totally wrong! MASER is not the acronym for microwave lasers.
As there actually are matter “lasers”, and they already own that term. Sorry for the bad link. I did not look at the Wikipedia text enought. Sorry.

Re:LED (light-emitting diode)

[bkr1_2k]

pedantic DICK. Neither initialism, nor acronym, but appropriate nonetheless.

Re:LED (light-emitting diode)

[Darinbob]

Are those like LED emitting diodes?

Re:LED (light-emitting diode)

[AK Marc]

I stopped past the automatic ATM machine to get cash before headed to the doctor for an HIV virus check to see if I had acquired AIDS syndrome. I may have gotten it from my SCUBA apparatus.

I love LED lights

[Taibhsear]

And I've been waiting for the tech to get better and cheaper before switching. I will not use fluorescent lights in my home. My eyes are sensitive and they give me a headache, take too long to reach proper brightness, use mercury, and plus the color is off. I'd have switched to LED light, even with the higher prices, if they actually put out enough lumens. The highest I could find only put out the light equivalent of a 10-40W incandescent. It's fine for like going to the bathroom late at night or reading a book, but for working on anything important (art, fixing things, building things, etc) they are not acceptable. I hope this is a big enough push to get the tech moving along and the prices down.

Re:I love LED lights

[OrangeCatholic]

The color isn't off on the fluorescents, unless you get the 5k ones, which are too blue. The 3500k's are superior to incandescents - very white and bright. The 2700k's are probably about the same as incandescents - yellow.

Re:I love LED lights

[Mashdar]

I work in the lighting field and have a few comments:
1)The reason you can't find bright LEDs to go in your A19 fixtures is that they cannot be properly heat-sinked. Shedding heat is really important for LEDs, and requires some very nice heavy duty fixtures to keep the lamps at full output (heat wears the LEDs out faster, and they dim gradually rather than burning out).
2) I refused to use CFLs in my house for years. You should buy several varieties and try them out, though. Some are actually very pleasing now. Sadly the choices for non-standard bulbs are still mostly terrible (I have yet to find a cheap R20 CFL I don't hate). Some of the Fiet lamps are for sale at walgreens for cheap and look pretty good. Seek lamps that say 3500K for the color temperature. (5000k will be very blue, 3000k or less will be reddish)
3) Reading is an activity which ideally should have good lighting. Don't strain your eyes :)

Re:I love LED lights

[lemur3]

...I will not use fluorescent lights in my home. My eyes are sensitive and they give me a headache, take too long to reach proper brightness, use mercury, and plus the color is off. I'd have switched to LED light, even with the higher prices, if they actually put out enough lumens. The highest I could find only put out the light equivalent of a 10-40W incandescent....

Oh, you can see the lights flickering?! Wow that sure is sensitive! (those headaches couldn't be related to over-illumination, improper mixing of color temperatures, of course)

I can only see the 'too long to reach proper brightness' problem rarely being a problem. They take at most 5-10 seconds to reach full output these days, and before that point they provide a large amount of illumination... more than enough for any task you could be engaged in within 5 seconds of turning a light on.

You can get fluorescent bulbs in a giant variety of color temperatures...just like incandescent bulbs. The claim that 'the color is off' is foolish, you just didn't choose the right bulb for your tastes. Research!

Re:I love LED lights

[Drethon]

Yep, love my CFLs. I've found most of the color seems to come from the enclosures instead of the bulbs...

Re:I love LED lights

[pnuema]

Since you work in the lighting field, can you offer me some advice? My entire house is wired with recessed lighting (50 W max) on dimmer switches. When incandescents are no longer available, what should I do?

Re:I love LED lights

[Overzeetop]

You've found 98+ CRI 3500K CFLs? Please point me to the manufacturer - most of the ones in the store I find are sub85 CRI.

Re:I love LED lights

[Overzeetop]

Actually, you're incorrect. I just bought a set of new CFLs about two months ago and they take between 2 and 3 minutes to be fully on. The initial light is less than 25% of full on. This was a problem with two sets I bought - one a store brand ($1 a lamp) and one was a name brand (~$2-3 a lamp). I have others which are very good - Philips Decorator series, I believe - which take about 30-45 seconds to full brightness, and about 50% illumination at startup. Of course, I can't turn on my stereo with the IR remote control for the first minute because the RFI from the lamps (9 in all) completely drowns out the IR system, but that's a side issue.

The problem is that there are no requirements for publishing the data on the package - CRI, Color Temp, Initial Illumination, Time to Full Output. None of that data is available, and it makes purchasing a random event. The EMI/RFI shielding is another issue entirely.

Re:I love LED lights

[NCamero]

You are correct, Americans are intentionally kept ignorant. Tea bags bring us back to the halcyon days of tarring and feathering. Most Americans barely understand a Watt. So a lumen, etc are beyond the goal of conformist society.

Re:I love LED lights

[lemur3]

.CRI, Color Temp, Initial Illumination, Time to Full Output. None of that data is available, and it makes purchasing a random event.

Random?

Apart from the slow to startup thing which is not really a problem.....

CRI and Color Temp are hardly random..

for example, this website http://www.bulbs.com/Spirals_&_Bent_Tubes/results.aspx tells me the CRI and color temp for nearly every product! Truly random indeed!

Re:I love LED lights

[Taibhsear]

Oh, you can see the lights flickering?!

Where exactly did you see that in my post?...

(those headaches couldn't be related to over-illumination, improper mixing of color temperatures, of course)

And that refutes my argument how exactly?

I can only see the 'too long to reach proper brightness' problem rarely being a problem.

Until you fall down a flight of stairs because of it. (this has happened to me on several occasions, and no I'm not a clutz.)

You can get fluorescent bulbs in a giant variety of color temperatures...just like incandescent bulbs. The claim that 'the color is off' is foolish, you just didn't choose the right bulb for your tastes.

Well I'll give you that one, but I didn't chose any of them, these are lights I've encountered at work and family and friends' houses. All the ones that I've encountered have not looked right.

Re:I love LED lights

[jonbryce]

Halogen bulbs are the most obvious answer

Re:I love LED lights

[Mashdar]

I actually removed all of the dimming switches from my apartment in order to use standard CFLs. There are some relatively (~$1 US) dimming CFL options with spiral bulbs, although IMO dimming CFLs leave much to be desired as they don't change color as you dim them. This is one big advantage to LED, as they often include multiple colors of LEDs and can dim different colors differently to mimic incandescent dimming. I always specify lighting with 3-4 light levels (using two switches) in offices. When someone in office environments wants dimming in a recessed can I usually tell them to replace the whole fixture for one with a dimming ballast and a PL-C or PL-T type lamp holder. This is a fairly expensive option, though, so probably not great for a residential project with several fixtures. In those cases I either go with the CFL w/ integral dimming ballast, or remove the dimming. Anyway, good point. CFL is no replacement for incandescent in dimming purposes. The main argument is that your dimmed incandescent are still using more power than the CFLs that could take their place. However, power savings don't exactly "set the mood" :) LEDs will be valuable for dimming purposes. Currently most LED ballasts are non-dimming, though, and I just don't get all the excitement!

Re:I love LED lights

[pnuema]

Many thanks for your insight. This is why I love slashdot. :)

Re:I love LED lights

[Overzeetop]

Slow start up is annoying. Knowing which one starts at 15% and ramps up over 3 minutes vs the mythical one every CFL champion here on /. owns (you know, the one that starts at 90% brightness and gets to full output in 10 seconds) is a pretty big difference.

Anyway, I'll try to remember that website when I'm in WalMart needing to buy a new lamp because the ballast in one of my 2 year old CFLs just went toes up and I need a light NOW, not in a week when they can ship it to me.

Flicker?

[jones_supa]

Do you feel that flicker is a problem in LEDs? I suppose most of them are driven with PWM to reduce power consumption. Many times I can subconsciously feel the flicker and wonder whether it's healthy for human in long term. After all it's a light blinking on and off very rapidly. The 20kHz is fine for fluorescents but LEDs dim even faster and might require much higher frequency or even pure DC.

Re:Flicker?

[NeutronCowboy]

I can actually see the flicker when I run with an LED headlight: looking at my shoes, I can see about 3-5 impressions of the reflective strips in my retina. That doesn't bother me too much though - I suspect that the frequency is high enough that my eye doesn't try to adjust to it.

One gripe though - my head light makes everything superflat. Not sure if that's a feature of the rapid oscillations, or if that's a feature of every headlamp.

Re:Flicker?

[trapnest]

Head lamps should be on DC power and should not flicker.

Re:Flicker?

[scorp1us]

I don't think flicker is the problem I think its the temperature. They have a narrow frequency range. The PWM control method has been used for years, and is in use on automotive tail lights. I think its more of a question of how the duty cycle is set. PWM also lets the element cool (yes, LEDs do generate heat) Maybe what you need is a multiple led arrangement with alternating LEDs activation so that it looks more uniform?

Re:Flicker?

[Alioth]

On anything other than full power they will flicker. Dimming is achieved using PWM.

Re:Flicker?

[SharpFang]

Move the "suspect" light source rapidly. If you see a series of images instead of a continuous line, it's flickering. Our eyes are inert enough to be unable to consciously register flicker of an unmoving light source, but the same inertia allows us to notice separate discrete flashes of quickly moving light source.

Re:Flicker?

[trapnest]

Oh, someone already said that. My bad.

Energy saving bulbs and their lack of purpose..

[HopefulIntern]

My whole house is fitted with "energy saving lightbulbs". I hate them. Turning them on makes no difference to leaving them off. Whomever invented these pieces of crap should have just sold me an empty box, it saves even more energy, and I dont notice much of a difference. Incandescent bulbs are no longer being sold in the UK AFAIK. If more people feel the way I do I might open a black market trading floor for "old style" bulbs.

Re:Energy saving bulbs and their lack of purpose..

[Mashdar]

You clearly have not been buying the right lamps :)

Re:Energy saving bulbs and their lack of purpose..

[OrangeCatholic]

>Turning them on makes no difference to leaving them off.

Huh? I tend to leave mine on because they only draw about 11w. And after they warm up, they're brighter.

I don't get "banning" incandescents, though. There are places like bathrooms where you need the instant-on.

Re:Energy saving bulbs and their lack of purpose..

[xaxa]

<font color="green">

My whole house is fitted with "energy saving lightbulbs". I hate them. Turning them on makes no difference to leaving them off. Whomever invented these pieces of crap should have just sold me an empty box, it saves even more energy, and I dont notice much of a difference.

Incandescent bulbs are no longer being sold in the UK AFAIK. If more people feel the way I do I might open a black market trading floor for "old style" bulbs.

</font>

FTFY.

Re:Energy saving bulbs and their lack of purpose..

[Tim C]

Incandescent bulbs are no longer being sold in the UK AFAIK.

No; 100W incandescents are no longer available here, other wattage ratings are still widely sold. (True, it's probably only a matter of time before they go too)

Losing the war ...

[techstar25]

Reportedly, Toshiba just couldn't compete with Sony's new "Blu-Bulb" technology.

Toshiba is just following

[damn_registrars]

General Electric stopped their product (at least in the US) of incandescent bulbs around a year ago. That story (which was not covered in slashdot as best I can tell) was probably more significant for the slashdot readers in North America - I know I still have quite a few GE incandescent bulbs in my house.

Re:Toshiba is just following

[Strider-]

From a tech perspective, the most amazing part of this shut down is that, from what I read, GE was still using the same machine to make the bulbs that they first built, some 80 years ago.

Bad News for Photophiles

[srussia]

First they did it with audio, then with video (my beloved CRT just died), now lights (I don't think LED even with "Quantum Dots" can emit a smooth spectrum). I guess I'll just have to splash out on those special-run "tubes" for my lighting.

Re:Bad News for Photophiles

[SharpFang]

Get a plasma TV and set it to display white screen. It will emit full, smooth spectrum as only Plasma TVs can ;)

Thanks /.

[trapnest]

I wasn't sure what LED stood for.

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally I'd just point out that CFLs are now available even from non-specialized retailers in a wide variety of color temperatures, so you can easily replicate the dingy yellow tinge of an incandescent if you prefer it, and I wouldn't bother to wonder why you prefer it.

But this is Slashdot, so I don't need to wonder, do I?

GO OUTSIDE

I know, there appears to be a giant hovering thermonuclear explosion hovering terrifyingly in the air. But, I promise, it won't hurt you. Just don't stand under it unprotected for more than a few hours straight, and don't stare directly at it. Look instead at the things around you which it has brightened. Notice the white (perhaps slightly bluish to your eyes) colors? That's the result of the object that non-geeks call the Sun, which puts out non-yellow light and which was actually responsible for most visible light for most of human history. Now look into places which the sun doesn't directly brighten, what we call the shade. You see the colors there, even more dramatically blue? Those are lit by what is called the sky - the thing above you that looks kind of like a far-away blue ceiling.

I know, this non-yellow light may be associated with some sort of pain for you - perhaps outside is where you remember failing at sports, or being teased, or being assaulted or shunned as a small child? I feel for you, but remember: it's not the light's fault. This strange, bluish outside light is actually just as friendly as the glowing tungsten wires of mother's basement. Your eyes may even have already started to adjust, so that this light looks as normal to you do as it does to normal humans. Go on back inside for now, that's enough for one day, just remember what you've learned: real light can be friendly too.

Re:Hmmm...

[shutdown -p now]

Sun also emits radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and that transition is smooth (particularly so in visible spectrum), not sharp.

In contrast, CFLs have sharply spiked emission spectrum.

They're a good idea, but:

[fluffernutter]

Maybe it is because I am in Canada but we have spent at least a couple hundred dollars on various bulbs and have yet to find one that is as bright. I just haven't been impressed.. I would estimate the CFLs I have found are about the same as our other fixtures on three-quarters dim. We keep the CFLs in that room anyway, but every time I walk into it and turn the lights on I have to double-check by looking at the fixture that the lights turned on. Also, what has come of the concern that CFLs omit more UV then incandescent bulbs? One of my daughters has an autoimmune disease which makes UV very dangerous for her.

Re:They're a good idea, but:

[Overzeetop]

Always buy on lumens. I purchase one-up from the size I would use as an incandescent. A 60-75W inc. gets replaced with a 22-23W CFL. A poster elsewhere linked to a 7W LED lamp which claimed to be equivalent to a 35-40W incandescent, but it only put out 155lumens, whereas a PAR20 incandescent 35W lamp is usually around 350lumens, and a 40 watt R19 will put out about 500lumens.

I have a 15 x 20 room that has 9 ceiling cans with 22W CFLs, and the lighting is perfect. I still have 6 sconces with 60W incandescents for when I want dimmable (either for watching movies or mood) in the room, but that's part of the price of CFLs - if you want dimmable, you put in an extra source.

Re:They're a good idea, but:

[fluffernutter]

Hmm.. I have looked for Lumens before but I can't say I found the rating on the box of any bulb.

How many lumens does a 60W and 100W incandescent bulb put out respectively? For example, I have three 60W bulbs in the fixture of this room that I speak of. Because the fixture is a closed glass design I can't go much physically bigger then a regular incandescent. Can you recommend a bulb that I can buy that would meet the output of the incandescent? Like I said I have not been able to find such a thing.

There are bulbs that are much more expensive then I have tried but I do not want to because it's a newer house and the fixtures are pretty cheap.. They seem to blow bulbs constantly, even the CFLs. With incandescents it is no problem; we just replace them. But if we are putting a $20 bulb in there it becomes more of a concern.

Re:They're a good idea, but:

[Overzeetop]

Sounds like it might be a line spike issue. It sucks mightily to have a $5 CFL go toes up after a couple months. I'd be apoplectic if that happened to a $50 LED. What's worse is that, unless you find exactly the same brand and style, you might get a different color temperature on a replacement lamp. Not a big deal if you have a single, one lamp fixture in your room, but annoying if you've got an array of ceiling cans (like my playroom, with 9). Verying color temps in all fluor. lights is a pet peeve of mine.

I think 100W is around 1500-1600lumens. 60W is closer to 720-760lumens. The lower the wattage, the lower the filament temp and the less visible light generated. Small lamps are ~10L/W, larger ones are north of 16L/W. I go with a 3:1 ratio for CFL:Incand. conversion. It's not completely accurate, but I'd rather have a little more light than a little less. It will always be less than daylight (for which our eyes are tuned), and as long as your fixtures don't create glare you shouldn't have a problem.

Up to the limit of comfort, more light = smaller pupils = greater depth of field at your retina = less eyestrain to correct for lens imperfections.

Re:LEDs can't be DIMMED Barry White rolling in GRA

[courteaudotbiz]

You should use HALOGEN light for that purpose, those can be dimmed...

Torches?

[Das Auge]

Helping to bring angry villagers into the 21st century.

MOD PARENT UP

[dtolman]

Troll? Its the frigging truth.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[c6gunner]

No, it's a troll. He could have saved a lot of time by just writing "NUH-UH!", and that would have been a troll too. Now, if he had taken the time to provide some new information/arguments, he might have gotten an "interesting" mod, even if he turned out to be completely wrong.

They are probably over-driven LEDs

[Marrow]

LEDs can be over-driven to produce more light. To protect the device, the LEDs are pulsed
so that the average power through the device is not damaging.

Make bastards frost-proof and we can continue...

[SharpFang]

From my experience, the lifetime of the energy-saving bulbs in -15C frost doesn't exceed 2 weeks. They are okay indoors, but I still use a standard bulb for the garage light. After replacing three supposedly "survives 20 bulbs" energy-saving ones in matter of two months.

Re:LEDs can't be DIMMED Barry White rolling in GRA

[aaron alderman]

Lose some weight so you look good naked?

Not so fast

[managerialslime]

The first argument in favor of CFLs is that their total environmental impact (energy used plus manufacturing costs) are more favorable than incandescent bulbs. Maybe that is true in your home, but doubtful in mine. While most CFL packaging claim they should last 4 to 8 years with regular use, they seem to last less than year in my home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

While the power fluctuations here might be above average, my 3 televisions, 5 monitors, 3 desktops, 4 laptops, Xbox, Wii, and Playstation have not had shortened lifespans that I can recall.

With regard to your assumption that I am buying inferior product, I am buying the popular name brands offered by my Home Depot, Lowes, and Sears. If you are saying that the consumer needs to go online an search out some industrial-strength superior product, I volley back and say that CFLs are "not ready for primer time" in many parts of the US.

As an example, I have 5 "high hat" lights in my living room. Three are "dimmable" CFL flood lights rated for both indoor and outdoor use. As my control, I left two lights as incandescent. I replaced all five lights in January of 2009. All 5 lights failed and required replacement before Halloween.

I have other mixtures of CFL and incandescent lights in many rooms and outdoors as well. The only uniform observation that I have is that there is not a single month of the year that I am not required to change a CFL in my home.

As a result, I doubt if my switch to CFL has had any positive impact on the environment.

Oh, give it a rest

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not even close to a continuous spectrum.

Yet, the light reflected by the wall looks just fine. Maybe it's time to stop dangling prisms in your living room.

Are you one of those people who can "feel" cell phone tower transmissions too?

LED in Space

[NCamero]

I, for one welcome our new fluorescent and LED masters.

Incandescent is ugly too...

[Joce640k]

If you'd been brought up on CFLs or LEDs and they were trying to get you to switch to incandescents you'd be all, "It's horrible it makes everything look yellow!!!"

So?

[Joce640k]

You found one particular wavelength which is present in both sunlight and incandescent but not CFL?

Big deal... sunlight isn't a continuous spectrum and neither is incandescent. I bet there's a similar wavelength which shows incandescent as feeble compared to CFL (or LED).

Re:So?

[SharpFang]

Nope, both spectra are continuous, at least in the visible range. Of course they aren't flat or even linear in the whole range, but they are continuous, smooth lines, not a series of spikes with almost nothing in between. Meaning every color will quite visible, while fluorescent will make some colors disappear completely.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/5116/lightsourcesfigure3em3.jpg

Re:So?

[Steve Max]

There are absorption lines in sunlight. Photons whose energy matches an excitation level for atoms (or molecules) in the heliosphere are absorbed. This is very easy to see with a light spectrum analyzer, or in a Fraunhofer-style experiment. In a Fraunhofer difraction test you'll see something like this for sunlight, for example; a continuous spectrum wouldn't have black lines.

Sunlight is almost continuous, with some absorption lines. CFLs have a really low continuous emission, and huge emission lines. That is the difference: absorption lines vs emission lines.

Re:So?

[SharpFang]

Yes... almost all colors, vs very few colors. The continuous emission is enough to keep all colors but at extremely weak saturation. The peaks make certain (not especially visually pleasing) colors definitely stand out.

Some advantages

[c 0xFF]

You're mostly right, but only because the technology is young. LEDs have been around for nearly 50 years, but it's only been recently that we've been ramping up the power to general lighting requirements.

That said, here are the potential advantages over CFL:

1) Higher efficiency. Yes, CFLs and LEDs are roughly equivalent right now, but the potential for LEDs is much greater. As added incentive, heat is a limiting factor for LEDs, so there's more than one motivation to improve efficiency.

2) Longer life. This is related to the efficiency, as too much heat decreases life. Expect life to increase dramatically as time goes on.

3) Dimming control. Still in its infancy, but some LED bulbs can be dimmed in the same way as incandescents. I can't use CFLs in touch lamps for the same reason.

4) Color control. Currently sucks, but the technology allows for better control than CFLs, especially when it comes to dimming.

5) Manufacturing capability. This is a big unknown, but many are predicting that the price will drop dramatically, just like we've seen with other semiconductor products. Personally, I think this might take a while since we don't really know what it will take to make bright, color-corrected LED bulbs.

6) Form factor. LEDs can conform better to the incandescent form factor. This advantage is also slightly debatable because of heat controls: liquid cooling and heat sinks are being put on LED bulbs right now ... if that's continues to be the case then the shape of the bulb might be quite odd for some time. The nature of using a collection of individual lights also places strange limitations on the form factor, which is why flood lighting is one of the early form factors that works well.

7) Public image. CFLs have (mostly wrongfully) gotten a bad reputation for bad color quality, flickering, warm-up, and mercury. It remains to be seen how the public views LEDs, but many of these (except for color, for now) don't apply.

8) Rugged. I've saved this one for last. Incandescent and CFL light bulbs are much more fragile than LED bulbs, which makes shipping them from overseas (where manufacturing costs are lower) much more effective. It also increases the applications that can use LEDs.

Notice that most of these are still only theoretical. Stick with CFLs for now, or expect to pay a lot more for something with few advantages.

Maybe by the time your CFLs burn out the LED technology will have caught up.

try reading under it

[whitroth]

LED flashlights are great. But for indoor lighting? Have any of you tried reading a book (you remember them, on dead trees) under them? I've used a commuter bus that's put in LEDs, and it's *dreadful*, bluish, eyestrain city.

And none of the compact fluorescents I've seen have the warm color of incandescent. *bleah* Time to stock up on bulbs....

                mark

Re:try reading under it

[Ant P.]

I bought a 2W LED lightbulb today which, apart from the brightness, looks virtually identical to incandescent. It's miles better than the LEDs I bought a year or two ago, which are bluish, about as bright as a flashlight, half-dead after weeks (due to dry solder joints on one side of the LED cluster), and way overpriced.

Re:Not so fast

[raju1kabir]

Matching anecdote for anecdote, I live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the electricity company is run by mountain apes. However, of the 20-odd Philips and IKEA CFLs I purchased five years ago, not a single one has failed. So either something is very weird about your power, or something is weird about the bulbs you were sold. Or mountain apes really like CFLs.

Re:Make bastards frost-proof and we can continue..

[IndustrialComplex]

I'm really concerned about this as well. I've had some serious issues and need for dealing with floodlights, garage lights, etc. In working around my house, they prove invaluable (especially up North when decreased daylight becomes a problem). I just can't see CFLs replacing flood lights, and I'd really hate it if replacing one became insanely costly.

Bright Lights

[GerryHattrick]

Thank goodness for Hungary. How soon do you think the Greenie-Gauleiters will close them down?

Monument

[i ate my neighbour]

I loved the coffin shaped monument for incandescent lamp, presented in Eindhoven Cemetery, Netherlands. I'm not sure where it is currently now.

Home Automation and CFLs

[davegravy]

*IF* you are good about turning out lights and only using those in the room you are in, lights account for a small fraction of most people's total household consumption.

I'm using Linuxmce with motion detection combined with Bluetooth proximity sensors to turn lights on and off for me via ZWave in my home. The ZWave dimmers/switches really don't get along with CFLs (even the "dimmable ones") - so I'm sticking with good old tungsten filament.

go the way of vacuum tubes

[confused one]

but vacuum tubes are still available... Time to form a company to make "vintage" light bulbs for use in historical applications.

CFLs are great

[__aavqan3009]

I love them! My bill has gone down to almost nothing since I started using CFLs like six years ago.I get them shipped to me from here...http://www.yeselectric.com/index.jsp?path=find&ID=,Lamps.and.Bulbs,Compact.Fluorescent I only had two go bad prematurely in six years!

Re:Make bastards frost-proof and we can continue..

[barzok]

I've had a CFL in my front porch light for at least 2 full winters (upstate NY) and while it may take longer to come to full brightness, it's still going strong.

Aerosol Effect Education

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm not going to give you a lecture on aerosol effect, I will point out how readily mercury evaporates.
To quote: "Mercury exposure can occur by breathing vapors, by direct skin contact or by eating food or drinking water contaminated with mercury. Many people are exposed by breathing vapors, which are readily absorbed by the lungs. Mercury can enter the body through the skin, especially if it contacts a cut or wound. [...] Spills from the breaking of a blood pressure device [with the same amount of mercury as a CFL bulb] can produce airborne levels high enough to cause serious poisoning and even death ." (Emphasis mine)

Re:Aerosol Effect Education

[c6gunner]

I like how you cut out what they actually said, and replaced it with your own nonsense. Pretty slick.

In fact, a CFL bulb has nowhere NEAR as much mercury as a blood pressure device. That's why the phrase that you quoted - and changed - actually says:

"Spills from the breaking of a blood pressure device or larger sources can produce airborne levels high enough to cause serious poisoning and even death.

In fact, the mercury content in a blood pressure device is likely to be measured in multiple grams, which is orders of magnitude higher than the 4 milligrams present in a CFL.

I might buy this...

[sean.peters]

... except that you can get CFLs in absolutely any color temperature you want. So yes, your statement is crap.

Let me guess...

[sean.peters]

... you also buy audio cables with gold contacts, and like vinyl because it's "richer" and "warmer".

Your permissible exposure limits are hosed...

[sean.peters]

You're not even using the correct units. Ok, so a bulb has 4 mg of Hg. The airborne exposure limits are quoted in units of mg/m^3. I can absolutely promise you that the entire 4 g of mercury is not going to vaporize (at least before you sweep up the mess), and what does vaporize is going to have quite a few cubic meters to disperse in. So I think you need to rethink that one.

As the kids say...

[sean.peters]

[citation needed]

Your answer almost certainly presumes that all the mercury will vaporize from the bulb before you sweep it up and discard it, which I find more or less impossible to believe.

A couple of replies

[sean.peters]

The bigger issue in my opinion is where does the government think it has the right to tell me what kind of light bulb that I HAVE to use in my own home.

As was pointed out above, when you stop polluting the air with your emissions, then the rest of us will stop telling you what to do about your lighting. This may come as a shock, but the things you do affect other people.

Energy is a big issue but the problem is not because of what kind of light bulb I choose to use in my home, it is because self interested politicians have prevented the best solutions to be implemented.

"Self-interested politicians" didn't specify that everyone had to switch to any particular technology. The rules are that bulbs have to attain a certain number of lumens/watt. The market your so endeared with determined that the best current way to do that is with CFLs. In the future, the market may supplant CFLs with LED lights depending on their relative cost and efficiency.

The rest of your post is a recap of the same tired old BS that's been spouted against CFLs from the beginning. If you really cared about mercury, for example, you'd be switching over to CFLs in a heartbeat, because net emissions of mercury to the environment drop sharply when you use them... because so much coal-fired electricity is saved (unless you're in one of the few areas... Quebec, the Pacific northwest) where most electricity is hydro. But it's obvious that the real point here is to bitch about the government, and that's fine, go ahead and bitch. The rest of the world is seeing to it that we move on from crappy, outdated, heavily polluting technologies, whether you agree or not.

Re:Not so fast

[IMightB]

I've been to KL a few times (my wife is Malay) and think that most power plants/infrastructure must be relatively new in KL, and Malaysia in general, compared to Cherry Hill, NJ. The US, in general, has been relying on outdated infrastructure.

That being said, I don't think that an Orang Utan would have a preference either way.