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Maes

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    Here's an old post I made on the subject,

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  1. Anyone having used CFL lamps will have, undoubtedly, stumbled upon a number of duds and premature failures. There's not one single reason for them, but a few confirmed ones are: electronics overheat (which can caused simply by installing a lamp >=18 W base-up, even if in an open luminaire), switch bouncing, "too frequent" switching on/off, outright crappiness/marginal design (many components are underengineered in order to save maybe a couple of cents per lamps) or some glitch in your electrical grid that is deadly to CFLs, plus tube failures (although these are rarer...except for what follows).

    In any case, I recently found the CFL champions of crappiness: some noname chinese contraptions I got for 1 Eur each at a bazaar stand. Rated at "20 w" (with a two-twist tube? Really?) and "daylight" colour, they didn't look any brighter than a 60-70W bulb. That same stand also had some 110V 30W CFLs...in a 220V country? Ouch. Let alone that mains voltage has been revised up to 230V RMS now, but that's another story. Anyway, I installed them in my "laundry area", as the light color didn't really matter there.

    They worked OK up to...the point where they just died during use after less than 20 hours of operation. 2 identical lamps, installed separately, mounted almost horizontally in free air. The cause seemed to be tube rather than the electronics: it was severely blackened on the inside from material sputtering, aindicating that it must have a fucked up quick starting system, and in the case of one bulb it had even lost some of its internal coating. These must be the worst CFLs ever.

    I've had other two CFL failures recently, one was for a CFL already installed in my current condo's "lobby" -so to speak-, an IKEA bulb that was probably already in use for some years, judging by the yellowing of the plastic, and which failed quietly yesterday. The other was a new 4-tube 18W CFL installed in my living room/kitchen that just died after maybe 20-30h of use in an open luminaire (however it was mounted base-up, and airflow was restricted from below, as the luminaire had a convex glass plafond over which the bulb barely squeezed. I didn't know about not installing "high powered" CFLs (anything >=18W) base up, until then. Some older 21W Osrams gave me mixed results in this respect.

    I will not reinstall CFLs in the lobby or kitchen (the lobby does not have the usage patterns to justify the cost of a new CFL), while I installed mains halogen bulbs in the kitchen (they are a tad more efficient than pure incandescent and more durable).

    1. Show previous comments  6 more
    2. Maes

      Maes

      Grazza said:

      They work on the basis that everyone has a TV, so anyone with an address but without a TV license is probably a criminal. It's pretty effective, and more justified than most assumptions or working practices of state monopolies.


      Yup. The magic word is "assumptions" here. Greece took it to a whole new level though, as everybody with an electrical connection is presumed to have a TV. As farmers and other professionals put it "The crops are watching ERT" (former name of the national channels).

      In Italy, they used to actually file in people who bought a TV, but stopped doing that long ago probably due to privacy laws or practical problems (I purchased 2 TVs, 1 VCR and 1 TV card without anyone filing me in). However, once someone applies for a permanent residents anything (power, gas, water etc.) and he is NOT already a registered payer of the TV annual fee...then he shall receive diplomatically written letter urging him to "rectify the situation, or else".

    3. myk

      myk

      Maes said:
      Yup, you pay TV subscription fees with every electrical bill over here, even if you don't own a TV or have multiple lines with separate bills. Pure genius.

      It does sound more universal. I mean, the choose-to-pay license is costlier, thus more of a privilege. I think, though, that a general progressive tax of some sort applying to all citizens would be better. If not, poorer people have less access to public broadcasting or rights regarding it. By being progressive, even paying for something you don't use is more reasonable, if you don't have ample economic means.

    4. Sharessa

      Sharessa

      Grazza said:

      They work on the basis that everyone has a TV, so anyone with an address but without a TV license is probably a criminal. It's pretty effective, and more justified than most assumptions or working practices of state monopolies.




      Anyway, when it comes to CFLs, I skip them. I don't like the kind of light florescent gives off. Just give me good old argon and tungsten.

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