Fluorescent light bulbs are not what they advertise

As an exterminator I used flashlights every day. I tried every kind, including underwater divers lights. I needed small and bright. The best were the Xenon bulb with 4 AA batteries (they put Maglites to shame). Then I got my first LED flashlight at Costco. Rather than replacing batteries every week, a single AA battery lasted 6 months. Then I got (at Costco again) a hand pump LED flashlight. Squeezing the handle about 4-6 times would provide all the light I needed for a couple minutes. I still use that flashlight on my mtn property. I also have 6 other battery powered LED flashlights plus an LED blacklight (UV) flashlight (rodent urine fluoresces in the UV).

When I bought the mtn property, I used a propane light in the garage living space. It was not airtight, so I didn't worry about carbon monoxide cause I didn't stay up late. Then I got some 12 volt LED lights. They are 6 watts. My first night I used a nearly dead tractor battery (not enough juice to start the tractor) and 2 LED lights. I left them on all night and they were still working in the morning. Now I have a small solar panel, battery, and a 12 volt wiring so I just flip one of the switches to turn on a task related LED light (cooking area) or above the table or in one of the 3 small sleeping spots. They are awesome.

Costs are dropping. Initial cost may seem high, but based on my experiences, they are worth the cost. I divided the cost of my grow light fluorescents by their normal life span. That translates into $5/year/bulb. The 1'x1' plant lights(w/ 200 red and blue LED's)cost me $25 each. That is $100 for the same space as a 2 bulb fluorescent. That means I break even if those LED lights last 10 years. I did not include the cost of the fluorescent fixture (none needed for LED's). I have had them 3 years now. Not a single LED out of 200/panel has dimmed or gone out. The electricity savings are not large. ~64 watts LED to 80 watts fluorescent.

Sorry to drag on about LED's.

Calianng, I find it odd that you dismiss people's information because you don't consider it data. It IS data, valuable data. I have worked a couple of sides of cfl and have even posted "data". Things are not so lovely as you would make them out to be.

CRI is someone you have mentioned and yet that data is missing from your posts. Please perform CRI analysis on consumer cfls and report back your data. Quality of color is important to the consumer and is missing in cfl bulbs.

China is well known to cut a few corners in manufacturing.

"Harry, a YEAR? Wow, I am lucky to get a flashlight to last a MONTH....but I must admit that it is likely not any fault in the flashlights or their batteries...more that I am just hard on flashlights. "

It has stunned me too. I'm one of those people that wake up many nights at about 4 AM and just can't get back to sleep until the dawn starts. Since I don't want to disturb DW, I use a booklight and read. I had bought a half-dozen or so of the booklights (cheaper to buy one for a buck than buy the replacement batteries for one) and got disgusted that I wasn't getting good use out of them.

I didn't want super-bright light, just enough to read by, so I took one apart, upped the current limiting resistor above what would be "normal" for 3 AA cells, and made a frame to sit on the bed or beside table. The batteries in this one are literally glued into place, since it was as much an experiment as anything, and I didn't want to buy a battery holder (bad idea - it is amazing how hard it is to get solid contact on little cylinders with a point at one end). Anyway, I know that there is no way the batteries have been replaced on that one, and the previous one I made broke apart early on.

This weekend, I made a better model that does have a battery holder and two independent booklights. I'll be using it now, since the base is heavier and more stable. My next tweak will be adding an adjustable rheostat, once I figure out how to limit the max so I don't burn out the LEDs. What I have discovered is that since LEDs are such low draws on batteries, even "dead" batteries can be used effectively with them. That means fewer thrown out batteries and less battery replacement costs. Good for me, good for the environment, one of the few win-win situations.

To give you an idea of the light output, I keep the level in mine just about at the level where color starts to be visible in the photos in a magazine. Much more than that wakes me, much less causes eyestrain. One key factor in all this is that booklights have good reflectors and aim all of the light they produce at the relatively small reading area.

As for regular flashlights, yeah, I'm hard on those too. If I get a month or two out of a set of batteries for mine, I'm doing good.

I don't have time to try to gather "hard" data for you. I can tell you I installed 16 brand new out of the box cfl and less than 6 months 4 of them have failed. Let's see if my math is correct 25% (4/16*100) of the bulbs lasted less than 10% (6/60*100) of their advertised 5 year life span. I can also tell you I have never had a failure rate like that for ic bulbs. And if there were any other product out there which had that kind of failure rate I would not buy it either.

Now to change these bulbs I'm going to have to drive to the store buy more bulbs, drive back to the church. Get the scissor lift out of storage, wind my way to the room with the lights. Then for each one I'm going to have to raise up, change the bulb, lower the move to the next fixture. Then put the lift back into storage and plug the charger in. You can bet I'm going to try to talk them into going back to bulbs which have a proven track record, i.e. IC bulbs.

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Remember, when seconds count. . .
the police are just MINUTES away!

Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. . .Davy Crockett

I have to chime in and say the incandescents Ive used recently have been horrible,lasting in the couple month range.Horrible life spans.I have a curly styled like flame from a chandelier type lamp thats been pretty darn good.

If you leave that CFL on and never turn off I had a 1st generation one that ran it had to be over 8 years,just replaced it about a year ago? outside porch light.The lowest wattage,what is it,13 watts or something?

Im going to start marking with dates on em from now on,overall Ive been happy enough with 75 cent bulbs for CFL lifespans.

I have an 18 inch florescent tube,skinny one,over sink that stays on,been here 15 years,its my second replacement.

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Embedded: http://www.richsoil.com/CFL-fluorescent-light-bulbs.jsp

I also added a video that shows off the CFL warm up time.

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[raising chickens] [diatomaceous earth] [permaculture] [rocket mass heater] [lawn care]

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gobug: You have my express permission to drag on and on about LEDs. In fact, if you don't want to upset the board, you are welcome to PM me and hold forth on LEDs all you want.

The only reason I didn't go with the LED grow lights was that three years ago, when I was buying such equipment, they were VASTLY expensive....and were not easy to find. I was lighting up a grow area the size of a house...it would have cost me 10's of thousands of dollars to try and do it in LEDs at the time....and LEDs at the time did not provide the intensity that I needed. (3000 lumens at plant height minimum.)

Harry: I might try that. I also wake up in the night, or worse, my PTSD sometimes won't let me get to sleep, and instead of staring at the walls and ceiling, I prefer to read. DH, however, doesn't have bad bouts of insomnia or such and doesn't like my big reading lamp shining in his eyes when he is attempting to be unconscious. (The man can fall dead asleep, snoring, on the couch, with the afternoon sun FULL in his face, but can't seem to stand my little bedside lamp? Or, the irony!)

Next time I am in town, I'll see about discombobulating some book lights and re-wiring them. I tried a couple of them, but having the dang things go out on me after so short a time was just annoying. Also, they never seemed to provide enough light and hurt my eyes.

Lyra: No, not a bunch of time on my hands....just that I was having to keep records for my *business* for 3 years, and that business included a major use of lighting. It's like telling a landscaper he has too much free time because he happens to know and has documented records on how many gallons per hour different kinds of lawn mowers use and under what conditions. No, it isn't a bunch a free time, it is records he has and should have been keeping so that he can make knowledgeable decisions about his business.

Use whatever kind of lamps you like, Lyra. Tell other people that you prefer such-and-so kind of lamp. However, do not pass off your opinions, or undocumented and unrecorded observations, as facts.

Phalynx: Color Rendering Index is not someone I have mentioned, it is something I have mentioned. I know no people *named* "CRI".

HOWEVER, your typo aside, CFL lamps are not "missing" CRI.

China no-name brand 13 watt bulb: CRI-82
Global Consumer brand 13 watt: CRI-80
Neolite brand 13 watt: CRI-82
Sylvania brand 13 watt: CRI 82

I might add these are all for lamps with a Kelvin Temp of 4100. Those with other temps, say, 2700, will have a different CRI rating. At any rate, the highest CRI I have ever seen for any fluorescent, tube, compact, whatever, was 93. The 80's range is not bad.

IL, however, do not have CRI ratings. Instead, they have more vague terms like "Soft White" or "Warm White" on SOME of them...these terms can be translated into Kelvin temps, "soft" being about 2700-3000, and "warm" being about 3000-3500.

ILs do not generally have CRI ratings because most of them don't manage to get above a 50 or so.

So, you wished to have this information why? Or was it just so I would get it for you?

"Data" , by its very definition, is not data if it is not documented. "The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables and are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables."

Observations can be considered data if they are documented. Otherwise, they are opinion, not data. Information can be deduced from data.

What is and is not "data" and "information" is not based on what I *consider* it to be, but rather strict definitions of what it is. I am not dismissing anyone's information or data because I "don't consider it to be data". I am dismissing people's opinions and undocumented observations that may or may not be accurate because they are neither data nor information.

I am absolutely willing to be swayed by people's data and information. I will even take their word for it if they tell me that they put *this* date on *these many* CFL or IL lamps, and those lamps burned out on THIS date, so therefore they ran *that* many hours under their rating...etc. I will trust that they are posting their accurate and honestly recorded and documented findings.

But so far, no one has. It's all opinion.

Watcher: If they have you replace the lamps with more CFL's, won't you date them and record the dates, brand, blah, blah, blah? Also, ratings aren't in years, they are in working hours. How many hours were those lamps running since you replaced them?

Or, you might replace a couple of them with IL lamps out of your own pocket, record them and see for yourself. I mean, light bulbs are pretty cheap. Then, if you are correct, at least there will be a couple of lamps you won't have to replace when the rest burn out, right? And you will have hard documentation to show your church, too.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

On the booklights - Get the ones with the stiff but flexible support wire. Don't try to fully deconstruct. Open the lid to the battery compartment, solder wires to the terminals where the batteries connect, then use a dremel with cutoff blade to make slots for the wires to go through when you put the cover back on. If you need more light than me, wire two or more of them in parallel, rather than decreasing the limiting resistor size. You'll find other stuff that has a three battery holder assembly in it. For simplicity, hot glue is your friend.

Redirection.. Very nice. What an excellent method to make you seem more knowledgeable about a topic. I am sure everyone would never think to doubt your knowledge of light now.

On CRI, since you do lack the correct knowledge, I will help you out. Incandescent lights DO have a CRI rating. In fact, they are the standard with a CRI rating of 100 at 3200K. Just like in the entire thread here, CFL's are compared against incandescent lights and are even given a CRI rating as well. A CRI rating in the low 80's is horrible. The accuracy of visible color with a low CRI bulb is poor. A red may not be as red, maybe even orange. Blue may seem green. A CFL with a CRI of 93, produces a much more accurate light and that difference IS noticeable to humans. There are CFL's that are higher than 93, but you would spend a small fortune on them. Of course, if you truly want accurate quality of color to your eyes, you would purchase a 100 CRI incandescent.

So, with your one simple statement of "ILs do not generally have CRI ratings because most of them don't manage to get above a 50 or so.", you have lost your little battle of knowledge and are left with nothing but silly, selfless grin and corrected grammar on your side.

Well played, well played.

Well played back, oh Guru of CRI and Knowledge Expert of Color Rendering and What That Means In CFLs and ILs. I bow to your superior education and knowledge! Obviously ILs are The Only Way To Go if one wants accurate color!

And the words of the nice professionals at Full Spectrum Solutions, in their attempt to get lay-people to understand light, means nothing.

QUOTED :

"Incandescent bulbs have a CRI rating of 100, yet are far from ideal for color rendering and matching. Why? With a color temperature of only 2700k they are far too weak at the blue end of the spectrum making it next to impossible to distinguish between various shades of blue. The CRI rating of 100 simply means that the 8 samples look exactly the same as they would under a black body radiator at 2700k. The same can be said for lamps that exceed 6000k in color temperature as they are too weak in the red end of the spectrum, making reds and oranges appear too similar creating a "washed out" appearance. The northern sky with a color temperature of about 7500k and a CRI of 100 is not necessarily the ideal color rendering light source either. An ideal light source for color rendering will have both a color temperature similar to daylight and a high CRI value."

***********************

IL's do not have a CRI, because IL's do not render color *accurately* due to their spectrum and temps, they are black-body, so it does not matter if they have a spectrum of all red or all blue, they measure the same on an index that does not apply to them.

And, when the equation for CRI is adjusted to take that into account, no IL accurately renders color better than a non-black-body lamp rated at 50.

Therefore, the CFL, with a CRI of 82 and a Kelvin of 5000 will more accurately display color than an IL with its black-body radiation of 100.

Enjoy, Mistress of all Light Knowledge! Sorry, you already knew all of this and were only testing me, weren't you, Lady of Infinite Wisdom?

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

It is fact. They don't work.

I have used CFL's for over 10 years.

I didn't do it for saving money, but simply because the incandescent bulbs burned out so fast and I was sick of replacing them so often. Seemed to me the companies intentionally make the incandescent bulbs to burn out fast for more profits.

My lest house I lived in ten years. I never had a single CFL burn out and I replaced every incandescent with a CFL as they burned out. Some of those CFL's were ten years old.

The house I am in now has been a different experience. Now that CFL's are in such common use and so many brands and types I have had several burn out within a month, a few after 3-4 months. What I have found is that some brands last forever, some brands fail miserably, and every now and then you just get a bad one no matter the brand.

I also fully expect the industry to carefully engineer lifespans into CFL bulbs so they will fail at a lifetime that keeps you replacing them often enough to keep the bulb companies in business. Nobody wants to produce and sell a bulb that will last 30 years or more.

That said now with the super bright LED's that are getting bright enough for use as growing lamps, projector lamps and car headlights I am expecting them to start hitting the market. They should have lifetimes in the 20-30,000 hour range unless specifically designed not to.

A couple of the customers I visited were auto paint shops. They used FL to get a perfect paint match.

Caliann I have an LED book light which uses 2 AA's, has an adjustable angle, and clamps onto the book or the top of my laptop. It collapses into a little remote control shaped pocketable thing.

Gobug, how do you use it like that? That is a serious question, I just don't understand the design of clipping it to the book or magazine and then trying to read. I have one with an incandescent flashlight lamp that I tried to use a few times. The light is at an odd angle, and at 200 - 250 wpm, my page turning and readjusting the light was taking more time than reading (although I suppose it is exercise).

Harry
It is sort of like a 3 piece collapsing tent pole, except the smaller third piece can be moved once the thing is popped open. The movement adjusts the angle of the light. It clamps onto something like a large grip clothes pin. Closing it turns it off. Opening it turns it on. The portion which illuminates the book or keypad is long enough to not block the book pages, or keyboard. Since you read quickly, you could attach it to your baseball cap, maybe to your eyeglasses ( I don't think so), maybe a heavy coat with a big collar. The LED headband lights may be an alternative. I don't like them for walking around outside at night, but they could work well for reading. The reflection and brightness are problably to high for comfortable night time reading.

If flipping a page is your exercize, maybe using a straw will help you relax after a long book.

Harry
I just looked on ebay for LED reading light and found the exact item for 0.99 in the next 8 minutes.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Robotic-LED-Clip...item43a37b6089
I don't know if the link I just posted will work. If not get on ebay and shop.

~giggles~ OH, the mental images that conjures! I have just thought up four million, three hundred and forty-eight thousand, nine hundred and seventy-three juvenile comments.

And I am being all adult and self-controlled and stuff...and not typing out ANY of them!

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

I've got a headband lamp for when I go in the crawlspace spelunking for lost mouse traps and fixing the water pump. I sometimes wonder if tefillin are patterned after something like this, dropped from a spaceship repair... I can imagine falling asleep with something like that on and waking up to a strange hair day. OTOH, it would be good for illuminated manuscripts....

I'm used to reading lights being relatively stable, so you kinda confirmed my thoughts about the clip-ons. I guess I'll have to take a pic of what I constructed.

There are millions of high output incandescent lights used commercially. They are not the same as the simple ones we use in our homes. Think of (most) street lights, gyms, commercial garages, and industrial factories.

There are a number of downsides to fluorescent lamps in certain applications.
Not only does the mercury have the potential to be dangerous, but the phosphors in most are poisonous. These lamps, compact or not, perform terribly to not-at-all in cold weather. While florescents have their applications, I am in agreement with Ann......Let's get the price of LED illumination down to a price that makes them affordable.