Comments

5 responses to “Zen and the Energy Saving Lightbulb”

1. 2009/01/12

   Dave Tong

   I just had a lovely vision of bulbs with seperate red, green and blue filaments, and people sitting in magenta or cyan lit rooms…

   I’m still waiting for an energy-efficient dimmable bulb.
   It will probably be an array of bright LEDs and will cost a fortune and require HazMat disposal.

   Reply
2. 2009/01/12

   Andrew Gabriel

   I’ve had almost no premature failures of CFL’s, and I’ve been using them since they first came out, but I steer clean of unbranded or unheard-of brands.
   Actually, it’s quite the opposite – most of them have gone on way past their rated lives, until they have got dim and inefficient. Only then did I calculate that some of these were running at nearly 15000 hours. The problem is that we’ve all got used to light bulbs dying at end of life, but some of these carry on working well past their rated end of life and should be chucked. So a limit on life might not be so silly.
   Oh, and they’ve been subject to Government regulation for some time now…

   My biggest gripe with them is that the filament equivalent rating is misleading. Just use a 4:1 ratio to get the right equivalency and ignore whatever it says on the carton. That’s an area which really could do with Government regulation to correct.

   Reply
3. 2009/01/12

   alecm

   @Andrew I haven’t quite gotten as fas as labelling the bulbs with an insertion date – a couple of them have that, but mostly not – however I am pretty sure some of them are not delivering their expected lifetime.

   re regulation, I am expecting something like:

   – cheap 5,000 hour bulbs flood market
   – EU mandates all bulbs must survive 10,000 hours and be recycled
   – cheap bulbs go to landfill
   – new bulbs invented, last 25,000 hours
   – new bulbs do not fit EU regulations
   – new bulbs cannot be sold without a 10,000h limiter being installed

   …etc; like straight bananas and other things which have been banned…

   Reply
4. 2009/01/13

   Craig Overend

   The biggest problem I have is they attract more bugs! Especially relevant as it’s just hit 40C here in Oz and the mozzies are out to get me. I can only imagine exactly how many more diseases these things are spreading more effectively.

   Reply
5. 2009/01/13

   Stephen Usher

   I wonder how long it will be until the mini-florescent bulbs are banned on ecological hazard grounds.

   After all, they contain mercury and more lead and other heavy metals, organic nasty compounds and take a huge amount more energy to make and recycle than the old incandescent bulb.

   Not only this, but then used in a short-cycle, mostly off manner, they last less long than an incandescent bulb due to power spike stress on the capacitors in the starter.

   So, when, in 2015, fluorescent bulbs are banned and LED lights become the next big thing we can have the discussion abot their merits.

   Reply