[RFI] CFLs and LEDs

[Peter Laws]

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 19:11, Cortland Richmond <ka5s at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> FWIW, I had a fairly new Sylvania "75 watt" CFL fail Wednesday; when turned
> on, it glowed faintly, then sizzled, and a visible arc leapt between the
> tube and the lamp base shell.
>
> Either that was a rather high voltage, or it was following carbon particles
> deposited when the smoke came out, as there is a now a noticeable "smoke
> brown" cast to the plastic.


Y'all are not having fun with CFLs.  I converted everything at N5UWY/9
(save for stuff like the fridge and under the microwave/range hood)
about 8 years ago, when CFLs were *really* expensive.  Overall, my
results were very good with only a few premature failures.  Some bulbs
definitely take their time getting "turbines to speed", but with most,
I don't notice.

I expect there is some RFI, but since I have not (yet) been a fiend
about choking every other source, the bulbs don't stand out in any
noticeable way.

Here at N5UWY, we eradicated all the incandescent bulbs (exceptions as
noted) when we got here in 2006.  Cheaper to do, but I'd say we've had
more failures.  Sylvania's usually a good brand.

Dimmables and three-way bulbs are still problem children.

Re: the minute amount of mercury in CFLs.  If the CFL lamp lasts as
long as it should, more mercury is saved by *not* generating the
electricity that would have been needed to light the incandescent
bulbs that the CFL replaced, assuming most of your electricity comes
from coal, which is true in most places in the USA.

Now, if you really want to cut your electric bill, get a geoexchange
heat pump.  Or by an Icom IC-7800.


-- 
Peter Laws | N5UWY | plaws plaws net | Travel by Train!

No Trillion-dollar blank check for crooks!