Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

[spotify95]

One of those twisty compact fluorescent's has blown at university!

That didn't reach 10,000 hours did it?

Those bulbs are all bollox

You might as well use dog poo as a replacement!

Or candle power!

In fact I'd be better off using a computer monitor as a main light!

[pinkteddyx64]

One of those twisty compact fluorescent's has blown at university!

That didn't reach 10,000 hours did it?

Those bulbs are all bollox

You might as well use dog poo as a replacement!

Or candle power!

In fact I'd be better off using a computer monitor as a main light!

It wouldn't be very eco friendly!

[spotify95]

As an aside: these twisty CFL's are blowing all the time at uni now. One barely lasted a week before the starter mechanism blew.

One of the lecture rooms now has 20 (now 21...) failed CFLs....

[pinkteddyx64]

As an aside: these twisty CFL's are blowing all the time at uni now. One barely lasted a week before the starter mechanism blew.

One of the lecture rooms now has 20 failed CFLs....

Send the repair bill to Digital Spy at the address:

Hearst Magazines UK London
72 Broadwick Street,
London, W1F 9EP

[spotify95]

One of the CFL's that was recently replaced at university (a twisty, spirally one) just blew again! It works but doesn't give off any light, just an orange glow at the base of the lamp (probably a faulty ballast? EDIT: was probably a faulty starter mechanism inside the lamp)

That CERTAINLY didn't reach 10,000 hours! In fact it probably only lasted about 20 hours!

Once, we had a halogen bulb let go on us, the capsule itself went black - and failed after 19 hours of use. Now that's not the 1,000 hours that was advertised, but it was cheaper than buying a twisty CFL.

The only types of light that should be in use nowadays are:
LED's for main lighting, as they last about 30,000 hours (you can get LED replacement fittings for any use, even to replace the old ARCS 150 metal halides at DMU)
Halogen bulbs for anywhere that needs a dimmer switch (LED Dimmable bulbs are available but they are bloody expensive)
And Rough Service Incandescents for things like lead lamps, or any other work light that will get bashed about a lot.

There is no place whatsoever for those nasty twisty bulbs or metal halide bulbs (or even fluoro tubes, LED tubes are available).

[pinkteddyx64]

One of the CFL's that was recently replaced at university (a twisty, spirally one) just blew again! It works but doesn't give off any light, just an orange glow at the base of the lamp (probably a faulty ballast?)

That CERTAINLY didn't reach 10,000 hours! In fact it probably only lasted about 20 hours!

Once, we had a halogen bulb let go on us, the capsule itself went black - and failed after 19 hours of use. Now that's not the 1,000 hours that was advertised, but it was cheaper than buying a twisty CFL.

The only types of light that should be in use nowadays are:
LED's for main lighting, as they last about 30,000 hours (you can get LED replacement fittings for any use, even to replace the old ARCS 150 metal halides at DMU)
Halogen bulbs for anywhere that needs a dimmer switch (LED Dimmable bulbs are available but they are bloody expensive)
And Rough Service Incandescents for things like lead lamps, or any other work light that will get bashed about a lot.

There is no place whatsoever for those nasty twisty bulbs (or even fluoro tubes, LED tubes are available).

[spotify95]

As an aside: these twisty CFL's are blowing all the time at uni now. One barely lasted a week before the starter mechanism blew.

One of the lecture rooms now has 20 (now 21...) failed CFLs....

Apologies for bumping this but I feel it's relevant (bumping threads if there is a relevancy is cool )

A few days ago, they finally got round to changing the 33 blown CFL lights in one of the main lecture theatres. What did they replace the bulbs with?

More shitty CFL bulbs!

Couldn't they have chosen LED Bulbs - these bulbs are very high up, so very difficult to change - so going for LED would work as they have a 20,000+ hour life span?

They also like to use 28W 2D fluorescent light fittings for things like staircases - why? Use LEDs! as the starter motors keep failing on the 2D fluoro's. One of the ballasts has also given way on one of the staircases, and that light fitting is very hot to the touch!

As for our 21 year old M\H fittings (that are being discussed on another thread) - well, so far there is still only 3 working lamps - 5 more could be made working with new lamps; this leaves no less than 20 fittings where the fault is with the capacitor or ballast. I say - replace them with LEDs!!!

[pinkteddyx64]

Chuck bricks at the lights and bill James_W for it!

[spotify95]

Chuck bricks at the lights and bill James_W for it!

Which ones, the CFLs or the M\H's?

I suppose if I threw bricks at either lights I'd be expelled from the University.

One of the T8 fluoro fittings we have at university has had a faulty ballast for ages, and hasn't been replaced yet either

[pinkteddyx64]

Both!

[spotify95]

As an aside, the light fitting in our kitchen keeps blowing lightbulbs recently.

We used to have Incandescent light fittings in our kitchen spot lights. Two of the spot lights still have incandescent bulbs.

As for the light bulb that blew - my parents replaced the bulb with a twisty CFL Lamp! It gives off virtually no light whatsoever at startup!

Why couldn't they have replaced it with an LED?

[pinkteddyx64]

As an aside, the light fitting in our kitchen keeps blowing lightbulbs recently.

We used to have Incandescent light fittings in our kitchen spot lights. Two of the spot lights still have incandescent bulbs.

As for the light bulb that blew - my parents replaced the bulb with a twisty CFL Lamp! It gives off virtually no light whatsoever at startup!

Why couldn't they have replaced it with an LED?

Dead between the eyes are some!

[spotify95]

And, I have some good news!

The CFL light bulbs in our lecture theatres were taken down over the summer. They have been replaced with.... LEDs!

One of our lecture theatres ended up having 33 bulbs replaced last year, due to premature lamp failures.... Hopefully, these LEDs will last a lot longer - they should be fit for 30,000 hours of service, or 30 years at 3 hours per day.

[pinkteddyx64]

Can the same people who replaced those lights please come here to Scunthorpe and replace all our streetlights that are LPS with LED ones?

[spotify95]

Can the same people who replaced those lights please come here to Scunthorpe and replace all our streetlights that are LPS with LED ones?

Highly doubt that would be possible to be honest as the people who deal with the lights at my university are the maintenance department at the university.

The local council or the Highways Agency would be behind sorting out the street lights - perhaps you could contact them and ask for them to replace the LPS with LED? In my opinion, LPS aren't up to much at all and should be replaced as a matter of urgency.

[pinkteddyx64]

Well, whatever happens I'll ensure James_W is billed appropriately for it!

[spotify95]

Well, just thought I'd update you with something that I found today, whilst out and about at a museum in Newark.

The lighting at this museum is nice and energy efficient - using mostly fluoros and LEDs (did see a few HPS lamps), but the outside lights that were ex streetlights were intriguing!

They were originally LPS fittings, but on close examination, the bulbs being used weren't LPS - but actually, CFLs!
Yes, someone had taken out the LPS lamps and replaced them with what looked to be either 12W or 15W (or even 20W) CFL lamps. The LPS lamps had to be an ES screw fitting, because that is the only fitting that is common with SON/SOX lamps (such as sodium) and household lamps, such as CFL. These fittings must have been rewired, to bypass the LPS ballast; however, they still have a photocell on the fittings, for dusk to dawn operation.

As crazy as it sounds, I think this isn't that bad an idea. As long as the fitting is fixed quite low down, there will be enough light output delivered from a CFL light. CFL's also use less energy, i.e. 12W - 20W CFL vs 35W+ of LPS. The color temperature of CFL is much nicer to the eye as well (warm white CFL vs that weird orange color LPS), which in turn makes the color rendering index better (CFLs are usually rated at about 80-90%, but LPS has a CRI of 0%) - meaning that things are easier to see and are lit up better with using a CFL. And although we always grumble about warm up times of CFL's (when compared to incandescents/LEDs/halogens), the CFL warm up times (of no more than 3 minutes) are much better than that of LPS, which can take up to 20 minutes to produce full light output.

I haven't got any images of these lights - but what do you think?

[pinkteddyx64]

Well, just thought I'd update you with something that I found today, whilst out and about at a museum in Newark.

The lighting at this museum is nice and energy efficient - using mostly fluoros and LEDs (did see a few HPS lamps), but the outside lights that were ex streetlights were intriguing!

They were originally LPS fittings, but on close examination, the bulbs being used weren't LPS - but actually, CFLs!
Yes, someone had taken out the LPS lamps and replaced them with what looked to be either 12W or 15W (or even 20W) CFL lamps. The LPS lamps had to be an ES screw fitting, because that is the only fitting that is common with SON/SOX lamps (such as sodium) and household lamps, such as CFL. These fittings must have been rewired, to bypass the LPS ballast; however, they still have a photocell on the fittings, for dusk to dawn operation.

As crazy as it sounds, I think this isn't that bad an idea. As long as the fitting is fixed quite low down, there will be enough light output delivered from a CFL light. CFL's also use less energy, i.e. 12W - 20W CFL vs 35W+ of LPS. The color temperature of CFL is much nicer to the eye as well (warm white CFL vs that weird orange color LPS), which in turn makes the color rendering index better (CFLs are usually rated at about 80-90%, but LPS has a CRI of 0%) - meaning that things are easier to see and are lit up better with using a CFL. And although we always grumble about warm up times of CFL's (when compared to incandescents/LEDs/halogens), the CFL warm up times (of no more than 3 minutes) are much better than that of LPS, which can take up to 20 minutes to produce full light output.

I haven't got any images of these lights - but what do you think?

Seems good, but I wish it had been LEDs being used instead.

[spotify95]

Well, just thought I'd update you with something that I found today, whilst out and about at a museum in Newark.

The lighting at this museum is nice and energy efficient - using mostly fluoros and LEDs (did see a few HPS lamps), but the outside lights that were ex streetlights were intriguing!

They were originally LPS fittings, but on close examination, the bulbs being used weren't LPS - but actually, CFLs!
Yes, someone had taken out the LPS lamps and replaced them with what looked to be either 12W or 15W (or even 20W) CFL lamps. The LPS lamps had to be an ES screw fitting, because that is the only fitting that is common with SON/SOX lamps (such as sodium) and household lamps, such as CFL. These fittings must have been rewired, to bypass the LPS ballast; however, they still have a photocell on the fittings, for dusk to dawn operation.

As crazy as it sounds, I think this isn't that bad an idea. As long as the fitting is fixed quite low down, there will be enough light output delivered from a CFL light. CFL's also use less energy, i.e. 12W - 20W CFL vs 35W+ of LPS. The color temperature of CFL is much nicer to the eye as well (warm white CFL vs that weird orange color LPS), which in turn makes the color rendering index better (CFLs are usually rated at about 80-90%, but LPS has a CRI of 0%) - meaning that things are easier to see and are lit up better with using a CFL. And although we always grumble about warm up times of CFL's (when compared to incandescents/LEDs/halogens), the CFL warm up times (of no more than 3 minutes) are much better than that of LPS, which can take up to 20 minutes to produce full light output.

I haven't got any images of these lights - but what do you think?

Seems good, but I wish it had been LEDs being used instead.

Likewise, as I prefer LED bulbs too, however most household LEDs only go up to a 60W incandescent equivalent - not enough for outdoor lighting (especially in street light fittings). The really high power LEDs either come in an E40 fitting, which is too large to fit inside an E27 fitting (what LPS lamps take, I believe), or are very expensive to buy - in which case, you're better off with a 25W or 30W CFL bulb , in an ES E27 fitting.