Question about home CFL use

The CREE demo looks very nice on YouTube, thank you for sharing!
I have basement application so the cheaper approach I was going for is on 1000Bulbs.com, they have $5 aluminum R40 reflector matched with CFL for the fixture.

 

This "heresay" is what people used to say about conventional fluorescent 4-ft tubes, that its takes lots of energy to turn on. Don't know if its really true. I have these in my Kitchen. There is big heavy electronic part about the size of a fist called ballast that is the presumed culprit. I never heard this negative said about the compact CFL's.

 

I think it can be a crapshoot. I have a box of 10 13 watt CFLs bought from Costo (Feit IIRC). I had one burn out in a ~1 year, maybe 1.5 years, tops. I've also seen anecdotal reports that those Feit bulbs at Costco are dodgy.

At least they were cheap due to the PG&E subsidy.

 

They sell dimmer switches that are compatible with LEDs and incandescent bulbs. I would recommend switching to that. I don't think I'd mix LED with Halogen/CFL bulbs though.

You could always try the CREE LED bulb and see how it works. There's always the ability to return it, or swap the dimmer out.

I have some of the PAR30 (I think) in some 4" cans in my dining room & hallway. They do pretty well as a flood, but the 6" ones are better, IMO. I think it's due to the cover on the light, though. Another observation I made, and I did adjust the bulbs in the cans, is that the higher up in the can, the lower the beam angle. If you pull the LED bulb down towards the edge of the can, it appears to give a better angle of coverage.

If I remember to (and usually I forget), I'll try to get some pictures of my LEDs in the cans for comparisons. I do have 1 LED bulb that's more of a spot light and you can tell the difference in the beam vs the floods.

 

I've luckily never had a CFL kick the bucket on me that quickly. I have accidentally busted a few, but for the most part all of mine have lasted at least 5 years, most longer. I have heard mixed reviews regarding CFLs though. I prefer the ones from IKEA personally and have yet to have one burn out prematurely.

Then again, I tend to wander around in the dark than turn on lights. I think the round fluorescent bulb in my kitchen, the CFL in the range hood, and my bathroom lights are on the most. The rest are rarely turned on, and when they are, usually only a few minutes at a time unless I forget to turn it off when I leave the room.

 

I have had excellent sucess with the Feit Electric CFL's. Menards sells them around the Great Lakes States.

Mike

 

Not a problem! It usually takes my being very happy with a product to recommend it.

I still feel as though the CFL with reflectors work better as flood lights than the LEDs - for the PAR30 and below size. I have 3 - 4" cans in my hallway and I used the "sunlight" CFL floods originally and it was almost blinding lol. I swapped to the LEDs and it's a much nicer light now, but doesn't seem as though it's got as good of an angle for the flood.

 

25 cents a bulb! $0.99 4 pack FEIT CFL 13w (60w) at Costco after $4 PG&E instant rebate, http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/905519/ and Costco 6 pak 75W Compact Fluorescent for 99 cents -No limit - YMMV are examples (I just dug up) of some anecdotal reports of others w/premature failures of Feit bulbs.

Shortly after it failed, I brought the single bad bulb (and the whole box) to Costco and I think I still had the receipt and they wouldn't do anything for me. I was hoping for a single replacement bulb. I don't recall what the warranty was on the bulbs. That bulb was used indoors didn't see that many on/off cycles but was on usually from 6-18 hours/day.

 

I got tired guessing just how long my CFL's were lasting, so I now do what I should have been doing all along.... writing the current date on the CFL base(Sharpie® or pencil) when installing or replacing these lamps.

BTW, here in N. Cali, it's not too uncommon to find various wattage/style PG&E energy-rebated CFL's randomly unloaded as overstock at several discount hardware and grocery stores. I've gotten them for as little as a quarter. Brands: GE, Feit, GreenLite, IDC, ULA, etc.

 

Interesting. I have made a PWM timer circuit from Radio Shack components for controlling 9V batt for CPU fan, but I assume you need beefier circuits for 120V.

 

CFLs can be fickle on how they're mounted. Sideways or upside down might shorten their life. Testing for life rating, I think, is more like the old EPA fuel economy test. Closer to ideal than reality.

But I haven't tracked my CFL's life. I even have one or two that came out of a no longer used lamp that haven't gone back into service yet.

 

I think part of the problem, is people have no idea when they replaced a light bulb in a certain fixture after about 6 months goes by, if even that long. It could be that the bulb lasted 2 or 3 years but most people think it only lasted about a year.

I like the idea of writing the date you put the bulb into use on the base of it. That's a good way to track how long, in terms of days/months/years they last, but it doesn't provide how many hours it lasted, which is the real measurement. I've got a CFL bulb outside that runs for at least 8 hours a day and is still going strong a full year later.

 

I'll start writing the date on them, but from memory I'd say our frequently-used CFLs are on average lasting for 2-3 years. I moved in 4 years ago and quickly completed migration to CFL. The downstairs bathroom mirror has 4 bulbs and the ceiling has another. I believe I've replaced two mirror bulbs and the ceiling bulb while I've lived there. However, a (more-expensive) dimmable in another room lasted only a year. I think even then I broke even on it, given the wattage of the incandescent that it replaced. I should check when I purchased the replacement: it might have lasted longer.

The great thing is that bulb death is infrequent enough now that's it's something of a shock when it happens.

 

I do this as well. Installation date, Lumens, Warranty, Kelvin Temp.

I put all CFLs in my house when I moved in, 9 years ago. Most bulbs haven't been replaced yet, even the frequently used ones. The ones that have died are basement and bathroom, which are the places most likely for the bulbs to get knocked. Of course, looking at only the bulbs that have failed gives a biased view of how long they live.

My criteria for 'good' bulbs is not life, but rather noise, (and occasionally for really crappy ones, turn on time).

 

CFLs also tend to get dimmer as they age, I've noticed. If you have a new one next to an old one, you'll notice the newer one is brighter.

 

1) It's easy enough to get a copy of the test standards that the bulbs must pass. For example, starting page 6 of this document, they summarize the standards (apologies for the Google cite instead of the URL).

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CDgQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.energystar.gov%2Fia%2Fpartners%2Fproduct_specs%2Fprogram_reqs%2Farchive%2FENERGY_STAR_Criteria_CFLs_v3_0.pdf&rct=j&q=CFL%20test%20standard&ei=C7dXTqLfLIiSgQfFxd2LDA&usg=AFQjCNEreJ4bHOY9KMm2wtQFsIPsxC7LRg&cad=rja

They have to withstand being cycled on and off at 5 minute intervals, once for every 2 hours of rated lamp life. So if it's a 10,000 hour bulb, they have to withstand being turned on and off 5000 times, at five minute intervals. In a tested batch, 5 out of 6 have to pass the test.

So if you turn your light on and off 20 times a day, five of six bulbs rated for 10,000 hours should last at least 250 days (5000 cycles). That's the standard.

I buy whatever's cheap at Home Depot, and I've never had a problem with short-cycling killing the bulb. Bathroom, hallway -- I'll put them anywhere.

2) On bulb life, that's the median -- half of bulbs are expected to fail before reaching that, half after. So, obviously, on average, half will fail before the rated life. That's what the rated life means.

There's also an "interim life test" the bulbs must pass. Even if the average is (say) 10,000 hours, so the bulb has a rated life of 10,000 hours, if 3 out of 10 fail before 4000 hours, the bulb flunks, and can't be sold as a 10,000 hour bulb.

So, yeah, you can have up to 2 out of every ten have a remarkably short life, and you can (should) have half fail before the rated life, and still meet the standard for the rated life.

So at risk of belaboring this, the rated life isn't a guarantee that every bulb will last that long. In fact, it's a guarantee that about half the bulbs won't last that long, even if burned continuously in the open (not in an enclosed fixture). (I couldn't find the spec, but I'm pretty sure I recall that the lifetime test is under optimal conditions -- open fixture, turn them on and leave them running.)

3) While people notice the failures, people seldom notice the successes. The bulb in my desk lamp (home office, used every day) has been in daily use for (my best guess) the last eight years or so. The plastic is yellowed and brittle, the bulb when turned off is kind of charcoal-gray. I should probably just toss it, as it no doubt puts out well under half the rated light at this point. But it works, so I leave it.

4) AFAIK, the bulbs are not burned in an enclosed fixture when tested.. They are burned half base-down, half base-up unless the manufacturer specifically says not to burn the base up. That's the weak spot for these bulbs, heat killing the electronics.

5) I have had seriously shortened life burning them base-up in ceiling cans. The heat kills them. My solution was to use socket extenders, e.g.,

EnergyFederation.org | Leviton 1" Socket Extender

That absolutely solved the problem, at the risk of being just-a-bit ugly, because the bulbs protrude slightly from the cans. Aesthetics aside, this beat the heck out of changing the fixtures or tossing out a lot of bulbs.

6) I agree with writing the date on the bulb, but I can tell my burn-out rate because I save the bulbs for proper disposal. I've been in my house four years now. I have a total of five dead bulbs waiting for disposal. I can live with that.

7) Any reasonable estimate of the savings shows you that bulbs only have to exceed maybe 4% of the rated 10,000 hour life in order save you money.

For example, if you pay ten cents per KWH, and replace a 100W incandescent with a CFL, then every 10 hours = 1 KWH for the incandescent = .25 KWH for the CFL = 7.5 cents in savings. Right now, based on Home Depot prices, a 100 watt CFL costs about $2.65 more than a 100 watt incandescent. It therefore has to burn about about 350 hours to pay for itself.

Since you can't pick and choose your bulbs based on which ones are not going to be duds, in practice, this means that as long as your average 100W CFL lasts more than 350 hours, a strategy of converting to CFLs saves you money. If you can't manage to get an average lifetime over 350 hours, you are doing something seriously wrong.

8) But lifetime energy savings aren't as good as the "initial lumens" comparison above suggests, because, as noted in the just-prior posting, CFLs get considerably dimmer over time. (Tube fluorescents do the same thing.) There are standards for that, but only for the first portion of the rated life. I think most CFLs are expected to dim to about half their original brightness before hitting their rated life. So at some point, you mosey along from 4x as much light for a given electrical input, to 2x as much.

That said, I have never, ever replaced a working bulb because it was too dim. I'm not sure what that says, but I think it's like the joke about the glass being half empty or half full. What it really says is that the bulb was twice as bright as it needed to be when it was new.

9) I have yet to find an "enclosed" CFL (in a shell that looks like an old-fashioned incandescent) that wasn't a really, really, annoyingly slow starter. All the pig-tail style bulbs from Home Depot start fast enough that I don't even notice the warm up time. But the enclosed ones, golly, you can turn them on, go get a cup of tea, and they are still getting up to speed by the time you get back.

Anybody have a recommendation for a fast-starting "enclosed" CFL?

 

We typically experience the shortest lifespan in the little spiral-twists-within-a-glass-globe units when these are mounted in any restrictive can or fixture, like those found in multiple can arrays commonly used in bathrooms. I suspect the entrapment of heat shortens their lifespan despite manufacturer's labeled authorization for such use and/or their ballasts are possibly susceptible to the higher humidity levels encountered in bathroom deployment.

Our worst CFL lifespan occurred with some tiny IKEA globular CFLs installed in a quad-lamp bathroom array where humidity or jarring was not particularly significant. Not one of these bulbs lasted a year.

 

I did a "test" of CFLs from Costco. I installed 10, base up, in two elevators, where the lights are on 24/7, and they have been there over a year. Results: Of the 10, 8 continue to function, all are visually the same brightness, and are also the same brightness as the 60W incandescents they replaced. (Although not part of the test, these seem to be essentially "instant on.")

How much money do they save? If the 10 60 W lamps use .6kWH per hour, and the CFLS use 1/3 of that, they are saving about $400 per year. How much do they cost? Thanks to a rebate from the power company (CPL), Costco sells a pack of 4 for $.99. Yes, that's 99 cents. Payback time, admittedly artificially low, less than ONE DAY!

Richard

 

We got some lamps from Ikea which came with enclosed bulbs in them. There's a bit of a delay before they turn on, but when they do it's at near full brightness.

Of course, we have had ours for about 4 months now. 2 different lamps - each one has 3 Ikea enclosed bulbs in it. So far all working fine, though.

The last enclosed Ikea bulbs I tried a 3-4 years ago were absolutely crap. Took FOREVER to warm up. Unless you were going to leave the light on for 2+ minutes it was not worth turning on!

From what I understand the reason enclosed bulbs tend to be slow to turn on is that because the bulbs will run hotter when enclosed, slow warmup is easier to make the bulb last under those conditions.

I also have some R30 Philips floods which come on at near full brightness.