Talk:Compact fluorescent lamp/Archive 5

NPOV
The article seems to contain cited, yet biased political agenda against CFLs and some contents trying to make LEDs more flattering. I stripped off the cost comparison, because the usage and energy cost was selected arbitrarily and based on America centric energy cost. I left the power usage and useful life, which are the only relevant factors globally. The rest is dependent on usage pattern and local energy cost. I stripped off various political agenda prose as well. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 01:54, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The average reader wants to knoow about the bottom line... money. Your edits have taken a very informational chart in the article and stripped it down into only technical information that techie people can figure out for themselves. The LED infomation was also part of the comparisons people want to know and stating he government site articles were spam wasn't warranted AFAIC. America-centric appears to be your obsession and I can understand some of it depending on your definition of America :) Perhaps adding Eu moneys back into the chart? Yes it would need to be updated every 5-10 years but the rate of costs was expressed as "Based on $$$". 174.118.142.187 (talk) 18:48, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your argument that its excessively technical. Discussing it in terms of watts and kWh is the same as discussing car fuel efficiency in terms of litres and litres/100km. On this token, you're arguing that such needs to be dumbed down to read miles/USD. Adding cost chart is useless, because the usage hours as well as cost per kWh varies so widely that it won't read anything meaningful in global sense. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 19:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Costs are changing rapidly [Here in the US and the rest of the world] and are therefore no real concern (in detail) within this article. I have to fully agree with Cantaloupe2.TMCk (talk) 00:20, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Bulb consumption constantly changes with technology advances but I don't see any deletion of that data, yet, based on these same arguments. Should we remove the whole chart? The chart uses kWh and the SI unit is kj. There could be geographic areas that use kj metering and using kWh may be area-centric and not expressed globally. How do we proceed using these concepts? 174.118.142.187 (talk) 15:59, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Radio Frequency Emissions
As an amateur radio operator, I notice the shortwave radio frequency "hash" produced by CFLs (hold one near an AM radio to hear the effect). Some CFLs say they "comply with Part 18 of the FCC rules" but still make quite a racket. I wonder what the effect will be of hundreds of millions of these devices reflecting their signals off the ionosphere.

I would like to see a complete energy audit of the output of CFLs included in the Wikipedia article. Various notions of efficiency are discussed, but of course all of the input energy goes somewhere. Where?

I also wonder about the audio spectrum of the light output of a CFL. Light from old fluorescents had a strong 120 Hz audio frequency component on top of its "DC" component. What is the corresponding spectrum for CFLs?

R. Peter DeLong WD0R 76.113.131.202 (talk) 18:48, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Have a look at Fluorescent lamp for a discussion of where the enegy goes. The biggest loss is related to something called the Stokes shift. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:09, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

A lamp is not a light bulb. A lamp is what the light bulb goes in, usually used for decorative purposes or as a bedside light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.232.82 (talk) 17:56, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Question Re Altered Response of Colour-Change Gemstones
I would like to see a straightforward explanation of the reason for gemstone colour-changes to be different in CFL, tungsten light, and scanner/camera lights. SO far I have failed to find a comprehensive article anywhere - no doubt exists but hasn't yet been found.184.147.33.74 (talk)!~ —Preceding undated comment added 20:26, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not the right place to ask this question, because in concerns more gems than the light source. The phonomenon is supericially described at Lustre (mineralogy). There is no explanation there, either. An explanationis is given in the case of Chrysoberyl. A comprehensive article about gem colour change would a good idea if somebody knows enough about it to write one.  Andreas  (T) 00:38, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

PF again
I reverted a bunch of edits from an IP user per WP:SYN and WP:V. The first part of the added section was sourced to a 2009 blog, and the second part was unsourced. The conclusions drawn were incompatible with mainstream thinking. --Nigelj (talk) 17:12, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Recent changes
has made a wide-ranging series of changes in recent edits. They have been reverted per WP:BRD. If Cantaloupe2 would like to explain here the benefits of a few of them, we might be able to discuss them in more detail here. --Nigelj (talk) 16:20, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

lighting question
Can a F13BX bulb be run by a LC-14-20-C-TP ballast, or will it "overdrive" it too much? Yammerbelly (talk) 19:32, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

OR, SYNTH, lower output "compensated for by the eyes"

 * "CFLs can be expected to produce 70–80% of their original light output.[20] The response of the human eye to light is logarithmic. One photographic "f-stop" reduction represents a halving in actual light, but is subjectively quite a small change.[21] A 20–30% reduction over many thousands of hours represents a change of about half an f-stop. So, presuming the illumination provided by the lamp was ample at the beginning of its life, such a difference will be compensated for by the eyes"

The reference given doesn't even mention CFLs. The suggestion made here is that when the initial lumens are sufficient, the design lumens will be as well. Clearly that can't be true in all cases, if 70% of sufficient lighting is always sufficient, than any amount of light other than abolute darkness would be sufficient.

The lower lumen maintenance factor of CFLs is one of their main disadvantages, and the advertised lumen output is misleading in this respect, since it is the initial lumens value, not the design (mean) lumens value (lumen output at 40% of rated lifetime). See for example the GE 85394, advertised as 900 lumens, yet the product page gives a mean lumens value of 738. Ssscienccce (talk) 16:05, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You left out the first part of the sentence, so you are not discussing the quoted passage in full context. It says, "CFLs produce less light later in their lives than when they are new. The light output decay is exponential, with the fastest losses being soon after the lamp is first used. By the end of their lives, CFLs can be expected to produce 70–80% of their original light output..." It is you introducing the concept of 'design lumens' - I've never heard of that until now. The first reference in the article in this passage is entirely about CFLs (Guan, Fumin; Dale Reynolds (May 2005). "Topic and Discussions on the Performance Standard and Inspection Methods of CFL"). the second one supports the statement that the eye's response is logarithmic, and the third is about the vast adaptation ranges of the human eye. Neither of these latter points are specific to CFL illumination. The reason for these extra references, if I recall correctly was that some previous editor insisted that every sub-statement in this short section should be fully referenced. There were previous statements here in the past that gave the impression that after a 20-30% drop in light output, every CFL was so dim as to be virtually useless, and so had to be thrown away and replaced within a tiny fraction of its rated lifespan. I don't know why so many people come here specifically to try to make the point that CFLs are some kind of impractical communist plot, but I think you would agree that the present statements give a better context than other wordings might have done. If you want to make some additional point in the article about lumen output at 40% of rated lifetime for various bulb technologies, then I would recommend that you draft suggested text here, with citations, and tell us where you'd like to add it. --Nigelj (talk) 18:43, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * You will find the concept of 'design lumens' hard to source because there are so many vested interests at work to keep the general users of these lamps in the dark(!). You will also find that many sources underplay the real characteristics of these lamps, again, because of vested interest.  Basically the lamp manufacturers are desparate to overstate the advantages of these lamps and understate the disadvantages because there is money to be made out of what is probably the most complex structure for any general service light source.  The subject of lumen output was argued to death in this very talk page, but don't go looking for it in the archives (or the edit history) because it isn't there.  The resident environmentalists made sure it was deleted.
 * If you deal with light sources in the professional world, much more information is available - some of it even from the lamp manufacturers. First, the designated light output is described by some manufacturers as the "design light output" (other manufacturers use a different term but it means the same thing).  The design light output is the light output in Lumens of a brand new lamp coated with a specific phosphor, and is the figure printed on the box (The manufacturers argue that this allows them to use the same box for all variants of the lamp).  The phosphor is important, because modern lamps are coated with a tri-phosphor mix, one phosphor is basically blue, one is green and the last one is red (actaully more of a reddy pink colour).  The shorter wavelength phosphors are more efficient than the longer wavelength (a known property of phosphors).  Thus any lamp with more blue than red will have a higher lumen output than a lamp with more red than blue.


 * Professional lamp users know that: in order to determine the lumen output of a particular lamp, you have to multiply the design light output by the relative efficiency of the chosen phosphor. The phosphor mix with a relative efficiency of 1.0 is a very blue coloured phosphor with a colour temperature of approximately 8000K (exact colour temperature is difficult to quantify due to the phosphor not even remotely approaching a black body radiator).  The commonly encountered 6500K (approx) phosphored lamps (often in shop lighting) have a relative efficiency of 0.9 (in round numbers).  There are a few other phosphor mixes encountered right down to the phosphor described as 'incandescent white' (in Europe - usually described as 'warm white' in the US) designed to closely mimic the colour of light from an American (120 volt) incandescent lamp.  Such a phosphor has a relative efficiency of just 0.4 (again rounded).  This is why most users have little difficulty spotting that the so called equivalent CFL to an incandescent is noticeably dimmer.  A European 100 Watt incandescent has an output of 1300 Lumens.  An incandescent white 20 Watt CFL has a design light output of 1200 Lumens (which should not be noticeable).  Its actual light ouput is just 480 Lumens (which is noticeable).  It won't look as dim as the figure suggests because as noted above, the eye's response to light is logarithmic.  A light source needs to be 18% as bright as another to have the appearance to the eye of being half as bright.  Incidentally, a 20 Watt low voltage halogen incandescent lamp has a light output of 440 Lumens - practically indistinguishable from the 20 Watt CFL, but the last thing the lamp manufactureres wanted was a lamp that was so simple that it would cost just a few pennies if produced in large numbers.  Don't go looking for the Lumen output on the packaging of such a lamp - it isn't there (I wonder why?)


 * The amount by which the lamp dims in service is also underplayed. It can be very obvious if one lamp is replaced in a luminaire that has two or more.  Many sources try to claim that the end of life brightness is 40% that of the starting.  A problem here is determining when that end of life is, because if the lamp is allowed to remain in service, it will continue to dim until there is only a feeble pink glow left.  The Underwriter's Laboratary tested CFL lamps and discovered that the lamps Lumen output reduced by 38% in just 1000 hours of continuous use.  After 10,000 hours of continuous use, the UL found that the lamp Lumen output had reduced by 84%.  It is, of course, entirely a coincidence that a real Lumen output reduction of 84% corresponds to a perceived brightness reduction of 60% once the logarithmic characteristic of the eye is taken into account.


 * Incidentally, the UL also found that a 10,000 hour life is only ever achievable under laboratory conditions (lamps operated horizontally in a 15° Celsius atmosphere and the lamp opeated continuously). Real world usage where the lamps are switched on and off shortens the life considerably (the UL found typically 300-500 off/on cycles with a few 'rogue' lamp making as much as 800 cycles).  The wide variation was attributed to the varying thickness of the oxide coating on the electrodes.  This means that in many installations, the CFL can have a shorter life than the incandescent lamp that it replaces.  Evidence of the life reduction can be seen on any non new lamp.  The blackening around the electrodes is the oxide coating being blasted away during starting.  It is not blackening due to heat of the electrodes.  A lamp operated continuously (i.e. never switched off) will never develop the blackening.  DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I vaguely remember a discussion on this, but I believe that it may have been 5 or 6 years ago. I cannot find it in the archives.  Are you sure that it was in this talk page?  If I recall the discussion kept being challenged by (I presume) users with an environmentalist agenda who appeared somewhat desperate to undermine the points being made.  I recall that it ended with a lecturer (?) in lighting technology from MIT (or somewhere like that) not only confirming all the arguments made, but also quoting some sources supporting them (and I definitely recall a link being posted to a report from the underwriters laboratory on some of the points that you made above (though I cannot locate the report at the moment)).  85.255.233.114 (talk) 17:40, 26 March 2014 (UTC)


 * It was definitely this talk page as the discussion was about this very topic. My recollection was that the lecturer came from Berkely in California, but it was so long ago that I have to conceed that either of us could be right.  I am a little surprised that anyone else saw the outcome of the discussion because the entire thread was deleted within a few hours of that final post being made (and, as I noted above, completely deleted from the edit history of this page). In that same deletion, most of the other threads were 'sanitised' to make it appear that all of the negative aspects of CFL technology (and there are many) had been adequately disposed of.  As far as I am aware, administrators can delete content from Wikipedia, but not without leaving evidence of the deletion in the edit history (the history entry is struck out but not deleted), so whoever deleted the thread must have additional priveleges.  DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 09:12, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Design and history.
Not all CFLs with non-integrated ballast have the ballast built into the fixture. Some of the earliest models that had two or four straight, flat ended, tubes with small bridge tubes had separate ballasts with a screw base. Prices dropped quickly and the screw in, non-integrated ballast CFL has either gone out of production or is not made in large quantity. I have one of those old ones that still works after nearly 30 years. The first successful screw-in replacement for an incandescent lamp would be the Circline, some years before the straight or folded tube CFL. Circline lamps were (still are?) available with a centrally mounted ballast with a screw base. The power connection and starter were together in the plug connecting where the tube ends come together. The plug has a brief glow and makes a click during startup. I have one of those which was in a basement of the house I lived in circa 1974-1992 so that makes it close to 40 years old and still working, never have changed the tube but the others installed at the same time had their ballasts fail from the late 90's through the 00's. I've searched but cannot find what year the Circline shape was introduced. Bizzybody (talk) 05:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Upside-down-question...
Can anyone find a reference to answer this question:
 * When a CFL is used in the upside-down arrangement (screw side up) does it tend to fail quicker, slower, or at the same rate as a CFL used in the sideways or screw-side-down arrangement?

I've tried to look for an answer to this question, and come up with nothing significant. LP-mn (talk) 22:54, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Wanted explanation of abbreviation CFC
You quickly switched to CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp). Still need to know what the second "C" is in CFC. gagi

This process in not very user friendly to make a comment or suggest an improvement, ie. the 4-digit entry or use of a comment line. Also, why not have a submit line. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:CE29:1B00:48F6:103C:CA9E:6B4D (talk) 16:08, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

"Tornado" vs "Twisted" vs...
There are at least two terms ("Tornado" vs "Twisted") used to refer to the CFLs shaped that way. I do not know which, if any or both, is a generic, non-trademarked name for them. Despite most of the pictures of bulbs being of this type, the terms are never used in the article text. It'd be a good thing to discuss the shapes. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:32, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Efficiency comparision section
The table should probably be moved to lamp efficiency comparision or similar ? so it can be used in other articles. - Rod57 (talk) 16:38, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

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