Incandescent phase out - dimmable CFLs?

[navychop]

Oh, in the long run they're cheaper, I'm sure. As regular bulbs. As dimmable, I suspect they're not going to last long and will not be cost effective. I've had a few intermediate base CFLs, but haven't had any candelabra base CFLs. They work. Not as quick to light up as incandescents, but quick enough.

I'm happy with CFLs, now that they've got the size down to pretty much match regular bulbs, and the color is better. But we really need dimmable bulbs, and ones that work with electronic controls such as timers, electric eyes and motion detectors. And maybe work better in the cold. I guess we'll need LEDs or even OLEDs for that, though.

 

[kb7oeb]

I've found heat to be a CFL killer, I flipped the bathroom and hallway light fixtures to point up to allow the heat to escape and now the CFL bulbs last much longer.

 

[jayn_j]

I was in Home Depot yesterday and noticed that they had started carrying Phillips brand LED bulbs. They had candelabra in a 4 pack and individually, a small PAR and a larger flood. They did not have a 60W equivalent standard bulb

The large flood was a 40W equivalent and was priced at $74! There was also printing on the box that this was not to be used with dimmers. Not sure who would benefit from a 40W flood and it would be tough to justify that price. They claimed 2.5 year payback, but I thought they were skewing the numbers pretty badly.

The candelabras might make more sense at $15 per, especially in cases where the fixture is hard to reach.

Anyway, they are out there, and hopefully prices come down quickly. I know I could design a dimmable LED bulb, so I am sure others are working on it as well. It wasn't all that long ago that I paid $15 for a 6oW equivalent CFL bulb.

 

[bhelms]

Tks for the tip! I want LED candelabras in a couple of applications that I light 24 x 7 or at least every night. Not traditional "night lights" tho' they certainly serve in that function. (One is more like a shrine.) The 4 watt incandescents are certainly cheap enough to use. (Each one would use about $2.50 per year in electricity at my current rate, but I end-up changing them frequently and in two particular cases they are PITAs to change. I think it's time to bite on the LEDs...

 

[jayn_j]

I ran across a link today for a dimmable LED 60W PAR replacement. Not cheap at nearly $90, but they demonstrate dimming and claim 66W equiv output at 15W consumed power.

PAR30 LED bulbs work smoothly with standard 120-Vac dimmers - Electronic Products

 

[navychop]

I broke down and bought a 60W replacement "dimmable" CFL to try in the dining room light. Surprisingly, it worked. Had to remove it, though - directions said an illuminated switch (or electric eye, or etc etc) would drastically shorten the lifespan.

Next time I'm at a hardware store, I'll buy a non illuminated dimmer switch. I'll miss the night light feature, but the tradeoff will be worth it - especially if I can get more light out of that fixture.

 

[Scorpion.sting]

CFL's suck on outdoor lighting when its cold so never put one on a motion light if you live anywhere but socal or the keys.

Have you done any searches for German made dimmers? I'd start with German light fixture makers and go from there. I recently saw an led light using the tiny led's about the size of large pin head that covered the surface of a plastic dome about the size of a flood light that emitted a great deal of light. The LED's used are the ones that go into small electronics and unlit look like a clear tiny fuse.

I have used one of the CFL lights in my motion sensor front portch light for 2 years now with no problems. Works great.

 

[navychop]

The dimmable CFL I bought was a Sylvania Super Saver, from Lowe's. You won't find this on the Sylvania web site. I am encouraged that it actually worked, even though I had to take it out of service due to the switch being a lighted switch.

I went to HD for a non-illuminated dimmer switch, but every single one of them said "incandescent/halogen" or even "incandescent/halogen only." Although HD does sell a dimmer for Philips (just Philips) dimmable CFLs. So I've wasted some hours surfing the web about this today. It would seem that there are some new dimmable CFLs that will work with standard dimmers, such as [URL="http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob...spx"][COLOR="Blue"][B]this switch[/B][/COLOR] meant for any dimmable CFL.

I'll try to report back on how well, or if, any of this works out.

 

[navychop]

Amazon just sent me an email - CFLs won't arrive until the last half of November, or early December.

 

[navychop]

FAILURE - AGAIN!

Well, I had ordered 3 of these "dimmable" CFLs. One arrived yesterday, looks like the others will be backordered quite a bit. I may cancel them.

In short, the[URL="http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob...axLite DimMax spiral dimmable CFL[/B][/COLOR], which is advertised to work with standard dimmers, does not work. It does not come on until you turn the switch on to maximum setting, and then as you dim it, it barely dims at all. Then when it gets low, it flickers, then it goes out entirely, before reaching minimum setting.

Perhaps throwing good money after bad, I'll order that switch and hope for the best.

 

[jayn_j]

It does not come on until you turn the switch on to maximum setting, and then as you dim it, it barely dims at all. Then when it gets low, it flickers, then it goes out entirely, before reaching minimum setting.

To be honest, I think we are going to be living with older technologies for a few years. I don't know enough about CFLs to be an expert, but they rely on a gas discharge. There is a lot of hysteresis in the current loop on these things. That means that it takes a large amount of current to excite the gas and then a very small amount to sustain it. There is actually a very small window between the normal operating point, and where the gas will drop back to its base state.

There are effective 3-way CFLs, and a better answer for now would be to come up with switches that could turn them on in sequences. If I were engineering this, I would develop a bulb with say 5 distinct wattage tubes and then sense input voltage to determine which tubes are activated. It wouldn't be a true dimmer, but it would provide 32 distinct light levels. The circuit would be non-trivial, but I see it built into the internal ballast. The big cost would be that this would require multiple ballasts and that would drive up the cost of the bulb.

I personally think we will see dimmable LEDs at a consumer price point first. The underlying technology is more expensive, at least for now, but it requires less support circuitry. Same kind of idea, and one that is done manually with the flashlights right now. Use the input voltage to set trigger points for turning individual LEDS on and off. Hide the whole thing behind frosted glass to diffusse the result and let the average consumer think that the bulb is actually "dimming"

 

[navychop]

Yep, I agree. However, supposedly there has been developed new circuitry that fits in the base of the new "dimmable" CFLs and let's them work with old style dimmers. And in fact, the Sylvania Super Saver does dim on my old standard incandescent dimmer. But the dimmer has a night light, and the Sylvania SS is not to be used with such, due to greatly decreased lifetime.

Aggravating. And with incandescent phase out starting in the U.S. in 2012 and ending in 2014, we're running out of time. There is no doubt a huge number of dimmers in this country. And electric eyes, motion detectors and timers that don't play well with CFLs.

 

[Stargazer]

When incadescents are no longer being sold, I can see them coming at a higher premium price due to dimming issues and so forth.

 

[navychop]

I certainly agree with that.

 

[HD MM]

Over the weekend, I bought enough CFL's for my entire house and swapped out the old incandescents. The only bulbs I'm not changing out is the dimmable ones. I ended up taking the CFL dimmable bulbs back as they didn't dim.

 

[truckracer]

my house is completely converted to cfl's. we don't dim anything so i removed all my dimmers and put in switches. I did actually just seperate some of the wiring for more switches on different fixtures so the light can be adjusted to each room. I know that sounds extreme but that's me...LOL.

I love the bulbs and not having to change them all the time! can't wait for the led's.
cfl's are so cheap at lowes and home depot now. I use them outside and they do suck when it gets cold since they don't operate properly in freezing weather. I am sure they are not made to do that either. I know in parking garages the ballasts are designed for low temp operation. I am sure these bulbs are meant to be in a heated house.

i still use them outside however...they do provide some illumination when cold. it's not a total loss.

i am just curious what is going to happen to all that mercury when they are trashed. mercury has always been present in all flourescent lamps but now that every household will start using them i would imagine the mercury could in a few years be a real problem.
there are no recycling centers around here for bulbs.

 

[bhelms]

DVR Alert! LED program on UCTV hits a home run!

I happened to catch a 1-hr. program on UCTV (9412, one of the "free" public interest channels) that is spot-on topic of this thread! It is the recording of a conference held at UCSB on 05/20/09 as part of the "Summit on Energy Efficiency" specifically "Driving Toward LED Lighting". There were 4 speakers, and the first 3 provided valuable information about the "state of the art", the history and current status of LED lighting, comparison to traditional and emerging technologies, competing LED techologies (GaN vs YAG, for instance), and most importantly, the projections for the next several years. The conference title is "LED Lighting: Uses, Problems, and Future of LED Sources". Steve DeBaar (UCSB?) was host. The speakers from Philips Lighting ("LumiLED") and CLTC (Calif. Lighting Tech. Ctr.) provided the greatest technical information. (The final speaker was the CEO of a start-up company that is using LED technology for theatrical / "Hollywood" lighting, mostly a sales pitch.)

I learned that the theortical limit of human light assimilation comes at something like 400 lumens, and that current LED technology is coming in at just under 200 lm/watt in certain wavelengths, compared with the incandescent limit of 15 l/w. LED lighting can span most of the visible spectrum, but with an unfortunate "hole" right around 550nm which is where humans are most sensitive, but there are emerging solutions for that. The biggest issues are heat dissipation, requiring evolution of fixturing and installation, and other problems associated with the projected long life. (For instance, a build-up of bugs in light fixtures is naturally cleaned-out with relatively frequent changing of incandescent lamps, but that won't happen with LEDs that will reach projected lives of 50K to 100K hours!) One serious limit to LED fixture life expectancy is the use of electrolytic capacitors in the electronics that have typical 3K hr MTBFs. (Not sure I agree with that, just reporting what I heard.) The cool white light of current technology needs to shift more to the "warm" spectrum for wider human acceptance. Task lighting will be an early wide-spread adoption, etc.

LED manufacturing will be more green than CFLs and there is no mercury involved. Other advantages include even lower power consumption, longer life projections, lighter weight, wider operating temp. range, potential for lower-voltage applications, etc. LEDs can leap-frog CFLs in many applications within the next 3-4 years. Fascinating stuff for us engineers!

You can simply enter "Led lighting" in your Dish Pass programming tool and you will see reruns on 9412 at: Thur. 11/5 12PM, Fri. 11/6 at 3AM and 3PM, Sat. 11/7 at 9AM, and Sun. 11/8 at 12 PM.

Catch it if you can...!

 

[digiblur]

I hate the "warm" CFLs. Makes the room look like an old house where the owners have been smoking 4 packs a day. Give me the bright white CFLs anyday. That's the one thing I loved about moving away from incandescent, was that dingy looking brown light.

 

[jayn_j]

I hate the "warm" CFLs. Makes the room look like an old house where the owners have been smoking 4 packs a day. Give me the bright white CFLs anyday. That's the one thing I loved about moving away from incandescent, was that dingy looking brown light.

I agree, but I tend to like "daylight" temperature CFLs. The bright ones kinda give me a headache, and make me depressed. Kinda like sitting in some cubicle

For those of us without DISH, UCSB has posted streaming video of the entire conference here: Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency | Institute for Energy Efficiency

I intend to watch over the next week or so.

 

[navychop]

Thank you, bhelms. I popped on to Dish Remote and set it to record the one at noon - on both my ViP722 units, just in case.

Once again, that Dish Remote feature comes in Real Handy.