Speaking of light bulbs

So let's see, for 600 bucks I can replace all the 60-watt bulbs in my house with those, or I can get 1,621 standard 60 watt bulbs that will probably last me for the rest of my life.

Such a deal. For the damned light bulb manufacturers.

I can get 2400 Sylvania for $600. I buy a four pack or two whenever I remember. I have enough 25W halogen for my gate posts to last ten years or more. I got them 2/$1 so I bought all 15 cards when I saw them a couple years ago.

I just get the incandescent repair kits.

What do you call the 2400 lightbulbs? ;-)

I bought a 15 bulbs $10ea - last forever bulbs - for about $1 ea thanks to the local power company. That was about a year ago. All the bulbs have burned out by now except one in the garage door opener. So what else is new?

Are you surprised? If you want long lamp life you have to trade for low efficiency.

I have NEVER gotten touted lifetime out of one of those CFLs. Usually last a year. I get 18 months out of an incandescent. Last CFL started glowing red-hot at one of the tube leads and started the plastic base smoking. Might have had a fire if I'd had it on a timer and wasn't around. Stunk up the place for a couple of days

Phillips is smoking something. I've gotten Edison base LED lamps from Wal-Mart for $5, Lights-of-America or some brand like that. They're decorative bulbs, but just what I needed for the floor lamp. Have a clear envelope, used the air eraser on them and they work a whole lot better. Take the place of 40 watt, draw like 2 watts. Lifetime is waaay out there, have had them in constant daily use for a year with no problems.

Stan

How are you using them? You aren't supposed to use them base up, since it destroys the electrolytic capacitors.

What else do you expect from chinese junk?

I have some I've used in floor lamps for several years. 11W 'Sunbeam' brand from Dollar Tree stores.

Odd. My porch light that used up a 40 watt incandescent in 2-3 months had a 13 watt CFL last 23 months base up.

David

You need to read the fine print--"lasts 50 years (if used 5 minutes a year)".

Do they give the same illumination as a 40 watt though? A 3 watt Luxeon, one of the brightest 3 watt LEDs on the market, is about 80 lumens while a typical 40 watt bulb is around 400. Wally World does list one that gives 180 lumens at 4.5 watts for 18 bucks--that's less than a 25 watt GE.

The Phillips bulbs are intended to actually give the same amount of light as a 60-watt bulb.

Feits smoked on me 2 out of 3 times.

Air eraser? Sandblaster of some sort?!?

-- Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman

See:

't get the Paasche site up here. But yeah, a midget sandblaster in an airbrush format. HF has a mediocre chink knockoff for cheap, if you want to experiment. Frosts the clear plastic pretty well.

Stan

You're talking single-chip LED modules, these are much less high- tech. Just a whole bunch of regular white LEDs in parallel in a semi- fancy envelope. Want more light, stuff in more LEDs. The floodlight bulb replacements are very directional, a lot more so than the incandescents. They also have halogen replacements for those small bi- pin bulbs they like to use in track lighting. Unlike the CFLs, they don't care which end is up.

Stan

Have a heavy door that gets slammed a lot? Filaments don't like vibration. Rough duty bulbs can help with that.

Used to be they didn't recommend CFLs for enclosed fixtures, that's been changed for some makes. And the lifetime I've gotten is nowhere near the 5-7 YEARS they tout on the packages. The only way I can see getting that life is if they're stuck in a closet in the attic where nobody will ever turn it on. Since they base the purported energy savings on that lifetime, they're duds from the economic standpoint.

Stan

So, you're doing statistical comparisons with a sample of one?

Re: CFL life

Most of our bulbs ("lamps", to be technical) are used too irregularly to know the gained lifetime. But we have an outdoor pole light with a CFL in it that's on 6 hours a day, every day. The CFLs last years. I can't remember when I last changed it - at least 3 years, probably more (time slips by so fast when you're 70).

One datum does not make a sample, Bob

The 18 buck Wally World light has a single chip LED module? Do tell.

Sorry, but dim LEDs are not replacements for bright incandescents unless dim is what you're going for.

How else are you supposed to use a PAR36 pot-light bulb? Base up is the only way they CAN work. And mine generally are lasting just under a year. So far the one at the bottom of the steps into my "office" has been replaced 5 times (in 4 years). All Sylvania. I bought the first one - couldn't prove purchace date so I bought the second one - wrote the install date on it in magic marker and have not paid for the other

1. Still a royal pain in the arse. The incandescent it replaced was there for over 8 years. We've owned the house for 29 years and I THINK I replaced the bulb twice in the first 25 years.

[ ... ]

It depends on where it is. In the ceiling fixture in the foyer, incandescent lights have a lifetime similar to the third firecracker in a string. The vibration of walking on the floor above it causes incandescent filaments to weld shorts to shorten the length of the filament -- brighter light, much shorter lifetime.

There -- the CF lamps tend to last a lot longer than I've ever gotten an incandescent to last. Same for the lights in the kitchen, except that when it was redone, I had a large fluorescent fixture recessed into the ceiling. End of problem there.

I've now replaced all the remaining ceiling lights with CFs as well, and have a much longer lifetime. I even have CFLs as the machine tool illumination -- and they last longer there too, given the vibration involved.

What brand was that one? Sounds like a good one to avoid.

Enjoy, DoN.