I'm experiencing a "high fatality" rate for the CF lights (screw in,
edison base). Some of the failures are "mechanical", the bulb becomes
disjoint from the ballast, but a couple look electronic, as in the bulb
starts acting erratic (flickering, making popping sounds) then dies.
Anyone else experience this? Losing an $8 light bulb only 100 hours into
it's life sure puts a dent in the economics of CF lighting.
Can you tell us what brand/model and what sort of fixture these are in?
Some models have a high early failure rate and some brands have many
models that have high early failure rates and/or reliability problems in
general. And some fixtures are unsuitable for many models.
1. Many models by Lights of America have had high early failure rates and
reliability problems in my experience. If you search groups.google.com,
you will find many others complaining about them also.
There was a 25 watt spiral that I have bought with the L.O.A. brand and
also the GE brand. Those died young. GE is one of the "Big 3" and
usually sells better product than that one. I think there is a good
reason why in the past couple years I have seen 24 and 26 watt spirals but
no 25 watt ones.
I have seen 24 watt spirals in two sizes, the smaller one of which is
"mini". I bought a 24 watt mini spiral (Sunbeam brand) and it died young
in a fixture where heat built up just a little bit.
2. The problem may be operating compact fluorescents in fixtures where
heat builds up. Although compact fluorescents produce much less heat than
do incandescents of the same light output, they produce very little
infrared. Incandescents produce a lot of infrared, which means heat where
the infrared (and visible and other radiation) are absorbed. Compact
fluorescents produce only somewhat less non-radiant heat than do
incandescents of the same light output, and they can heat up fixtures
almost as much as incandescents of the same light output do.
Compact fluorescents that are intended to replace incandescents have
ballasts in them, and the ballasts are adversely affected by heat buildup.
Many compact fluorescents should not be used in recessed ceiling
fixtures. In fact, I would not put into a recessed ceiling fixture any
screw-in compact fluorescents other than the few that are stated to be
suitable for such duty. Small enclosed fixtures can also be problems.
In commercial office spaces, most recessed ceiling fixtures with compact
fluorescents are specifically designed for compact fluorescents and have
separate ballasts and take non-screw bulbs/lamps that do not have
ballasts.
- Don Klipstein (
[email protected])