I've had mixed luck with CFLs

[Orrex]

Although they're marketed with the claim that they last 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 years, I've had quite of few of them burn out in under a year. Yes, incandescent bulbs could burn out just as quickly, but CFLs cost four and five times as much as an incandescent bulb. And if they burn out after less than a year of normal use, then I don't have time to recoup the $48 that the CFL is alleged to save me.

Anyway, last night a 10-month-old CFL started doing this sort of strobing effect, so I decided that it was time to swap it out. I didn't have another CFL on hand, so I put in a regular bulb of equivalent wattage. However, the odd thing is that when I unscrewed the CFL and was carrying it across the room, it lit up several times in my hand, to full brightness.

"That was pretty weird, Dad," noted my young son.


Indeed it was. How did it do this?

:wtf:

[FloridaJudy]

1. Uncle Fester, is that you? eom

[Deja Q]

2. before they became a fad, I bought them all the time. In the late-90s,

they were cheaper and went out before their time.

I've had good luck since the early-2000s... these days I use the simulated sunlight (6500k) lamps. Nice bright white light. People think I'm violating electric code, with that brightness. (the sockets are rated for 60 but I'm only using 25, no problems on that...)

[ElboRuum]

3. Do you have high-tension power lines near your house? n/t

[armyowalgreens]

4. Stored energy? Something excited the gases.

[Gold Metal Flake]

5. It's not that they burn out like an incandescent.

I've had problems with many of mine. Mostly the globe types. If you bat the inop ones around a little, they may start working again. Why? Read on.

These bulbs have a lot of guts. They have the base contacts which are connected to a circuit board ballast by wires. The board is connected to the bulb element by wires. The wires are soldered into eyelets on the circuit board. It is almost always at those solder connections (or solder joints) where the problems happen.

A solder joint must be made correctly or it may fail. A common problem with a solder joint is where the solder wire or the copper trace at the eyelet or both are not heated sufficiently. The solder is melted by the soldering iron and forms a ball around the wire but does not coat it or the eyelet completely. It sort of sticks the wire to the eyelet like a blob of hot glue, but it is not a proper solder joint. Through the action of operating the bulb and the board become hot. Repeated hot/cold cycles work the cold joint loose and the bulb becomes intermittent or inoperative.

I have repaired the ordinary CFLs before by opening the base and resoldering the wires, but I have about 10 of the decorative bulb types that failed within a year and in order to fix those I would have to Dremel windows into the base. I just have other things to do.

So, the problem with CFLs is lack of quality control. The right wing message masters put out all of that fear shit about mercury (regular fluorescent bulbs have mercury, too. All of these years.) when all they needed to say to discredit energy saving advice was to say CFLs are unreliable. But, then again, republicans can't tell the truth, ever.


Pic of cold solder joint:

[SoxFan]

6. What's the problem?

Oh. Nevermind.