Export thread

The ban on 100-watt incandescent light bulbs is nearing in the United States. In January 2012 they won't be sold anymore. Does anyone know enough about the electrical side of things to dispel the FUD surrounding "$50 light bulbs"?

On another forum I came across these claims:

Having spent a lot of time and a lot of my company's money on studying alternative lighting, mostly to reduce maintenance costs, I can tell you that if you buy the $18 bulb you better be running UPS systems on your computers and high end electronics because they create a lot of reflected line noise and their light output is very harsh. The cheapest LED bulb that we found that had a tolerable light temperature and didn't dirty up the line power was $62 from phillips and instead of going down in price there is the possibility of them going up in price due to increasing demand on top of currently limited production.

Click to expand...

and

It is not the LEDs that generate the electronic noise, but the switching power supplies they use to reduce the 120 volt alternating current to a direct current of suitable voltage to operate the LEDs. Those power supplies generate electronic noise (hash) by internal switching semiconductors. Believe me, the electronic noise generated by switching power supplies, if operated near an AM radio, for instance, will drive you out of the room.

Click to expand...

To me these claims just scream bullshit. I can't find any corroborating articles on the matter. Nor does it even seem plausible that a cheap 8W light bulb is somehow more dangerous to my computer than a cheap 8W iPad charger. Plus, the whole "prices will rise" has to be total FUD. The semi-conductor industry doesn't work that way, does it? I can understand a temporary rise in price, but not long enough to worry about.

So, are LED light bulbs going to ruin us all? Do CFL bulbs actually put a greater "phantom" power drain on the grid than the incandescents they replace? Or are all these claims just bunk?

All I know is my Grandma replaced all her lights with CFL and experienced a noticable decrease in her bill, while my parents replaced a set of bulbs they had in an "annoying to replace spot" and found themselves needing to replace the CFLs more often.

So honestly I don't have a clue, don't really see why we need to ban the old lightbulbs, and can't really bring myself to care (I use 80W bulbs).
Added at: 16:03

Covar said:

All I know is my Grandma replaced all her lights with CFL and experienced a noticable decrease in her bill, while my parents replaced a set of bulbs they had in an "annoying to replace spot" and found themselves needing to replace the CFLs more often.

So honestly I don't have a clue, don't really see why we need to ban the old lightbulbs, and can't really bring myself to care (I use 60W bulbs).

Click to expand...

I switched my "frequent-use" bulbs to CFL, and knocked an average of $40 off my utility bill per month comparing the same months year-over-year (and electricity has actually gotten more expensive in my area per KW).

I don't even think we have old lightbulbs in the house anymore, my husband went on a buying spree one day and replaced everything. Pretty sure we haven't blown up any computers or anything...

I still have some incandescent bulbs, mostly in outlets that I don't use often. Also in the ceiling fan in my living room have clear bulbs in it. I don't know what I am going to do in another couple of years when 60watts go away. Because there just won't be any good looking bulbs to replace those.

The line noise is bunk, I have 3 60watt comparable cfls in my home office.

CFL life is basically determined by one factor: How often you turn them off and on, because turning them off and of reduces their life. If your turning on a light and leaving it on for an hour or more at a time, than CFLs are generally a good idea. However, if your only turning them on for like 5 minutes and then turning them off, your going to be going through them in about the same amount of time as a normal bulb.

Regardless, your always going to save money on power with CFLs over normal bulbs.

I still think banning incandescents is bunk... sometimes you just want a light that achieves peak brightness in a fraction of a second or one that works in extremely cold temperatures, or maybe one that just puts out a nice soft colour temperature instead of the harsh ones that most fluorescents do.

That said, I use fluorescents in most of the fixtures in my house.

I can't comment too much on the electrical noise generated by the ballasts but I do notice that if I'm playing my tube driven guitar amp on a circuit with fluorescent lights turned on I get a lot more noise and feedback. I haven't noticed it affect anything else though.

Well, they're (they being the feds, as individual states are a little different) not actually banning incandescents, they're legally phasing out the manufacture of bulbs of a particular wattage that falls outside a range of efficiency. Incandescent bulbs that fall within the range will still be 100% legal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs#United_States

Azurephoenix said:

I still think banning incandescents is bunk... .

Click to expand...

Well, I think it's bunk too, but for different reasons. I have a feeling that home lighting in a decade is going to look a lot like the flashlight market does now. No one banned incandescent flashlights, but you don't see many on shelves these days. A decade ago Maglite didn't even make an LED flashlight, and now their reputation has lost most of it's luster because they were so late getting an LED light on the market. At some point I think that home lighting is going to get to the same place. LEDs will become better, cheaper to run, more versatile and there just won't be any reason not to get them for most applications. It's where the industry is going. There was no need for a legislative push. The research into white LEDs was well underway for televisions and other reasons, and there will be numerous advantages when the technology is mature. (Especially if you're not trying to shoe-horn LEDs into existing fixtures. Imagine buying a desklamp built to house an LED, and how much better it could be because of that.)

I also wonder why there wasn't a tax on inefficient bulbs, rather than an outright ban.

figmentPez said:

(Especially if you're not trying to shoe-horn LEDs into existing fixtures.)

Click to expand...

Except you have to, unless your willing to rip up a house for the new fangled lighting fixtures... though i expect future houses will take into account the new LED design.

AshburnerX said:

Except you have to, unless your willing to rip up a house for the new fangled lighting fixtures... though i expect future houses will take into account the new LED design.

Click to expand...

I definitely see the need for LED light bulbs that screw into existing sockets, and I'm all for them being made, but I was talking bout portable "fixtures" (which, while a bit of an oxymoron still seems to be correct usage). Desk and floor lamps, especially, though track lighting would also likely benefit from being designed for LED bulbs, rather than being retrofit. If there weren't the legislation to push the need for something that fits in a standard socket, there would probably be a gradual adoption as the technology matured, starting in special purpose lighting (work lights, heavily stylized lamps, etc.), moving on to desk lamps (ugh, trying to reposition an incandescent lamp while it's hot!) and finally replacement bulbs when it's easier to do so.

I'm not going to write a long treatise here, but yeah, it's all FUD.

You can buy a cheap car, and it'll fall apart more quickly than an expensive car.

You buy a cheap CFL or LED bulb and you have the same issue.

Every electronic device creates line noise. Every electronic device accepts and deals with line noise. It's a fact of life in the cheap lane. Generally this won't affect you or your electronic devices.

High efficiency incandescent bulbs are available now (for instance, there are many halogen bulbs that meet the first goals), so incandescent bulbs aren't going away, they are simply getting to be more efficient.

Also, the price is going to keep dropping. Even the high end $60 bulbs now will be $12 in a year or three simply due to mass manufacturing. Still expensive compared to $0.50 incandescent bulbs, but there's always going to be a $0.50 bulb - Walmart, etc are going to make sure of that.

Regulation is a tricky subject. I'm not a big fan of regulation for regulation's sake, but I think that in this case, for many reasons, the regulation is not unreasonable.

AshburnerX said:

Except you have to, unless your willing to rip up a house for the new fangled lighting fixtures... though i expect future houses will take into account the new LED design.

Click to expand...

Say what? I've replaced light fixtures in my house before. Replacing an incandescent fixture was a damn sight easier than replacing a long-ass fluorescent fixture. Little "ripping up" involved.

DarkAudit said:

Say what? I've replaced light fixtures in my house before. Replacing an incandescent fixture was a damn sight easier than replacing a long-ass fluorescent fixture. Little "ripping up" involved.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but how many people do you see doing that in their homes? How many businesses? You can never underestimate the lengths people will go to in order to avoid doing work.

AshburnerX said:

CFL life is basically determined by one factor: How often you turn them off and on

Click to expand...

And how the power supply is built. CFLs don't usually work well in recessed cans (or any other 'base-upwards' position) because the heat gets trapped in the area of the PSU and so it burns out sooner. Not because the bulb went bad, but because the regulation circuitry burned out.

Also, you may have heard that CFLs contain mercury and require special disposal. This is true, but old-fashioned incandescents have always contained heavy metals (tungsten, lead) and should be considered hazardous waste also.

(This article was a big deal on Kati's cooking forum a few months ago. It sparked quite the hot debate)

--Patrick

I for one will not miss the EZ-bake oven...

Good-bye chocolate flavored hockey pucks.

PatrThom said:

Also, you may have heard that CFLs contain mercury and require special disposal. This is true, but old-fashioned incandescents have always contained heavy metals (tungsten, lead) and should be considered hazardous waste also.

Click to expand...

My dad's pet peeve, since he's a measurement specialist in the pipeline industry, is that mercury containing bulbs are being encouraged as eco-friendly, but they've stopped the use of mercury in thermometers, even for professionals. I agree with him that it's ridiculous to think that a thermometer, which lasts indefinitely, is somehow a greater threat than light bulbs which are guaranteed to burn out at some point.

That aside, I also find it interesting that people love to ignore the costs of power besides how many cents per kilowatt hour. Most of the energy in this country still comes from coal, and the amount of mercury released from coal powering incandescent bulbs during the lifespan of a CLF is many times greater than the amount of mercury in the CLF itself. That doesn't make me any happier about putting a CFL in a child's room (I broke so many lightbulbs as a kid!) but it's a pretty good counter to "people will never recycle CFLs and they'll just go into landfills!".

The amount of mercury in a single bulb is inconsequential, but the amount in a mercury thermometer is significant in terms of environmental impact.

The reason people want bulbs disposed of properly is that once they start to aggregate in landfills, the cumulative effect becomes large enough to worry about.

Reality is, though, that with all the other stuff we're just tossing (electronics, batteries, etc) that the mercury in bulbs is still insignificant.

stienman said:

The amount of mercury in a single bulb is inconsequential, but the amount in a mercury thermometer is significant in terms of environmental impact.

Click to expand...

Yes, the amount of mercury in a thermometer (and other types of measuring equipment, like hydrometers) is greater than a single lightbulb, but it's also sealed away in glass and intended to stay that way for as long as possible. The measuring devices are never just thrown away, they don't wear out, and if they break they're on a job-site with clean-up procedures. Break a fluorescent bulb at home, break a hundred, no-one will care (except maybe Youtube). Break an expensive piece of measuring instrument? Yeah, someone is going to take notice. There's a much greater incentive to keep track of the mercury in industrial equipment than there is in consumer electronics. It's absurd to deny industry the best version of essential tools just because it might be mishandled (in spite of financial incentive not to), while encouraging consumers to buy products with the same element in them, knowing full well that they will be mishandled in large numbers with little or no discouragement.

True, true.

Also, it's already pretty impossible to find the right lightbulbs for EZ bake ovens, even incandescents put out less heat than they once did, and the reason I didn't get one for my daughter was the sheer number of complaints by people who had to modify baking instructions to compensate.

Dei said:

Also, it's already pretty impossible to find the right lightbulbs for EZ bake ovens, even incandescents put out less heat than they once did, and the reason I didn't get one for my daughter was the sheer number of complaints by people who had to modify baking instructions to compensate.

Click to expand...

Be a true geek and build her a solar oven to bake in!

Skip the ezbake oven and teach 'em how to use the regular stove and oven. The age group meant for the ezbake oven are generally competent enough in the kitchen with proper instruction and warning.

Seriously. I was unimpressed that first time I saw one of those commercials. Mom was already teaching me to bake for real by then.

She's actually going to cooking camp in June. Yay cooking camp for 5 year olds.

I am now using CFL in all of my house and based on the latest bill the replacement saved me some dollars. I will never go back to the old lightbulbs.