Vitiare: I like em, but the color temperature is still off. Specifically its around 5,600K versus daylight of 3,200K


Daylight is about 5500K. Incandescent lights are around 3000K or a bit under, which gives them that warm glow.

These lights are awesome, especially the new ones.

My only problem is when I turn on the kitchen light that has one in the morning and it takes time to warm up. Sometimes I wonder if it is just the light, or me having a stroke...

sylaak: It lacks the warm glow of incandescent lighting.


You think incandescent has a warm glow? You should try whale oil. Now THAT'S a warm glow!

I have a couple in places that only need to be lighted well enough to 'not be dark' but anyplace I actually plan on being able to see or am going to spend any time in, not a chance.

Heh. I guess I'm the only one who read CFL and immediately thought Canadian Football League.

I replaced all the bulbs in my house with CFLs. They rock.

One thing that people need to understand is that CFLs vary a lot in quality from brand to brand, and they vary a lot in the color output as well. You cannot make a valid blanket statement that they all suck for most of the reasons given in this thread just because you tried them and thought they sucked, because they vary a ton. If you get good ones, they will be instant-on, won't make any sound, won't flicker or oscillate perceptibly, will last for years, and will have very warm color that you would have a very hard time distinguishing from an incandescent bulb if it were in a lamp shade and the bulb wasn't visible. But you need to try different kinds before you dismiss them all.

Another thing that bugs me is that people seem to automatically reject a newer technology like this simply because it is DIFFERENT from what they are used to. Yes, they may not work quite the same as incandescents. But they are still a good idea and can save you money and the environment from being polluted as much.

I wish they came in "bright white" variety instead of only "soft white".. soft white=yellow

I still use them all over my house, there is zero startup delay, the brightness does not change at all that I have ever detected, and I don't know about this 60 hertz business, but I work on computers, and I can spot a pc set at 60hz from across the room, and I have never noticed anything of the sort, including when I'm reading books/magazines. I think mine are all GE brand. I got a bunch of 60's for inside the house and a pair of 75's for my two porch lights, and this was May of 2004 when I moved into my house. I have not had a single light go out yet, and my family is a bunch of night-owls, so we have run them non-stop in some rooms from dawn until 1-2 am almost daily for over 2 years.

I am a *FIRM* believer and proponent of florecent bulbs. I only wish I had run the house on regular bulbs for a while so I could have noticed the electricity bill drop.

dj4aces: My front porch lamp would kill a standard incandescent bulb in 1-2 weeks. I replaced it with a CFL 3 years ago, and it's still going. Sounds like you just got a bad batch.


Interesting. Must be because it's outdoors. Typical incandescent lights last about 10000 hours so it should last a bit over a month if you leave it on 24 hours a day.

If only they fit in my enclosed glass outdoor lighting.

For all of those people on here who are complaining about the quality of light, etc., in very specific situations, the answer is simple. Use whatever bulb you want to while reading or masturb8ing.

Use the flourescent bulbs in the places that don't matter, though ... like your garage, or in that front porch light that never gets used, etc.

Also, my girlfriend, who has been a staunch defender of "good ol' bulbs," citing the quality of light, is starting to come around. Just this morning, she was saying that we should put more flourescents in the bathroom, by the mirror (our frame takes 4 bulbs). Why? Well, because the incandescents light her on fire. I don't stand in fron of the mirror that much, but for females who use makeup and such, maybe the low temperature is a plus.

Oh, and it's good for when you want to change the bulb out, too ... you don't have to turn off a flourescent buld and wait for 20 minutes so it will cool enough to touch it.

Bah ... I love 'em. We don't use them in every single room, but they're slowly overtaking the house. Haven't had to replace one yet ... and it's been several years.

WinCo had them on sale for .88 per 23 watt bulb the other day. It's as bright as a 100w incandescent. Sweetness!

Thanks to my CFL bulbs, my ceiling fans, my programmable thermostat and my lack of a southern exposure, my total electric bill for June, July and August was $250. Total cost for the bulbs and the thermostat was $100. The fans came with the house.

And that's just for the summer. The highest electric bill I had all winter was December's $35.

The quality does vary a lot.

GEs are really good, but in one style of fixture, Globes were better.

Guysmiley: You think incandescent has a warm glow? You should try whale oil. Now THAT'S a warm glow!


I like the firelight. I have a couple oil lamps that I use occasionally. They don't use whale oil of course. I believe it's kerosene that is packaged as "lamp oil".

DaShredda: I need correct color temperature

no shiat, huh? the bullshiat excuses in here are sickening.

CFB light bulb?

Is that like the ATM machine or the DVD disc?

/NO-I think its more like PIN number

Assgasket
Because you bought the cheap ones?
I have yet to to see a good one flicker and I set my moniters to 85hz to aviod that. In addition I can't even stand to watch a dlp tv becasue of the rainbow effect, so I usually notice that type of stuff.

Maybe you think they suck becasue you think they suck therefore when you see them you convince yourself they suck?

Really why would you want a yellow ass incandescent light?
The simple solution to this is to make incandescant bulbs illegal.

Oh and as to the amount of mercury in CFBs it is so low that the EPA does not consider them to be hazardous material. Yet, you should still recycle them.

I cut down my monthly power consumption to under 250 kWh after I put in CFLs, which costs me 25 bucks. Pretty decent

Assgasket: Then how come they still flicker and look like ass?

I've been using them for nearly 10 years and I haven't noticed any issues with flickering. If the bulbs I've used produced any significant flicker it would have definitely showed stroboscopic effects on the ceiling fans where some of them were installed like you see when they're illuminated by just the TV.

The quality of the light is a pretty subjective matter. I myself prefer CFL to plain incandescent bulbs (incandescents look dull to me) but prefer halogen spots in the kitchen for the their whiteness and spot lighting effect. There probably is never going to be one type of light that is ideal for all applications.

If you don't know what color temperature is, and you think that the lighting in your house looks fine with CF, then fine, knock yourself out. I personally think they make a room feel terrible...my dad put some of these in the living room of my parents' house and the first time I walked in I noticed instantly. Nasty cool blueish light instead of the warm glow of incandescent. I'm sure there are better ones out there, but I'll stick to regular or GE's Reveal incandescents (which seem slightly more "blue" than regular bulbs, so they put out a more white light instead of the reddish light of a standard incandescent -- still WAY warmer than most fluorescents, though).

My old apartment had fluorescent lighting in the bathrooms (above a dropped ceiling). There is no better place to see the difference in light -- look in the mirror. Skin tones look awful (green/yellow) under fluorescent.

I'd use CF bulbs in a laundry room, closet, utility room, etc...but not anywhere where I would want to relax or groom myself or eat, no matter how much money I could be saving.

SilverSpecV
Online you can find them in any color temp you like.
http://www.bulbs.com/products/product.asp?class=600
They sell lots of nice bulbs. Not linking it so I don't seem like I am pimping them.

Uncle Karl: Really why would you want a yellow ass incandescent light?

Personal preference? Why would anyone want to eat nasty ass bananas?

The simple solution to this is to make incandescant bulbs illegal.

If you believe this, then lets make CF bulbs illegal. LED bulbs use *far* less power.

Q: How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, it's a hardware problem.

Litespeed - think again. The new generation of bulbs have identical light to incandescents.

2006-08-30 12:01:16 PM mildmildwest

Meh.....dang hippies try to ruin everyone's good time. Next thing you're gonna tell me is that smoking cigarettes and driving my 13mpg V6 around isn't helping the environment.

I hope you mean 13mpg V8... unless there's something horribly wrong with your motor. I have a 20 year old 300ZX with a turbocharged V6, and it'd been modified. I still average around 20mpg.

/sorry for the OT
//car nerd
///uses CFB's
////and slashies

sylaak: Typical incandescent lights last about 10000 hours so it should last a bit over a month if you leave it on 24 hours a day.

10000 hours in a month?

I wish that you worked in my payroll department.

serpent_sky
I was serious.

I think that such sort wasteful devices, both in energy usage and in short life, should not be legal. Plus their use causes us to import a lot of tungsten.

LiTeSp3eD: If you don't know what color temperature is, and you think that the lighting in your house looks fine with CF, then fine, knock yourself out.
Compact fluorescent bulbs are available in a whole range of light spectrum output (actually, there are more choices than in incandescents since they can vary the color just by changing the type of phosphors). Color "temperature" is not directly applicable to fluorescent bulbs anyway, because they are not a black-body light source.

Try the globe-type CFLs. They use a little more power than other compact fluorescents, but they look just like incandescents.

Vitiare: I like em, but the color temperature is still off. Specifically its around 5,600K versus daylight of 3,200K

And naturally, most of the lights in my house are recessed and use a different style lamp, so I cant use CFBs for most of the stuff.

I switched over our porch light and it works nice, but that blue color gets annoying.


Errr, Sunrise and sunset is 3200K but a normal sunny day is more 6000K. All the big brands of CFLs come in different temp ranges, we have 3200, 5200 and 6500 CFLs available here. 3200 is closest to what an incandescent puts out.

/Just FYI

Uncle Karl: They sell lots of nice bulbs. Not linking it so I don't seem like I am pimping them.


Interesting. I'd be willing to give a 2700K CF a shot. It's nice that they even have the multi-watt style bulbs.

CFLs give you headaches, serpent??

vliam: 10000 hours in a month?

I wish that you worked in my payroll department.


Blind faith in calculators. I dropped a zero when I was trying to put in 10000. My bad. Over a year then :)

Normal incandescents should have a 1000 hour lifespan, but they're very sensitive to surges, even minor ones. All it takes is a tiny bit more juice to melt that wire. In my old house, normal bulbs only lasted about a month or so in a few of the light fixtures. I think there was a circuit that wasn't too good, it may have been run along the 220V washer/dryer circuit.

Anyhoo... I'm in the process of replacing all the normal bulbs in my new house for CFLs. You CAN buy varying colors of them. The daylight ones can be weird because they're such a bright white, but you can also find the 2700k yellowish versions.

I just built a new house, put them everywhere. My elec bill is lower than in my previous house of about half the size. Also, bought the instant start variety for about $1 a bulb in bulk.

CFBs are way better than the old tube bulbs, but true, the color temp is different. Not that big a deal to me, unless I'm taking pictures and regular bulbs aren't good for that either.

I've been replacing my incandescent bulbs with them, and in 6 years I've never replaced a CFB. I did notice one making a little buzz, but I had to have my head within a foot or so in a perfectly quiest room.

JJ Money: CFLs give you headaches, serpent??

Staying under flourescents all day can trigger migranes for me. I'm only in my office for about 4 hours a day, so it really hasn't been too much of a problem.

sylaak
By far less you mean for a single LED yes, but once you rate the whole fixtures (since they have lots of LEDS in them) in lumens/watt is not as big a difference. CFLs make about 50lumens/watt and LEDs do about 70lumens/watt. I realize some LEDs claim to have done better but I am talking only about production models.

If your plan makes LEDs and only more efficient light bulbs legal than I am in full support.

I've had these for years. The new ones don't flicker or take time to get brite. You cannot tell the difference between incandescant bulbs except on your energy bill. Yes it is true that the old ones take a minute to get brite and take a second to turn on. Just replace them. I've had mine for around five years and have only had to replace one, and none of them flicker, take time to warm up, have funny light color, or take a second to turn on.

Actually, I have a swirly bulb in my 2 socket light fixture in my bedroom. The other socket usually gets a regular lightbulb... my third or fourth one just burnt out a couple days ago, but the swirly is so damn bright, I didn't really notice.

I don't really notice any delay in it, as complained about by some other posters. :D

Pretty sweet, after all.

I'm quite sure that the correct CFs make a *huge* difference over most of the ones I've experienced (which are, honestly, awful)...Some people just don't notice that type of thing. I'm still not convinced I would use them in my bathroom vanity, though.

sylaak: Blind faith in calculators.

Calculator?

Waste of electricity if you ask me.

CFL's are great, but you can't dim them, what fun is that? I'm waiting for cheap LED lights that are dimmable.

sylaak: Staying under flourescents all day can trigger migranes for me. I'm only in my office for about 4 hours a day, so it really hasn't been too much of a problem.
Not all fluorescents are equal. I get migraines too, and crappy cheap office fluorescent lighting with magnetic ballasts bothers me too. The electronically switched ones (like CFLs, and most newer tube-style fixtures) do not. I do think there were some magnetic-ballest CFLs in the past, but they aren't made much anymore. It's the magnetic ones that are known for pulsating light and buzzing/humming sounds.

I don't like old tube flourescents at all. But I can't tell the difference between CFLs and incandescent bulbs. The slash to the energy use, and the resultant savings, make it totally worthwhile.

Whereas having most of the lights on in my house used to burn well over 1 kW, I can have the place lit up as much as I want for the equivalent energy usage of only a few incandescents.

Kim Jong B Illin: You can get dimmable CFLs.

serpent_sky
From office lighting I believe, that is at 60hz, but you mean to tell me you can notice a flicker at 10khz? That is utter bullshiat. This is a psychosomatic thing. Just like people who say powerlines give them headaches or cell phone towers.