Talk:Compact fluorescent lamp

vs. LEDs

This is a continuation of a dicussion that began on my talk page. I changed an edit to match what the reference says--that 100 lm/W LEDs have been made in the lab--rather than to say that they are available. Another editor found some that have just become available that are are 100 lm/W, and changed the article back to claiming that they are available. That reference needs to go in the article in order to retain the claim that they are available, so I put a tag there as a placeholder for the new reference that I assume he's planning to put in. I also added a reference that lists efficacy of actual LED products that are much lower than the LEDs themselves, which is a more relevant reference point for this article, although it's useful to know that in the future LEDs could at least in principle be made competitive.Ccrrccrr (talk) 23:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

It would also be important to distingish lumens per watt of electrical input at the terminals of a practical lamp that could be sold at a hardware store in a lamp expected to last thousands of hours, vs. lumens per watt input at the junction for a diode sitting on a solid silver heatsink in a bath of liquid nitrogen that lasts for microseconds. A physics experiment is not a lighting altenative. Ligting efficacy figures must include all the ballast losses. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I extended your recent addition to include more of this, at risk of having more here than we should (should be in the solid state lighting article).Ccrrccrr (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

This is somewhat strong, a practical lamp could be made that emits over 100lm/W with LEDs. It would use the most efficient available LEDs, perhaps slightly under-run (0.7W or so each), on a modest heatsink, with a 90% efficient ballast.

However, this would not be commercially viable, as it's _lots_ cheaper if you're wanting 600lm (even if you're aiming for OK efficiency) to run the LEDs at 3W, not 0.7W, as you need 1/4 of the number of them, and the power used only goes up by 1.5* or so. And the ballast won't be 90% efficient in a realistic fixture either.

I'd ballpark a 1600lm cool white (~100W incandescant equivalent) LED lighting fixture taking 16W to drive it at ~$100 cost, neglecting profit. I've added language after the LED claim and reworded the DOE ref somewhat.

I need to find a nice citeable source for the 100lm/W figure, not a synthesis. http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1227101620851 is interesting, though not relevant (prototype 160lm/W LEDs). LEDs are fun devices in some ways, but they are certainly not ready for 'ordinary light bulb' replacement yet. --Speedevil (talk) 10:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

We're not supposed to do original research here; it would be best to find examples of LED light products and manufacturer's quoted efficacy (lumens of white light vs. electrical watts input). Seoul Semiconductor was claiming a new record at 90 lumens/watt in Feb. 2008 (see for example http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS225604+26-Feb-2008+MW20080226 )in what looks to be something like a commercial product, not a lab experiment...but I haven't seen this incorporated into an actual product. This article should just point at the solid-state lighting article and not get too far into details - that's what links are for. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

OR in the article - no - OR as an illustrative point on the talk page I don't see a problem with. Of course only citeable stuff should be on the article.

Having said that, what about a form of words something like: LEDs are dramatically increasing in efficiency, improving 5 times over the last 3(?) years. (ref luxeons first product to the current cree), and decreasing in price for given brightness. However, as of 2009, LED lighting products are typically at best as efficient as CFLs, and more expensive, though both of these may change. (ref: DOE, that link I found on 'upcoming 100lm/w' lighting solutions) For more information see LED lighting.

going into lumens/watt figure raises all sorts of issues, and is probably not really appropriate in here, plus something similar to the above words is shorter, which is almost always good.

--Speedevil (talk) 17:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Number agreement

User Wtshymanski seems to want to edit-war with me over the stupidest thing. Can someone just cast an eye over this and see if I'm going mad. The article currently says, "Some manufacturers make CFL bulbs with [foo]. The manufacturer claims that [bar]". As part of a general copyedit I changed this to, "Some manufacturers make CFL bulbs with [foo]. It is claimed that [bar]". It seems obvious that, without checking the entire history, this used to say, "One manufacturer makes CFL bulbs with [foo]. The manufacturer claims that [bar]", and the first half was later pluralised, leaving the second not reading right. I refuse to break the three-revert rule over Wtshymanski's argument with this, but why should this one silly detail be left in a mess because of his edits? Maybe someone who gives-a-damn can find a short wording that is neither passive nor blatantly wrong, to make him happy? Jeez. --Nigelj (talk) 16:40, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

In the time it took you to type that, you could have checked the reference and fixed both sentences. The reference says there's only one manufacturer claiming this. Stamp out passive voice wherever you find it. Relax, it's only Wikipedia. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:05, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

TiO2 coating

Who else makes it? Is there any third-party testing that shows the purported effect actually works? --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Excessive overlapping

I propose a new article to discuss the perceived issues with fluorescents (which would include CFL's). This article, and the Fluorescent lamp article both have extensive sections which mirror each other and in many parts are verbatim (compare this with this. Thus I suggest merging those issues into one new article. What do you think? Nja247 (talk • contribs) 08:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

What kind of issues? There should at least be a more devoted and comprehensive section on health issues, manufacturing quality, etc. Freefighter (talk) 23:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You have completely missed my point. I'll work on this later and you'll see what I was talking about. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 06:22, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you were talking about now. I agree with your proposal. My point is that the two articles from which you wish to extract the similar sections seem to be one-sided. Criticisms/issues are not as visible as the rest of the information in the articles. They seem to give a one-sided picture of the subject. Will you be leaving small sections in each of the articles about issues with a link to the main issue article? Freefighter (talk) 22:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Health risks of Compact fluorescent lamps

Has any research been done to evaluate the safeness of CFLs? I have briefly searched through some academic databases and found no papers on safety. Someone, direct me in a good direction. 24.141.172.175 (talk) 23:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There is good evidence of the health effects discussed fully on the fluorescent lamp article. However, I have just added information on safety in hallways, but more could be added about other deleterious health effects. Peterlewis (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Why not-for-the-color-blind category?

This article is tagged with Category:Articles with images not understandable by color blind users. Why? Is it because of the photograph comparing several lit bulbs and discussing color temperature? If so, we should strike the category, IMO, because the purpose of the category is to get the articles 'cleaned up' so they can be more color-blind-friendly; but this is applicable mostly to graphs or charts that are unnecessarily unfriendly, and a color temperature comparison photo can never be 'cleaned up' in this way, or you may as well tag every article containing any photo containing both green and red colors. Tempshill (talk) 05:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm severely colour blind and this article contains no non-understandable images. Indeed, it should be commended for the use of symbols in the "Electricity use by bulb type" image. Removing from category. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, sorry for the delay. Andrew Oakley (talk) 22:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Flourescent Inventor

Who is credited for inventing the flourescent bulb? In what country does the inventor belongs? Please provide as soon as possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.95.240.102 (talk) 13:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Mercury sourcing

I've removed Investigate as a source [1]. Investigate is a fringe source, publishing Intelligent Design supporting articles and global warming conspiracy/'Darwinism' conspiracy articles so in no way can it be construed a reliable source for scientific claims. (Most of the other articles aren't much better but I digress.) Editors who disagree are welcome to take this to WP:RS/N or WP:WikiProject New Zealand Nil Einne (talk) 16:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I've also fact tagged this [2]. It sounds like it was written by someone who has no idea what they're talking about. Chronic exposures are usually set well below the level that is believed to likely to result in any significant negative effect. An exposure 300x the limit sounds bad, but it depends how often and how long you are exposed. For example if you are exposed for around 30 minutes each day for 30 days, that means you are exposed to 900 minutes of 300x limit. Presuming an immediate drop off to normal levels (unlikely but for simplicity) that means you're exposed to the equivalent 270k minutes of exposure at the limit. That means you're exposed to 187.5 days of equivalent exposure at the limit. In other words, it's like you've added 187.5 days to you're life in terms of mercury. Bad but not necessarily the immediate disaster the article makes out. The bigger concern is whether such an exposure might have acute effects as well as whether such an exposure might cause problems for people sensitive to the effects of mercury like children. In other words, while there is concern, it's a lot more nuasanced then that sentence makes out and it's mostly a case of we don't know. This is reflected in the Maine study which says "Finally, it is unclear what the exact health risks are from exposure to low levels of elemental mercury, especially for sensitive populations, so advising for the careful handling and thoughtful placement of CFLs may be important". In other words, the section needs to be drasticly improved with reliable sourcing. Sadly I don't have any so I can't do it. Nil Einne (talk) 16:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, I just removed the claim it was hazardous and instead added the more nuasanced position of the Maine DEP study, that we don't know what the health risks are. Nil Einne (talk) 16:26, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Mercury Graphic Needs Updating

That data is for older CFLs, today's CFLs contain much less mercury and use less energy. The graph should be updated with the latest US DOE data which states that CFLs contain 0.4mg of mercury and release 1.2mg of mercury from electrical use over their lifetime. Versus 5.8mg of mercury used by an incandescent bulb.

http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf (Pages 1-2) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jared999 (talk • contribs) 19:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Jared999:

The graph should be indeed updated, or rather removed, as it is misleading - wrongly assuming that ALL electricity is generated by mercury-rich coal.

Also - it is easy to filter out mercury at a coal station (and some do), but hard to avoid it when you break a fluorescent bulb at home (you sould leave the room for 15 minutes to avoid inhaling the mercury vapor, according to a Sunday Times article).

I don't quite understand your numbers, they actually release more mercury than they contain?? And what about when they break?

Xmedh02 (talk) 21:48, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

"Other CFL technologies" needs citation for CCFLs

This is a great article, very informative. But I think the "Other CFL Technologies" section is in dire need of a citation for the passage that discusses cold cathode fluorescent (CCFL) technology. There is very little on the 'Net that provides information of the relative efficiency of CCFLs. This article is the only one I found. CCFLs are an exciting alternative to conventional CFLs because of the quality of light they emit. (There is more to light quality than Kelvins.) So it is important to know how the author came up with the figure of "half that of CFLs".Star-lists (talk) 22:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

"greenhouse gas" stuff

we need to leave the CO2-greenhouse gas references out of the article since the entire idea of CO2 being a greenhouse gas is still unproven and falling from favor. Please limit text to verifiable facts such as power savings, ROI improvements and such. There are more than enough valid and documentable reasons to use CFLs without delving into bad science. Ken (talk) 04:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense. --Nigelj (talk) 17:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

dangers

Some of these lightbulbs will cause housefires if connected to a dimmer switch http://www.wusa9.com/news/living_green_now/story.aspx?storyid=83615&catid=175 and because of the type of light that these lightbulbs emit, senior citizens who have had cataract replacement surgery cannot use them due to the loss of their natural eye lens. rumjal 11:09, 7 April 2009 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rumjal (talk • contribs)

Why am I not allowed to include this paragraph?

I have provided a soruce from an engineer trade magazine. How much better of a source can I get? QUOTE: However recent studies show CFLs may not save as much energy as indicated, due to their reactive power nature, forcing power companies to expend energy to balance the load. In other words, the actual energy reduction is only 50% rather than 75% -. "Their real load was about twice that implied by their wattage." ---- Theaveng (talk) 15:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Because it's from a blog. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 15:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Um... no. It's from the magazine of a website called Engineering Design News. Would you prefer I dig-up my paper copy and link to that instead? Would that make it acceptable, because I can certainly do that. ---- Theaveng (talk) 15:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, cite the paper copy of the magazine. Because the URL you cited definitely contained "/blog/" within the URI. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 15:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not just the blog issue. The cited column does not support the claims you make in the deleted text. You are drawing conclusions (OR) from an offhand account of one conversation that are not warranted. The full paragraph reads: "Coincidentally, after our email exchange I ran into Mike Grather of Luminaire Testing Laboratory. He recently ran a series of life-cycle and performance tests on a batch of 100 CFLs with various power ratings averaging approximately 20W each. They assumed a PF for the lights of at least .75 and sized the power supply at 3KVA. However, when they powered up the bank of CFLs, the 3KVA supply was inadequate. Grather checked the power factor for the CFLs and found they ranged from .45 to .50. Their “real” load was about twice that implied by their wattage." In other words, they needed a power supply with a higher KVA rating, i.e. since voltage is fixed, one that could supply more current. KVA rating in NOT power consumption. That is what power factor is all about. In fact column describes a conversation with the EPA where it is stated that CFL power factor effects are in the noise level in terms of impact. --agr (talk) 16:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

This article appears pro-CFL biased

It mentions all the positive aspects of CFLs, but not the drawbacks like overheating (and dying) when installed for enclosed lighting fixtures, or inability to ignite if the temperature drops below freezing (porch lights), or the poor power factor which leads a 0.5 PF 15 watt CFL to draw 30 volt-amps versus 60 volts-amps for an incandescent. These things should be cited and added to the wiki-article.