Light bulb insanity

[Brian Elfert]

People are really looking for reasons not to like CFL and LED light bulbs if they complain about power circuits for lighting possibly being designed only to support CFL or LED light bulbs. Existing house and buildings will still have the same sized lighting circuits unless someone rewires them. Also, electric code still requires lighting circuits based on regular incandescent light bulbs. By the time electric code is rewritten to allow smaller lighting circuits, if it ever does, incandescent light bulbs will be but a distant memory.

The most likely change, if any, would be to allow lighting circuits to handle more fixtures. Code requires minimum of 15 amp circuits and that is unlikely to change any time soon.

[Ralph Sprang]

Ralph, I'd love to see the cost analysis you're using, I can't find much out there.

It's personal experience, really, based on cost analysis developed and shared working with lamp manufacturers on senior design projects.

A couple things, an LED is not just one component. To make an individual light emitting diode is a manufacturing process in itself.

Agreed, just like making the tungsten wire or glass required for an incandescent bulb.

It's missing a whole layer of construction to say that making an LED bulb requires only a base and an LED.

or that an incandescent bulb is just wire, glass, and base.

I agree that more parts don't equal more cost always, but generally they do.

Sorry, can't agree with you on that, especially when compared across product categories.

A computer costs more than a glass of milk, obviously more parts in the computer.

A diamond ring costs more than a computer, fewer parts - many, many contradictions, which is why the "rule" is not valid.

In the light bulb example though, I think I'm right, more parts equals more cost and more energy used.

Your opinion is as valid as anyone else's, and I'm just offering my understanding of electronics manufacturing.

There is profiteering going on for sure as well, so who knows how cheap LED's will get.

I think it's more about recovering development costs and long term net profit rather than "profiteering". The electronics market is an economic anomaly - they charge more when a product is introduced, because the market will pay it, and they make their profit at that point. Later, when they are selling the product at cost or a loss, the earlier profit averages out to a reasonable net profit over the life of the product.

[Ralph Sprang]

There is no mercury in an incandescent bulb.

There actually is mercury in an incandescent bulb - it's used in some of the processes to manufacture the filament and also the glass. Trace amounts end up in the bulb, but still more than is actually in a CFL. Here is a link to the EPAs page regarding mercury in CFLs http://www2.epa.gov/cfl/what-are-con...rcury-and-cfls.

Which do you think use more energy and resources to make. A single strand of tungsten or a myriad of electronics?

The single strand of tungsten, actually. May not be intuitively obvious to the casual observer, but well understood in the business.

Just to be clear - CFLs do require an electronic chip to drive them. LEDs often have a driver chip to facilitate dimming, but it is not required. Still, considering the component count approach suggested earlier in the thread, this adds only one component to the bulb. Incandescents required a holder for the filament, so parts cound remains about the same for all three lamp types.

[Leo Graywacz]

There actually is mercury in an incandescent bulb - it's used in some of the processes to manufacture the filament and also the glass. Trace amounts end up in the bulb, but still more than is actually in a CFL. Here is a link to the EPAs page regarding mercury in CFLs http://www2.epa.gov/cfl/what-are-con...rcury-and-cfls.

All I got out of that site page was they are confirming what I had said. They are taking into account the mercury from the power plant emissions into the equations.

[Ralph Sprang]

All I got out of that site page was they are confirming what I had said.

Did you catch the part where they point out a thermometer has 125 times the mercury in a thermometer? BTW, looked up the numbers, a can of tuna has in the range of 25% to 100% of the mercury in a CFL (depending on whose numbers you find more credible), while an incandescent has 4.6 times the mercury in a CFL (according to some sources). [Energystar attributes the mercury in incandescents to the power used (http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partner...et_Mercury.pdf), while other sources say that number represents the mercury in the bulb materials]

I think the key points are:
1. mercury content is not appreciably different between bulb types and is so small as to be essentially irrelevant.
2. Our mercury exposure from the food we eat is much greater than the possible exposure due to broken bulbs.
2. CFLs and LEDs save money and energy, in comparison to incandescents.

[Jeff Erbele]

I don't think the light bulb police are going to come to your house and arrest you for using incandescents (just yet anyway)

The new ban is on manufacturing them. Existing incandescents can be sold and used.

[Jeff Erbele]

I don't need a 25,000 hour light bulb on a center pivot that i'm sure a hail storm will destroy in several years.

Why do you need a light bulb on a center pivot, any light fixture?

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Jeff, it's an indicator light that lets you know when the timer that runs the end tower is on. Pivots are muddy, and it saves you a mile of slogging through mud at night if you can see that the circuit is working without physically driving to the pivot.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Ralph, I don't have the time to go find the numbers, but your conclusion that a can of tuna has more mercury than a cfl doesn't sound right.

Use the bulbs if you want, I don't care what you do with your money. The problem is that many care what I do with mine.

[Tom Stenzel]

Just to throw more fat on the fire,

I'm looking at a Ecosmart CFL and on the side it has:

120V 60Hz 14W 0.230A

The problem is that 0.23 amps at 120 volts is 27.6 watts. So which is it? The Feit CFLs have similar numbers but not quite as far apart as the Ecosmart.

It probably has something to do with the non-linearity of the current. Now that my interest is sparked (ahem), I intend to set up a test and look at the current waveform with my scope. I'd also l;ike to see what the in rush current is on power up.

Problem is I can't access all the stuff I need right now, and I'm headed back for another week-long in-patient chemo treatment soon. So nothing will happen for a couple weeks.

In the meantime, I'm saving tallow to make candles.

-Tom Stenzel

[Leo Graywacz]

Probably has a power factor multiplier.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Ralph, I'm bored at work, so did a little investigation. An average cfl has 3-5 mg of mercury in it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

Fish mercury levels are all over the place, dependant on their exposure, but using this info, .25 ppm looks about average for the fish sampled. http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguida...l-per-week.pdf

Using that, you can calculate that a cfl has MANY times more mercury in it than an average lake trout. I pick that one because it tastes good. I can't find the data for tuna specifically, but as the EPA says in this link, canned tuna is safe, some of the others have more. http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguida...vice_index.cfm

Just putting this out there to balance out the info.

[Anthony Diodati]

I just got notice of my power company's upcoming rate hike. It'll be 10% this year. This coincides with the outlawing of incandescent bulbs at the first of the year. Now I get the pleasure of not only having to pay a lot more for bulbs, but any savings that the new bulbs create is offset by another rate hike. I'm sure all parties meant well, but....

Yes, I'm venting.

I figured they would do that. So where is the savings
More garbage this country feeds us that you can't do a thing about.

[Pat Barry]

Ralph, I'm bored at work, so did a little investigation. An average cfl has 3-5 mg of mercury in it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

Fish mercury levels are all over the place, dependant on their exposure, but using this info, .25 ppm looks about average for the fish sampled. http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguida...l-per-week.pdf

Using that, you can calculate that a cfl has MANY times more mercury in it than an average lake trout. I pick that one because it tastes good. I can't find the data for tuna specifically, but as the EPA says in this link, canned tuna is safe, some of the others have more. http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguida...vice_index.cfm

Just putting this out there to balance out the info.

So, assuming you have 1 pound of fish (455 grams) - the 0.25ppm translates into .00011 grams = .11 mg of mercury per pound of fish. So you'd have to eat 30 to 50 pounds of fish to equal eating just 1 CFL lightbulb. Thank goodness I am bad at catching fish.

[Matt Meiser]

You all know you aren't supposed to eat CFL's, right?

Knock on wood, the early death issues seem to have stabilized in all but the 150W equivalent ones we use in the kitchen from Home Depot. They've done 3 warranty replacements on 2 bulbs in a year.