I got hese yesterday from mail:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/230793300741?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&\_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
Well, at least they are far better than the ones I got over a year ago for similar price.
Tint is pretty warm but bearable.
They light up straight away, which can be a plus.
They make some less light, compared to 7W CFL yet they heat up almost the same.
The shade of the lamp stays 4Celcius cooler when these are in.
CRI is by eye worse, than with 940 fluorescent but that should not surprise anyone.
If you need E14 socket lights to light up fast but no High Quality light is needed measured by CRI, these might well be a good option.
BTW, they look terrible.
4 CFL for 0.97$ ?? 
here 1 CFL cost around 3-5$ 
national tv (NBC) was promoting a “go green” iniative for xmas by converting all of the incan xmas lights to led. something i have done a long time ago. i think the case has been made here that led household lighting is still not there wrt cost effectiveness however there are other variables at play and since i do not mind paying more i choose to go led and anxiously await the time when leds replace cfls. if cost effectiveness were the only variable in choosing lights we would all be buying 800 lumen flashlights that cost no more than $12. 
and really the name of the forum should be changed to budget led light forum since leds are the priniple topic for discussion with the occasional hid thrown in.
ken
First, I call it “The Disinterested Third Party Fallacy”: The mistaken notion that some (any) third party, other than the two of us, can make a better decision about what’s best for you and for me. And you know what we get from fallacious reasoning…
I want to help you keep your fingers!!
As far as LEDs are concerned, my old eyes see the PWM flicker FAR more on LEDs, since they literally cut ALL the light when they’re Off. And they change color when you lower the If, so you either dim them with flickering pulses or dim-and-recolor them with lower current. Not the choices I’d pay for! OTOH, I will admit that sometimes the color shift makes the Light better…
No, I’m not trying to claim my eyes are immune to Persistence of Vision!! Of course they all look “smooth” generally. PWM flickering makes dangerous things like car engines, fan and saw blades appear to stop moving. That’s as bad as it gets in my book. It’s like lying, and you KNOW how much I hate that!!
Fluorescents (whatever their shape) spark off the plasma & then don’t need that huge blast anymore. Even in the cold (like, e.g., a walk-in freezer), once they start, they’re supposed to calm down. The flickering may be due to bad manufacturing processes or variable AC supply. Don’t laugh. In the PC LAN repair business, we see “Bad AC” far too frequently to “assume” the power company is doing its job. It sounds like maybe yours keep trying to restart. This will cancel any cost savings you might get from fluorescents. Have you tried replacing your Ballast? They make new fluorescents where the tube( s ), fixtures/reflectors, ballast and everything can be hung from its own power cord! And make huge (wicked-cheap) light, with your choice of colors (like the 5000K 4-tube fixtures in my garage & workshop).
The point of all that (waaay off-topic) is, when I’m scroll-sawing (or any time the cutting edge blurs like that), I try to LET the blade “blur”, and just guide the “hole” that’s appearing at the end of the cut. It’s a weird way of looking at things, but it works for me. Just focus on keeping the leading, inside edge of the cut half-way into the pencil line & the cut will be beautiful. I developed this trick working as a “saw man” on a home-building crew… I would have a big problem if the moving blade appeared to stop!!!
Dim
If you have a three-phase supply , you can treble the apparent flicker frequency by using different phases … You do need three times as many light units though.
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And guess what? That bulb isn’t an LED, it’s incandescant. Of course one out of billions is pretty pour evidence.
Very interesting discussion here. I use exclusively CFLs due to the high cost of electricity where I live. I’m very interested in LED lighting, but from what I can tell, none of the LED bulbs can give me the brightness that I need. I like a very bright room in most circumstances, and so I use 26W CFLs that are approximately equivalent to a 100W inca, if not a bit more. Light output is somewhere over 1600 lumens for these bulbs. I don’t think there’s any LED bulb that can match that. Please give me links if I’m wrong.
That being said, CFLs aren’t ideal. Where I live, they cost around $3/ea, and they don’t last all that long. Most of the locally available CFLs have a putrid, vile, repulsive, sickening, hideous, repugnant, detestable, depressing stark white color. I don’t have enough adjectives to express how much I hate the tint of the CFLs that most people use here. The color is positively depressing. They are just recently starting to import warm light CFLs, but almost nobody here uses them yet. So I’ve been using warm color GE bulbs from the United States, which I really like. They last fairly long, but nothing like the 6 years they advertise. I’ve also had a few duds. The locally available CFLs also burn out quickly, and worse yet, are a fire hazard. In many cases I have been startled by the sound of popping and crackling from up above, followed by sparks and electrical smoke. Not very nice to think what could happen while nobody is at home with a CFL left turned on.
This thread is a good reference, and I think it should be in the LED Light Bulbs category. Anybody mind if I move it there?
It’s a little Suzuki sj, I value reliability and capability over some idea its best because its British. :bigsmile:
The japs have been fairly whuppin the landy bum for a long time with both. Plus, Landrover = British Leyland, I can’t think of a worse example of British manufacturing, I can’t think of one good car they ever made. I’m either Ford’s if its saloon cars or jap if its 4 x 4.
I think its safe to say we trust you moving threads
SB, if you’ve had your CFLs for awhile, you may find there are much warmer tinted versions available now (I hadn’t seen them before but bought some new bulbs since i just moved).
Here’s one CFL I absolutely LOVE
http://www.lowes.com/pd_46931-75774-L65TN_0?productId=3197521
They work in pretty cold temperatures, and once they warm up (which they do at any ambient temp) they really pump out some good light. Great for garages/shops, etc. - especially for renters that don’t want to waste money/time on new fixtures.
A very nice 24W LED bulb. I have the Sylvania branded versions (both made by Lighting Science Group). They claim 1300 lumens, but I measure over 1400 lumens. They will beat the pants off any CFL bulb. I suspect that even a decent 18W LED bulb will provide more effective light than you CFL.
Plot of light output and CCT as it warms up. My CRI number is rather bogus. That little bobble in the light output at the end of the curve was me trying to put a thermometer on the bulb and moving it around:
Moved to “LED Light Bulbs”. Good discussion here, please keep it going.
I have 3 light fixtures that use candelabra base bulbs. I have yet to see a candelabra base CFL bulb that didn’t look ugly as sin in such a fixture. I’m gradually working on switching them all over to LED bulbs, buying a couple of bulbs when I run across something newer, better, brighter, cheaper.
I’ve been using CCFLs for years now, energy saving is good, but they are annoying in CRI, short lifetime and slow startup. I’ve bought a couple 40w and 60w LED bulbs, but I will be extremely glad when bright 75w and 100w equivalent LED edison base bulbs show up at reasonable prices. Longer life, better CRI and instant on make LEDs worth a premium over CCFL prices, but they still need to get down to the $10/bulb range for me to switch over completely.
It’s a little annoying that the power company here subsidizes CCFL bulbs, but not LED bulbs. The CCFL era can’t die soon enough for me.
I have a couple hundred bulbs from this supplier (| eBay) in my house (My adventures in LED home lighting)
You might find something useful there. Keep checking their listings, their offerings change regularly.
I’m wondering why there’s all these people claiming CFL’s don’t last long. I’m thinking wrong use. One thing CFL bulbs don’t like is heat. It’s bad for their cheap electronics and that’s what’s causing them to break down, the electronics go bad. And because price point is the biggest consideration people are using for the purchase of their CFL’s obviously it’s a you get what you pay for purchase which compounds the problem, cheap electronics will fail earlier. As for me my room uses a single 45 watt CFL for light, yes it’s insanely bright but I like a bright room. I’ve replaced it one time and the previous one lasted 6 years. A 45 watt CFL isn’t a bargain basement offering either since that’s a more specialty CFL, they cost me 30 bucks like 10 years ago, now they’re down to $12 but that’s still more than the $3-4 of bargain CFL’s and the higher cost is evident in better overall construction and they never flicker and are instant on. The difference is the fixture it’s in keeps the base exposed to cooling air. Many people put these CFL’s in small glass enclosed domes or fixtures designed for incandescents. When you do that they get baked in their own heat and the electronics fail.
This is actually a good practice even for led’s. Keep the led fixture cool. Even though they may run a little cooler than CFL’s they’ll benefit from having more cooling. Because even though the led’s may last a long time, if kept at elevated temperatures everyone here knows led’s will dim quite severely from extended high temperature operation.
The OSRAM facility CLF bulbs seem to managed that problem pretty well, I know an apartment manager who switched from incandescents to this special CLF bulb, he even uses them in on-demand switches in staircases in large apartment buildings.... which would normally lead to certain death for standard CFLs within weeks. He has 200 of them running for over two years now and I think he replaced one of them. They are expensive in small quantities, but if you order them in large quantities they are doable. And yes he did the math upfront and yes they are profitable over their life expectancy vs. incandescents and LEDs ... at least with German Energy prices of 26-27 €-cent ( isn't that insane?) per kWh this year and the projected development in the future.
I was looking at facility series two years ago for staircase lighting and they were really expensive (approx. 20$ /piece)
Last time I bought some in a sale they went for €6.99~$9 (18W~80W inca) and in larger quantaties they can be bought closer to €4-5. They have been my go-to recommendation ever since. If they would come up with a way to make them mercury-free... they would be pretty much perfect.
Warm Comfort Light = 2500 K
Color rendering index Ra >=80
Rated luminous flux = 1050 lm
It appears that there is a wide variety in the quality of cfl’s sold and their ability to tolerate dirty AC current. Some here have had good forune with them, I have not. In my experience they turn on slowly(sometimes dangerously slowly), don’t last long even in a fully exposed ceiling fixture where excess heat is not an issue, and have poor color rendition. Even so, being green means to me that I’m not going to throw out working units until they fail and cfl’s don’t go in the trash.
Yep, saying all CFL suck ... is like saying all LEDs suck based on having seen only the white 5mm ones.
Product benefits
- Extremely durable due to extremly high switching resistance
- Much longer relamping intervals (compared with the standard reference product)
- Variable use at Direct Current and Alternating Current
- Extremely fast lumen ramp-up thanks to Quick Light Technology
Areas of application
- Where the lamps need to last a long time or have to withstand frequent on/off switching
- Installations with automatic disconnection circuits (e.g. in stairwells)
- Emergency lighting
- Hard-to-reach holders
- Wherever light is required quickly
- Hotels, restaurants, facility management
- Outdoor use in enclosed and ventilated luminaires only
Product features
- Extremly high number of switching cycles: >1,000,000
- Extremly long average lifetime: 20,000 h (equals 20 years at 2.7 h per day)
- Quick Light: 60 % light output in ≤20 s
- Warm Comfort Light – energy-saving light similar to that of an incandescent lamp
- Can be used in Direct Current systems: 176…310 V DC
- Very broad ambient temperature range: -30…+50 °C
- Already complies to ecodesign requirements of EC 244/2009 regulation stage 5