Kinky curly save the world lightbulbs

[GoldenRivet]

My wife and i have been on a campaign to replace all the "kinky Curly" light bulbs throughout the house with LED bulbs for numerous reasons. but doing such a thing is fairly expensive, so we have been more or less doing one room at a time, waiting for our current "kinky Curly Al Gore Bulbs" as i call them to blow out one at a time.

In our bedroom, 1 bulb has given out.

In my office, 2 of the bulbs have blown out.

The plan is, once 3 of the 4 bulbs blow out in each fixture, leaving insufficient light for us - we will repalce those bulbs with either LEDs or the old fashioned incandescent bulbs (the "They aint broke so dont fix em bulbs" as i call them.)

So im sitting here drawing out a floor plan on google sketchup because its a tuesday afternoon and i really dont have anything better to do to be honest.

and im sitting here doing that for about an hour and i smell this funny smell. I recognize it as a bad thing and i start to think something is cooking in my PC so i quickly shut off the computer.

I get up to explore the house for any other possible culprit and i immediately notice a thin white haze clinging to the upper ceiling.

I shut the overhead light off and ventilated the room.

several minutes later, i turned the light back on, and the smell began to return. Problem identified... so, i took note of which bulbs were blown and removed the blown bulbs.

funny thing is, one of the blown bulbs despite being blown out for a few days now and not putting out ANY light... the plastic base was HOT - damned hot - and the point where the kinky curly tube enters this plastic base was discolored yellow/brown and bubbled / melted all around it. (keep in mind the bulb itself was cold)

apparently... despite this bulb being blown out for a few days now there was still some sort of electric current trying to run through the bulb.

I dont know if this is a known problem with these things? but be aware that just because the bulb is blown out doesnt mean power is not running through it.

(the other blown out bulb and it's plastic base were both stone cold.)






I hate those kinky curly SOBs

[magic452]

Not much of a fan of the kinky curly bulbs my self, have a few but have been stocking up on incandescent bulbs, I think I have enough to last till my bulb goes out. I"m old, very old.

The point is what do you think of the LED bulbs, are they worth it?

Magic

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

incandescent bulbs (the "They aint broke so dont fix em bulbs" as i call them.)

Aside from them being banned in Australia, I believe. Aussies confirm?

EDIT2:

Governments around the world have passed measures to phase out incandescent light bulbs for general lighting. The aim is to encourage the use and technological development of more energy-efficient lighting alternatives, such as compact fluorescent lamp (CFLs) and LED lamps. Brazil and Venezuela started to phase them out in 2005,[1] and the European Union, Switzerland,[2] and Australia[3] started to phase them out in 2009.[4] Likewise, other nations are planning scheduled phase-outs: Argentina,[5] Russia, and Canada in 2012,[6] and Malaysia in 2014.[7] Although the United States is not phasing out incandescent light bulbs, it has set minimum efficiency standards for lighting which preclude most legacy incandescent designs; these minimum standards phase in between 2012 and 2014.[8]

But yeah, with any electrical item, if it stops working, unplug it. Trying to force electricity through an item that doesn't want to leads to bad things.


But considering (any I'm quoting from the top of my head, so feel free to correct) that you can run a 'kinky curly' for a whole year on the same amoutn of juice that it takes to run an Incandescent bulb for one day...... I'll stick with the kinky curly until I can afford LED's.


EDIT: Meh:

Energy efficiency

For a given light output, CFLs use 20 to 33 percent of the power of equivalent incandescent lamps.[18] Since lighting accounted for approximately 9% of household electricity usage in the United States in 2001, widespread use of CFLs could save as much as 7% of total U.S. household usage.[19]

When you compare the cost of those curly POS bulbs to the saveings?
Where does the saveings come into play?


I've noticed I need twice the bulbs to get the same light at the same rateing!

So where's the beef?
It seems the Beef is going to someone.
But not to me!

I've also noticed the problem GoldenRivet posted about a shocking number of times!

It has raised it's head a number of times in many areas so We as Contractors, advise Clients about this fact!

I have seen the POS bulbs set off Smoke Detectors mere hours after install!

I have removed everyone of them from my home!
I'd rather pay 3 cents more on my electric bill per month,
then die in a fire cause by them and hope my Kids sue the arse off the Company that made them!

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

apparently... despite this bulb being blown out for a few days now there was still some sort of electric current trying to run through the bulb.

Well it was obviously more than just trying to

Probably a short somewhere inside.

And that is an unacceptable event!

Light bulbs are not suppose to kill you!

[Rockstar]

I just bought some AG kinky curlys for the first time yesterday. 100 watt bulb but draws power as if they were 23 watt incandescent (so they say). So far so good.

Light bulbs are my friends

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by magic452

The point is what do you think of the LED bulbs, are they worth it?

On the long term, definitely. The lifetime and the savings on your energy bill outweigh the cost of buying one.

But then again, I've seen some of the technology that's about to come out in the coming years (one of the advantages of studying Electrical Engineering) so I'd say wait one or two years and you can get cheaper LED lights, more efficient ones or LED lights with a more "natural" light (I've seen LEDs that are even more pleasant to the eye than a light bulb. Also the more expensive models will be able to change color, e.g. if you want to do some work you can set the color to a sharper fluorescent lamp-like tone, if you want to relax a bit you set it to a warmer more pleasant tone. If you're having a romantic dinner with your GF you set it dimmed with its warmest tone )

[GoldenRivet]

LED bulbs don't contain the murcury that Mr. Gore's kinky curlys do.

i know that much.

and the light they put out is great!

[magic452]

I think I might give them a try, thanks.

Most all of my lights are on dimmers so I not too worried about energy use.
Only use full light when I need it.

Magic

As for LED's
I don't have any in the house yet.
I DID replace all the lights on our Triumphs with LED's.
All I can say is they are GREAT there!
A tad more expensive but probably increase our life expectancy by a fact of 5.
I'm 5 times more likely to be seen before I'm run down I hope.

[TorpX]

I have 7 or 8 of them in my house. I like the light and energy savings, but 2 have already burned out. This would seem to negate, or greatly reduce, the energy savings. I've also noted that they vary a lot in price. I don't think it's really worth it to replace all your bulbs with them, but rather just the ones that are used the most. I've read that turning them off and on a lot, decreases the life quite a bit.

It seems outragous to me, that any gov't would actually force people to use them. We should be able to buy and use whatever type we like. Are we to be treated as children, incapable of making these decisions for ourselves?

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by magic452

I think I might give them a try, thanks.

Most all of my lights are on dimmers so I not too worried about energy use.
Only use full light when I need it.

Magic

Remember that there's a high chance the dimmers you've got currently installed are not compatible with LED lights. LEDs by themselves aren't really dimmable (they're either on or off) so the only way to get dimmed LED light is by letting it flicker on and off. If your LED doesn't flicker (not counting the usual flickering because of the AC net frequency) it's always on and you've got max light. Now decrease the on/off ratio, and your LED will give less light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-width_modulation

You may have to buy some PWM dimmers.

[frau kaleun]

I've had great luck with the new "curly" bulbs. I started swapping them in as old bulbs burned out over three years ago and I don't think one of the new ones has burned out yet. And that's in light fixtures that are on almost constantly when I'm home. I have a pretty good idea of how many old-school bulbs I would've gone through in that time, so, yeah, in the long run they will be inexpensive.

Aside from the fact that I've bought them all with special "introductory" coupons that saved me around $1 a bulb, plus the fact that our local electric company is sending out boxes of them for free every year to customers just to encourage their use.

Haven't had any problems like what GR describes yet, but then I've got so many of them on hand ATM that I can change a burned out bulb as soon as I know it's shot so I don't know that it's something I'd worry about.

[Platapus]

We have had mixed results with the compact florescents. If you buy cheap ones they don't put out much light and the burn out quick. If you buy well made ones, they last a lot longer.

We like to put them especially in lights that are harder to change (up to high) or lights that are on for long periods of time (our mandatory outside lights for our home.

Did you ever notice that lightbulbs you can't stand don't seem to ever burn out.

In the decade I have lived in my home, I have replaced many of the lightbulbs in my house. However, in our bathroom are these horrible glaring lights that the builder put in. We use them ever day and they suck!

And those light bulbs never seem to burn out. .

I should just take them out and replace them, but I have this problem with replacing light bulbs that still work (cheap bastage).

I have been looking at the LEDs, but I think I will wait a bit until the price goes down.