Energy efficient bulbs affecting your health?

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

More like 1/2 a second just seems longer .

Your used to instant (1/30th of a second) on for incandescents.

Yet again another place where LED's are superior.

I walked into my kitchen last night and hit the switch and had time to walk 7 feet to my refrigerator before the first of three lights came on...

I didnt know i was that fast.

EDIT:

in fairness to these little squiggly bulbs... this only happens when they have spend an hour or so OFF

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

I walked into my kitchen last night and hit the switch and had time to walk 7 feet to my refrigerator before the first of three lights came on...

I didnt know i was that fast.

EDIT:

in fairness to these little squiggly bulbs... this only happens when they have spend an hour or so OFF

Yea some of the cheaper lamps at their end of life cycle will have a little trouble striking at times. The gasses in the tube arent just as energetic as they once were. Bet the same one comes on first every time.

[tater]

I only use these in limited circumstances.. My goal is pretty much MORE likght, not cost. So an old fixture takes a 60W bulb... I put the biggest CFL that will fit, maybe I get 150W worth of light.

On my low-voltage track lighting, I have been using "halogena" bulbs (halogen/xenon) sinc ethe 35W bulb makes as much like as a 50W. That means I can put more fixtures on the track. I have an LED, too (4W), and if was not so damn blue, I'd replace 'em all with LEDs (my transformers are 300W, so the lower the bulbs, the more I can run on one circuit).

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by tater

I only use these in limited circumstances.. My goal is pretty much MORE likght, not cost. So an old fixture takes a 60W bulb... I put the biggest CFL that will fit, maybe I get 150W worth of light.

On my low-voltage track lighting, I have been using "halogena" bulbs (halogen/xenon) sinc ethe 35W bulb makes as much like as a 50W. That means I can put more fixtures on the track. I have an LED, too (4W), and if was not so damn blue, I'd replace 'em all with LEDs (my transformers are 300W, so the lower the bulbs, the more I can run on one circuit).

LEDs are available in a wide spectrum of colors. Not just red blue white but mixtures of everything in between.

Actually the LED you have is probably a pretty good CRI but your so used to the 'warm' red end of the spectrum they now seem blue to you.

[tater]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

LEDs are available in a wide spectrum of colors. Not just red blue white but mixtures of everything in between.

Actually the LED you have is probably a pretty good CRI but your so used to the 'warm' red end of the spectrum they now seem blue to you.

No, it's quite blue. I usually buy broad spectrum bulbs, so most regular bulbs in the house are "Reveal" types (which indeed look blue next to "soft white" (I've experimented ) but are in fact nice.

[Sammi79]

Hmmmm. No, sorry really sounds like absolute *expletive* I'm afraid. 'Dirty electricity' indeed - a smooth sine wave at 50Hz - Well all mains power in the UK is exactly that : a 50Hz sine wave pushing and pulling 240v so practically every electrical cable that runs from the mains socket creates that field to a greater or lesser extent depending on the dampening effect from the cable sheath. I believe in most of Europe it is 60Hz but at 110v or thereabouts? I don't know what the specs are in the US, but I assume after that video that it runs at 50Hz. Ever since the invention of radio, signals of varying frequencies have been passing through living things.

People live under/near power lines carrying 45,000+v at this same frequency which create huge EMF fields (like you know if you listen to the radio in your car and you drive under one), try taking that little 'magic box' under a pylon and see what it says.

Yes mercury is dangerous, so is flouride in your toothpaste, care should be taken when disposing of these bulbs as with batteries, microchips, microwave ovens, refridgerators and many, many other readily available consumer products. In reality unless you regularly eat lightbulbs or whole tubes of toothpaste you are not going to come to any harm!

Ultra Violet radiation is possibly the only real concern you have here, and that's only because people demand specific 'colours' of light - "I want my light to replicate daylight"... well daylight contains UV radiation. The colours achieved by CFLs are a product of phosphor compounds on the inside of the tube, they can be modified to produce any wavelengths we desire, and can be designed to nearly completely eradicate the emission of UV frequencies (only it won't be a nice blue-white daylight shade)

Don't let reports like that fool you, It seems to me sincerely to be some kind of media scare tactic for which the reason escapes me - possibly the makers of incandescant bulbs are running at a loss? or possibly because the people who control the people who produce these broadcasts want you to be scared, add it to all the terror etc.

[SteamWake]

Just an aside. The last commercial plant (in north america) producing incandescent lamps closed this year (many jobs lost).

As to the motivation about this report? I'm going to presume that A:Scare tactics draw in viewers and B:The push is on to move to LED.

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by Sammi79

I believe in most of Europe it is 60Hz but at 110v or thereabouts? I don't know what the specs are in the US, but I assume after that video that it runs at 50Hz.

Actually, it's quite the other way around In the largest part of Europe 230V RMS (gives about 325V peak to peak) at 50Hz is used, while in the US 120V RMS (170V peak to peak) at 60Hz is used.

Ever since the invention of radio, signals of varying frequencies have been passing through living things.

Ever since Life, signals of varying frequencies have been passing through living things
And generally speaking, electromagnetic waves can't do much damage. What do you think light is for example?
Only highly energetic ionizing radiation can really cause damage.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by DarkFish

Actually, it's quite the other way around In the largest part of Europe 230V RMS (gives about 325V peak to peak) at 50Hz is used, while in the US 120V RMS (170V peak to peak) at 60Hz is used.

Ever since Life, signals of varying frequencies have been passing through living things
And generally speaking, electromagnetic waves can't do much damage. What do you think light is for example?
Only highly energetic ionizing radiation can really cause damage.

Theres an echo in here

[Sammi79]

Originally Posted by DarkFish

Actually, it's quite the other way around In the largest part of Europe 230V RMS (gives about 325V peak to peak) at 50Hz is used, while in the US 120V RMS (170V peak to peak) at 60Hz is used.

Ever since Life, signals of varying frequencies have been passing through living things
And generally speaking, electromagnetic waves can't do much damage. What do you think light is for example?
Only highly energetic ionizing radiation can really cause damage.

Thankyou DF for your correction! Electromagnetic high frequency signals, SHF+EHF (2Ghz+) do have measurable effects on living cells - notably microwaves who's wavelength is equivalent to the size of a water molecule. Wireless digital technology uses 2.4Ghz to beam the data and it has been observed that prolonged short range exposure causes an increase in temperature in the affected tissue. There is also some argument as to wether it can cause nuclear damage to cells, splitting chromosomes etc.. which could be a cause of abnormal cell behaviour I.e tumours. However compared to Ionizing atomic nuclear radiation (which are charged particles emmited from atomic nuclei as opposed to photons) the effects are insignificant.

Visible light occurs in the spectrum at frequencies of about 10^14 Hz above
microwaves, Infra Red and all man made data signals. Ultra Violet occurs directly above visible light, then X-rays then gamma rays at 10^20 Hz. However these gamma rays are not to be confused with nuclear gamma radiation, which is particularly damaging to living tissue.

[XabbaRus]

can't say I have had any issues with them and we have them all over our house.In fact we have no conventional bulbs left.

I'm wondering if some of the issues are more psychological than real.

[Skybird]

I knew that the elektromagnetic fields produced by these bulbs can be up too 200 times as intense in energy than those of regular lightbulbs of same brightness (that'S why you shoulds keep your distance to them), but that it also is a different quality of electromagnetic field, was new to me.

The headache thing is known since longer, although for political and business reasons it still is officially denied.

MS, asthma and blood sugar also was knew for me, I mean that it can have so immense effects.

Don'T like these things too muich, I still find their loight colour annoying. Their warm-white simply is not warm-white with a sufficient degree of waves transporting the colour red, but it makes colours shifting towards the green and spectrum. I have two such things in use, but only in the cellar and in a corridor.

The future is LED, and LEDs in spots replacing halogen spots with reflectors are already really usable, the good ones have a warmwhite light like you know it from Halogen light, and are of comparable brightness. These ones also do not distort the colopur spectrum as massively as energy saving bulbs do (turning red into brown and yellow into green, even the wellknown, expensive brands). Problem is they are extremely expensive, still. LED-collections in normal lightbulbs still are not really convincing: not bright enough. But its getting better. LEDs in torchlights: beats every normal lightbulbed torchlight. General rule: you do not need a dozen LEDs, you only need one LED - but that must be a real good one, then it is good light colour (not that terrible cold blue-white), and shining brightness.

Light quality is life quality, and very important to me in order to feel comfortable and "at home". I do not accept compromises in light, at least not in my living room and kitchen. If halogen would not be available anymore and standard lightbulbs also gone, I would cry and spend the money needed for good LEDs - but no energy efficient bulbs.

[SteamWake]

"Quality" of EM field... LOL that term just cracks me up. Just conjurs up an image of two hams "Yea your getting out but you sound like crap".

As I said in an earlier post that pepole have been living within RF fields for decades. They have been living in EM fields since the beginning of time.

Its all over the spectrum. Shall I post a picture of my Oscope set for a low voltage and show you the noise? Its so prevelant that its actually hard to block it out. You know that psssssssshhhhh you hear when you tune your TV to an unused channel? EM/RF signals. Oh and while were at it that TV of yours? Try holding the plug of an amplified speaker up to one sometime. You want to talk about strong EMI fields. "Dont sit too close or your hurt your eyes" my mother used to say.

Now there is no question that a strong RF field can cause damage it is after all how a microwave works. But there is strong RF fields in the order of microvolts and theres strong RF fields of 600watts or more in the radar range. Yes I know there different units of measure but trying to explain that would take too long. In a nutshell the EMI/RF field within a microwave is 10's of thousands time more powerfull than stray emi/rf from a compact fluorescent. Hell there are wall chargers that put out more noise than CFLs.

Remember all that hoopla about schools and homes being built adjacent HV transmission lines? Where has that gone?

Oh and I wanted to add about the headache thing. It is quite true that all fluroescent lamps 'strobe' one in good working order should strobe so fast you never notice. But some pepole are subsectible to strobing effects. Remember those epelipsy warnings on video games? So sure I believe that some pepole can get headaches from poor lighting. Properly working 'quality' flourescent lamps with the proper 'quality' ballast should strobe so quickly that even the most sensative amongst us would not be effected by it. Notice the word quality. There is a lot of cheap crap out there. The industry is driven by being 'inexpensive'. But once more addressing strobing this is where LEDs are superior ... but only with a 'quality' driver.

[Sammi79]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

As to the motivation about this report? I'm going to presume that A:Scare tactics draw in viewers and B:The push is on to move to LED.

Originally Posted by Skybird

The future is LED

Sold!

[XabbaRus]

OK that they can introduce harmonics into the supply, well a lot of things do that. Anything connected into the supply can affect its frequency.

That's why you have devices that smooth out the supply, either capcitors or certain kinds of motors.

I'm studying electrical engineering at the moment and will have to go digging through my books but I think this is a bit of scare mongering.