Another reason to hate CFLs ...

[Rich Webb]

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 09:46:06 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Oct 2010 22:08:20 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:28:14 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as it
was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an animal any
more due to EU ecobollox intervention

More...

"Emission spectra of some compact fluorescent lamps"
http://web.ncf.ca/jim/misc/cfl/

You can check the spectra of some CFL lamps at:
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Compact%20Fluorescent.htm

"The Double Amici Prism Hand-Held Spectroscope."
Emission spectra of various lamps are furthur down the page.
http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/spectroscope/amici.html
Incidentally, you might find it amusing to see what CCFL backlit white
looks like on a laptop LCD display [1.3.7], and a Sony Trinitron
[1.11.3]. Also, the authors comments on "Full-Spectrum Lamps" near
the bottom of the page.

Cool stuff. Always interesting to "see" that what we perceive is not
always (or often) 1:1 with what's really there.

Make Magazine vol 24 (due out any day now) will have a DIY article on a
hand-held diffraction grating spectroscope.
http://makezine.com/magazine/ (Note that as of today the link shows
volume 23; subscribers should have received an email link to number 24).

There's also http://sciencefirst.com/product_info.php?products_id=403.
It's kind of clunky (basically a kid's toy) but it does have an
adjustable scale so it can be kinda-sorta calibrated using a known
spectral line from a fluorescent lamp.

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

 

[David Sanders]

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 09:46:06 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sat, 23 Oct 2010 22:08:20 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:28:14 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as it
was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an animal any
more due to EU ecobollox intervention

More...

"Emission spectra of some compact fluorescent lamps"
http://web.ncf.ca/jim/misc/cfl/

You can check the spectra of some CFL lamps at:
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Compact%20Fluorescent.htm

"The Double Amici Prism Hand-Held Spectroscope."
Emission spectra of various lamps are furthur down the page.
http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/spectroscope/amici.html
Incidentally, you might find it amusing to see what CCFL backlit white
looks like on a laptop LCD display [1.3.7], and a Sony Trinitron
[1.11.3]. Also, the authors comments on "Full-Spectrum Lamps" near
the bottom of the page.

But can it grow superb colas?
--
Shit! I thought no one knew, goddammit!
http://preview.tinyurl.com/29p4ody
Me, jacking off! http://preview.tinyurl.com/3xpntge Available For
Lessons!

 

[William Sommerwerck]

http://tinyurl.com/2eqh6vp
GE hybrid CFL

Bad, bad idea. That halogen bulb is not going to last very long.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 13:37:01 -0400, Rich Webb
<bbew.ar@mapson.nozirev.ten> wrote:

Cool stuff. Always interesting to "see" that what we perceive is not
always (or often) 1:1 with what's really there.

Our eyes adapt very nicely to different color illumination. For
example, we see "white" light from a flourescent fixture, while the
light is heavily green tinged when viewed on an uncompensated
photograph taken with a digital or film camera.

Make Magazine vol 24 (due out any day now) will have a DIY article on a
hand-held diffraction grating spectroscope.
http://makezine.com/magazine/ (Note that as of today the link shows
volume 23; subscribers should have received an email link to number 24).

I've resisted subscribing because I know that I'll spend the rest of
my life building and playing with interesting toys. Sigh.

There's also http://sciencefirst.com/product_info.php?products_id=403.
It's kind of clunky (basically a kid's toy) but it does have an
adjustable scale so it can be kinda-sorta calibrated using a known
spectral line from a fluorescent lamp.

Some more on the Star Spectrometer.
<http://home.comcast.net/~mcculloch-brown/astro/spectwhat.html>
<http://home.comcast.net/~mcculloch-brown/astro/spectrostar.html>
<http://www.scientificsonline.com/precision-economy-spectrometer.html>

Kinda overkill for this application. All you need is a slit and a
glass prism.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Simple_spectroscope.jpg>

If you want really simple, there are diffraction glasses and slides:
<http://www.mutr.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=1009604>
<http://www.rainbowsymphonystore.com/difgratglas.html>
<http://www.scientificsonline.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=grating>

If you're really into crude, you can use a DVD as a diffraction
grating:
<http://www.mutr.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=1009497>
<https://secure-mutr.co.uk/catalog/images/spectroscope.pdf?osCsid=8cckpjuiqluci60s4k6ubbhoc5>

Ummm....
<http://www.scientificsonline.com/party-bulbs.html>
Black bulb???

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Jeffrey Angus]

On 10/24/2010 1:23 PM, Meat Plow wrote:

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 10:54:24 -0700, William Sommerwerck wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/2eqh6vp
GE hybrid CFL

Bad, bad idea. That halogen bulb is not going to last very long.

Who asked you?

You don't have to ask him, just put anything out where he can find it.

As to the hybrid lamp, probably a good idea if it was designed as
a "transition" to give light while a slower (more efficient?) CFL
comes up to full brilliance.

Otherwise it may just be another product for a need we never knew
we had.

Jeff

 

[Meat Plow]

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 16:57:42 +0100, Arfa Daily wrote:

"Meat Plow" <mhywatt@yahoo.com> wrote in message
newsan.2010.10.24.15.10.48@lmao.lol.lol...
On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:28:14 +0100, Arfa Daily wrote:

As if any more reasons were needed on top of their horrible startup
characteristics, their ugliness, their sick coloured light, and their
inability to last for a fraction of the claimed lifetime :-(

Like most of us, I suspect, I have hundreds of component drawers,
which over the years have become mixed up and confused, so in the
circumstances of work being very quiet at the moment, I decided to
have a major tidy up and clear out of redundant components. As a first
move, I decided to rationalise the resistors, and re-store them by
individual value, rather than in groups of values in the same drawer.

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and
as it was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an
animal any more due to EU ecobollox intervention - I put in a CFL
that had come free in a cornflake packet or some such nonsense. Once
it has warmed up in the morning - at least one coffee drinking time
needed for this - it seemed to work reasonably well. Until, that is, I
started trying to identify the resistors in my old drawers to move
them into the individual value drawers in the new location.

The spectrum from this lamp is so poor and discontinuous, that it is
almost impossible to resolve red from brown from orange, or violet
from blue or grey. Absolutely bloody useless. If I can't find any more
60 watt pearl bulbs on the 'net, then I'm going to modify the
lampholder to take a low voltage halogen downlighter bulb, and hook it
to a 12v transformer.

Arfa

I like the 6500k CFLs for security lighting and my bench light. I'm
very surprised at the longevity of the outdoor 23 watters. They have
been in use dusk to dawn in all kinds of weather, all mounted inverted
and in some sort of shroud one actually totally enclosed in a globe.
Only one has failed after two years and I expected it to fail, the
globe enclosed CFL. None of these 4 outdoor lamps are rated for
inverted use either. I did some reading on inverting a CFL and the base
temperature increases dramatically when the lamp is inverted. So I
would expect cheap electrolytics to dry up in no time.



But this totally underlines my point about them being a 'substitute'
rather than 'replacement' technology. Many many household fittings are
either enclosed, semi-enclosed, or use a bulb that hangs down. In fact I
would have to say that fittings that have the bulb base facing up, other
than perhaps in table lamps, are few and far between, and fittings that
do employ such a scheme, and are then able to take CFLs, are even rarer.
My son has a three-branch 'chandelier' fitting in his hallway. He has
fitted CFLs to this, and because of the larger bases that these have to
accommodate the ballast electronics, they stick out of the tops of the
glass shades, and look ridiculous.

Arfa

I wasn't arguing the fact that they are 'substitutes' as you put it. But
what is a person to do unless you are willing to blow your own glass and
buy tungsten from Norway or Sweden or wherever it comes from and
refurbish your own incandescents? You could start stockpiling your
favorite incandescents to have them on hand when they finally disappear
for good but what after that? Although fluorescents have been around for
60 years or more used in commercial lighting those that manufacture CFLs
are going to have to beef up the technology and design better lamps with
better quality components but keep the cost down at the same time.



--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse

 

[Meat Plow]

http://tinyurl.com/2eqh6vp

GE hybrid CFL

 

[William Sommerwerck]

http://tinyurl.com/2eqh6vp
GE hybrid CFL

Bad, bad idea. That halogen bulb is not going to last very long.

Who asked you?

You don't have to ask him, just put anything out where he can find it.

What is it about UseNet that attracts "human beings" who have nothing better
to do than behave in a nasty, insulting fashion to anyone who displeases
their sense of arrogant self-importance? What do your friends see in you
two, anyway?

I've had private communications with Mr Plow, who made it clear he has the
absolute right to say whatever he likes, for whatever reason, and no one has
any right to question or criticize him. He doesn't want friends; he just
wants to be surrounded by people who will graciously allow him to abuse
them.

You wouldn't dare spew your nastiness directly in the face of any member of
this group. You're sniveling cowards hiding behind the physical anonymity of
a UseNet group.

What rotten "people" you are.

PS: Posting anything in a group implicitly opens the subject for discussion.

 

[N_Cook]

Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:8no8c6pc1ep3atfd6fv2rt37t0of39ti7r@4ax.com...

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 09:50:24 +0100, "N_Cook" <diverse@tcp.co.uk
wrote:

These days fibre reinforced plastic or mineralised plastic, used to be
ceramic in the original ones,

Reinforced Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT) or Polyethylene
Terephthalate (PET) plastic resin with about 30% glass fiber mixed in
to minimally meet UL-94 V-0 flame retartent specs.

MSDS for CFL from Home Despot:

http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pdfImages/fd/fd8f96e1-4ff3-4a86-9070-e8583

d3e636e.pdf>

Googling for BU102 + TO92 gets nowhere, I
assume as diac in there then triacs

What's inside and how it works:
"Self Oscillating 25W CFL Lamp Circuit"
http://www.nxp.com/documents/application_note/AN00048.pdf

Fiat Lux
(let there be light).

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

So bipolar, not triacs, from the philips pdf. Also 105 deg C not F for the
caps, previously stated

 

[Meat Plow]

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 10:54:24 -0700, William Sommerwerck wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/2eqh6vp
GE hybrid CFL

Bad, bad idea. That halogen bulb is not going to last very long.

Who asked you?



--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse

 

[Rich Webb]

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 11:30:14 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 13:37:01 -0400, Rich Webb
bbew.ar@mapson.nozirev.ten> wrote:

Cool stuff. Always interesting to "see" that what we perceive is not
always (or often) 1:1 with what's really there.

Our eyes adapt very nicely to different color illumination. For
example, we see "white" light from a flourescent fixture, while the
light is heavily green tinged when viewed on an uncompensated
photograph taken with a digital or film camera.

Yup, a lot of what we see is really what we perceive, and we're rather
easy to fool.

Some illuminating illustrations of this are over at:
http://www.lottolab.org/articles/illusionsoflight.asp

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

 

[David Nebenzahl]

On 10/24/2010 8:32 AM Arfa Daily spake thus:

"David Nebenzahl" <nobody@but.us.chickens> wrote in message
news:4cc390a0$0$2453$822641b3@news.adtechcomputers.com...

On 10/23/2010 6:28 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:

The spectrum from this lamp is so poor and discontinuous, that it
is almost impossible to resolve red from brown from orange, or
violet from blue or grey. Absolutely bloody useless. If I can't
find any more 60 watt pearl bulbs on the 'net, then I'm going to
modify the lampholder to take a low voltage halogen downlighter
bulb, and hook it to a 12v transformer.

Hate to say it, Arfa, but you sound like a Croat ranting about how
much he hates automobiles, having driven nothing but Yugos all his
life.

CFLs used to be like that, sure. The ones I use (here in the Untied
Snakes) are much better in all the parameters you mentioned:
instant on, no appreciable warm-up time, pleasing color spectrum,
long life.

(Well, their packages still leave something to be desired in some
applications, but other than that they're good.)

Over the years since this technology was vaunted as the 'replacement'
for incandescent light, I have bought many examples from different
manufacturers. Whilst there has been some improvement in their
performance in that time, they remain, IMHO, a 'substitute'
technology, rather than a 'replacement' one. They do not start up in
the few mS that it takes an incandescent to come on, no matter how
good and up to date they are in that respect. Neither do they reach
full output for some considerable time after they are powered. Most
seem to be rated to produce 80% of their maximum light output after
15 seconds. The remaining 20% takes a lot longer than that. Both
shortcomings are exacerbated by low ambient temperature. The power
ratings and light output are typically specced for an ambient
temperature of 25 deg C. Whilst some parts of the world may achieve
this most of the time, we don't here in the UK, and UK homes are
certainly not heated to that level from autumn through spring. Apart
from that, they don't sit properly in many decorative light fittings,
and change the colour aesthetics of some lampshades - notably for
instance, in a rather nice Tiffany style table lamp that I have. When
I tried one in that, the beautiful ruby red panels changed to a muddy
colour, and the whole shade took on a muted look, with much of the
colour vibrancy that is a trademark of this type of shade, gone. I
went back to an incandescent in it. I was able to use a clear one, as
the bulb is not visible.

[snip]

First let me say that I totally believe you and your tale of woe
concerning CFLs vs. incandescents.

But as someone else here pointed out, this merely points to what is
apparently the comparatively poor availability of decent CFLs in your
island nation compared to other places (U.S., for example). More's the pity.

And yes, contrary to your strenuous assertions to the contrary, there
*are* compelling environmental and energy-conservation reasons to switch
to CFLs, and damn fast too. Not just some empty-headed notion from tree
huggers.

But it would be in the best interests of UK citizens if they were
presented a decent range of alternatives to incandescent bulbs before
being forced to give them up. The process actually seems to be going
pretty well on this side of the ocean, with many people switching on
account of a good range of inexpensive alternatives to the old
heat-producers.


--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)

 

[LSMFT]

Arfa Daily wrote:

As if any more reasons were needed on top of their horrible startup
characteristics, their ugliness, their sick coloured light, and their
inability to last for a fraction of the claimed lifetime :-(

Like most of us, I suspect, I have hundreds of component drawers, which
over the years have become mixed up and confused, so in the
circumstances of work being very quiet at the moment, I decided to have
a major tidy up and clear out of redundant components. As a first move,
I decided to rationalise the resistors, and re-store them by individual
value, rather than in groups of values in the same drawer.

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as
it was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an
animal any more due to EU ecobollox intervention - I put in a CFL that
had come free in a cornflake packet or some such nonsense. Once it has
warmed up in the morning - at least one coffee drinking time needed for
this - it seemed to work reasonably well. Until, that is, I started
trying to identify the resistors in my old drawers to move them into the
individual value drawers in the new location.

The spectrum from this lamp is so poor and discontinuous, that it is
almost impossible to resolve red from brown from orange, or violet from
blue or grey. Absolutely bloody useless. If I can't find any more 60
watt pearl bulbs on the 'net, then I'm going to modify the lampholder to
take a low voltage halogen downlighter bulb, and hook it to a 12v
transformer.

Arfa

People like you have real issues. I have had 100% CFL's in my home for
decades. Guess what, they are better than candles.
I will be switching to LED's when they are available for all around use.

--
LSMFT

Simple job, assist the assistant of the physicist.

 

[Wild_Bill]

I've been buying various brands of CFLs in the U.S. for about 5 years, and
initially, they seemed more problematic than they might be worth.
The early ones were slow to attain their full brightness, colors of light
were yellowish and reddish, and typically failed within a year.

The CFLs that I've found to provide "good" lighting, are the daylight or
sunlight versions (various brands).
Most of my lighting in living areas have fixtures that orient the lamps
base-down, and the result is bounce lighting from overhead and adjacent wall
surfaces. This type of lighting is very agreeable to me, and I don't
particularly like to have a lamp shining directly onto something I'm looking
at, unless I'm trying to get a close look at something within a piece of
equipment.

Placing a cool or soft-white CFL near a 6000 degree daylight CFL, with both
lighting a white wall, should reveal a very different color of light coming
from the cool/soft lamp. The cool or soft-white CFLs were making many colors
appear to be different in my comparisons.

Early on, I was glad to discover that CCD and digital camera devices worked
very well with the higher light temperatures of 5000+.
Around 6500 degrees works very well for my eyes and camera images, in my
experience.

In the workshop, I found that the light from cheap workshop/garage
cool/soft-white fluorescent twin tube fixtures was slightly uncomfortable
(for my eyes), and that issue was fixed by also having a few regular
incandescent bulbs in the work area. The result was an improvement but not
as good as sunlight CFLs (for my eyes).

--
Cheers,
WB
..............


"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
newsYLwo.42936$vi1.18039@newsfe07.ams2...

As if any more reasons were needed on top of their horrible startup
characteristics, their ugliness, their sick coloured light, and their
inability to last for a fraction of the claimed lifetime :-(

Like most of us, I suspect, I have hundreds of component drawers, which
over the years have become mixed up and confused, so in the circumstances
of work being very quiet at the moment, I decided to have a major tidy up
and clear out of redundant components. As a first move, I decided to
rationalise the resistors, and re-store them by individual value, rather
than in groups of values in the same drawer.

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as it
was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an animal any
more due to EU ecobollox intervention - I put in a CFL that had come free
in a cornflake packet or some such nonsense. Once it has warmed up in the
morning - at least one coffee drinking time needed for this - it seemed to
work reasonably well. Until, that is, I started trying to identify the
resistors in my old drawers to move them into the individual value drawers
in the new location.

The spectrum from this lamp is so poor and discontinuous, that it is
almost impossible to resolve red from brown from orange, or violet from
blue or grey. Absolutely bloody useless. If I can't find any more 60 watt
pearl bulbs on the 'net, then I'm going to modify the lampholder to take a
low voltage halogen downlighter bulb, and hook it to a 12v transformer.

Arfa

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:r7m8c65k3gk87gsfbi3ivv1o5jhv7r9cfi@4ax.com...

On Sat, 23 Oct 2010 22:08:20 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:28:14 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as
it
was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an animal
any
more due to EU ecobollox intervention

More...

"Emission spectra of some compact fluorescent lamps"
http://web.ncf.ca/jim/misc/cfl/

You can check the spectra of some CFL lamps at:
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Compact%20Fluorescent.htm

"The Double Amici Prism Hand-Held Spectroscope."
Emission spectra of various lamps are furthur down the page.
http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/spectroscope/amici.html
Incidentally, you might find it amusing to see what CCFL backlit white
looks like on a laptop LCD display [1.3.7], and a Sony Trinitron
[1.11.3]. Also, the authors comments on "Full-Spectrum Lamps" near
the bottom of the page.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com

Thanks for the links, Jeff. Very interesting reading, as always. The last
one shows very clearly why the human animal is 'at ease' with daylight,
incandescent light, light from fire and so on, but in some cases - notably
*me* for instance - not with the light from CFLs. The discontinuity and lack
of general 'body' to the spectrum is very telling. Also, interesting to see
the spectrum from regular linear flourescent tubes. Those diagrams show me
very clearly why I don't have a problem with the light from them. That just
leaves (and begs) the question of why, when broad spectrum phosphors are
obviously readily and cheaply available, as evidenced by their use in linear
tubes, they are not using them in CFLs, instead pissing about with limited
bandwidth emission triphosphor coatings, which produce the objectionable
light quality that I, and others like me, are being forced to endure. Do the
CFLs on sale in other parts of the world, in fact use linear tube phosphors
?

Arfa

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Rich Webb" <bbew.ar@mapson.nozirev.ten> wrote in message
news:dhq8c6d4ek9ttcgf1svi8fthaa6hhn0dtl@4ax.com...

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 09:46:06 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Oct 2010 22:08:20 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:28:14 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as
it
was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an animal
any
more due to EU ecobollox intervention

More...

"Emission spectra of some compact fluorescent lamps"
http://web.ncf.ca/jim/misc/cfl/

You can check the spectra of some CFL lamps at:
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Compact%20Fluorescent.htm

"The Double Amici Prism Hand-Held Spectroscope."
Emission spectra of various lamps are furthur down the page.
http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/spectroscope/amici.html
Incidentally, you might find it amusing to see what CCFL backlit white
looks like on a laptop LCD display [1.3.7], and a Sony Trinitron
[1.11.3]. Also, the authors comments on "Full-Spectrum Lamps" near
the bottom of the page.

Cool stuff. Always interesting to "see" that what we perceive is not
always (or often) 1:1 with what's really there.

Make Magazine vol 24 (due out any day now) will have a DIY article on a
hand-held diffraction grating spectroscope.
http://makezine.com/magazine/ (Note that as of today the link shows
volume 23; subscribers should have received an email link to number 24).

There's also http://sciencefirst.com/product_info.php?products_id=403.
It's kind of clunky (basically a kid's toy) but it does have an
adjustable scale so it can be kinda-sorta calibrated using a known
spectral line from a fluorescent lamp.

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

I wonder whether colour blindness has anything to do with this, and the
reason why some of us seem to have a problem with the colour rendition of
CFLs, whilst others don't ? Long ago when I was in senior school, I was
tested for colour blindness, and was declared red blind and green
insensitive (I think) which I understood to mean that I couldn't pick out
certain shades of green amongst other colours, and couldn't see some shades
of red at all. In normal everyday life, this has never caused me any
problem, and as far as I am concerned, I see and distinguish colour as well
as the next guy, (although maybe differently in perception) but that is
assuming the natural condition of daylight, which all of the 'traditional'
light sources, including linear flourescents, mimic reasonably well, at
least at the lower end, and in terms of the spectra being reasonably 'bulky'
and continuous. However, that is not the case for the typical CFL spectrum,
which is *extremely* discontinuous. Could it be that the zero emission dips
in the spectrum, correspond wholly or in part, to spectrum sensitivity
deficiencies in my eyes, causing my colour blindness to become significant
under that light, and leading to some colours all but disappearing to me.
That would certainly account for why some blend colours like orange or
violet on the resistor colour bands that started all this, become
indistinguishable (to me) from the single colour components which make them
up.

Arfa

 

[Arfa Daily]

"LSMFT" <boleyn7@aol.com> wrote in message
news:%O2xo.761$kS.755@newsfe17.iad...

Arfa Daily wrote:
As if any more reasons were needed on top of their horrible startup
characteristics, their ugliness, their sick coloured light, and their
inability to last for a fraction of the claimed lifetime :-(

Like most of us, I suspect, I have hundreds of component drawers, which
over the years have become mixed up and confused, so in the
circumstances of work being very quiet at the moment, I decided to have
a major tidy up and clear out of redundant components. As a first move,
I decided to rationalise the resistors, and re-store them by individual
value, rather than in groups of values in the same drawer.

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as
it was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an
animal any more due to EU ecobollox intervention - I put in a CFL that
had come free in a cornflake packet or some such nonsense. Once it has
warmed up in the morning - at least one coffee drinking time needed for
this - it seemed to work reasonably well. Until, that is, I started
trying to identify the resistors in my old drawers to move them into the
individual value drawers in the new location.

The spectrum from this lamp is so poor and discontinuous, that it is
almost impossible to resolve red from brown from orange, or violet from
blue or grey. Absolutely bloody useless. If I can't find any more 60
watt pearl bulbs on the 'net, then I'm going to modify the lampholder to
take a low voltage halogen downlighter bulb, and hook it to a 12v
transformer.

Arfa

People like you have real issues. I have had 100% CFL's in my home for
decades. Guess what, they are better than candles.
I will be switching to LED's when they are available for all around use.

--
LSMFT

Maybe I do have issues - see my post in this thread about colour blindness.
But setting that aside, I am sick of people telling me that I can't actually
see what I clearly can, because *they* can't see it, and are happy to be led
by the nose down the route of this substitute technology in the name of
green mist brigade ecobollox.

And you know what else ? You're right ! CFLs are better than candles. But
compared to incandescent lamps, they suck big time. So if that's the sum
total of your contribution, and you are happy with the shitstreet pieces of
crap, that's just fine.

I, and thousands of others, are not.

Arfa

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:20:53 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
<arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

The last
one shows very clearly why the human animal is 'at ease' with daylight,
incandescent light, light from fire and so on, but in some cases - notably
*me* for instance - not with the light from CFLs. The discontinuity and lack
of general 'body' to the spectrum is very telling.

Yep. It took me literally 20 years to get used to using ordinary
fluorescent desk lamps.

Also, interesting to see
the spectrum from regular linear flourescent tubes. Those diagrams show me
very clearly why I don't have a problem with the light from them. That just
leaves (and begs) the question of why, when broad spectrum phosphors are
obviously readily and cheaply available, as evidenced by their use in linear
tubes, they are not using them in CFLs, instead pissing about with limited
bandwidth emission triphosphor coatings, which produce the objectionable
light quality that I, and others like me, are being forced to endure. Do the
CFLs on sale in other parts of the world, in fact use linear tube phosphors

Dunno, but I can guess that incremental improvements as a sales tool
might be at work. If the industry produced the ultimate perfect CFL
light, that lasted forever, it might as well close up shop after about
10 years. So, we have incremental improvements in order to inspire us
to "upgrade" our lighting. Perpetual obsolescence is the price of
technical progress.

This might help:
2700K (warm tone)
4100K (Cool White)
5000K (Natural Day Light)
5500K (Full Spectrum)
6500K (Day Light)
from:
<http://www.naturallighting.com/web/shop.php?crn=571>
Presumably, you're looking for 5500K, which is commonly available. For
example:
<http://www.1000bulbs.com/product/6792/FC23-SFS.html>
I don't know exactly which phosphors (or mixes) are currently in use.

I had the not-so-great idea of using my digital camera and some
software as a spectrograph. I found what I thought was some suitable
software:
<http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/plugins/color-inspector.html>
<http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/>
It's really cool software, but never obtained anything like the CFL
spectra on the various web pages. Seen any software that will take a
solid color, from a JPG of a CFL lamp, and break it up into spectral
lines?

Drivel: I was defrosting the fridge with a screwdriver and hammer,
when I managed to puncture the cooling coils, releasing the gas. I
hate days like this.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I wonder whether colour blindness has anything to do with this, and the
reason why some of us seem to have a problem with the colour rendition of
CFLs, whilst others don't ? Long ago when I was in senior school, I was
tested for colour blindness, and was declared red blind and green
insensitive (I think) which I understood to mean that I couldn't pick out
certain shades of green amongst other colours, and couldn't see some
shades
of red at all. In normal everyday life, this has never caused me any
problem, and as far as I am concerned, I see and distinguish colour as
well
as the next guy, (although maybe differently in perception) but that is
assuming the natural condition of daylight, which all of the 'traditional'
light sources, including linear flourescents, mimic reasonably well, at
least at the lower end, and in terms of the spectra being reasonably
'bulky'
and continuous. However, that is not the case for the typical CFL
spectrum,
which is *extremely* discontinuous. Could it be that the zero emission
dips
in the spectrum, correspond wholly or in part, to spectrum sensitivity
deficiencies in my eyes, causing my colour blindness to become significant
under that light, and leading to some colours all but disappearing to me.
That would certainly account for why some blend colours like orange or
violet on the resistor colour bands that started all this, become
indistinguishable (to me) from the single colour components which make
them
up.

Color vision is usually tested by seeing whether people can /distinguish/
colors, rather than identify them. Human males sometimes suffer from
red/green "color blindness" -- difficulty in distinguishing them. My father
had that problem; fortunately I didn't inherit it.

Peter Wensberg, a vice-president at Polaroid, reported that Dr Land ran the
entire book of color-perception charts past him, and said he was the first
person he'd met who failed every one. Whether this meant Mr Wensberg could
not see color at all, I don't know. But he couldn't /distinguish/ them very
well.

A co-worker once asked me to help with selecting colors for a page he was
designing. It turned out he had red-green problems. I showed him a
fluorescent-green pen. "What color does that look like to you?" "Orange". I
don't know what "orange" looked like to him, but he couldn't distinguish
that green from orange.

It isn't clear how the lack of red in fluorescent lamps would interact with
red/green blindness.

For what it's worth, conventional "linear" fluorescents, regardless of their
color balance, have never looked "right" to me. The better CFLs are the
first fluorescents that look fairly natural.

 

[N_Cook]

Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:tn5xo.73935$J84.37331@newsfe27.ams2...

"LSMFT" <boleyn7@aol.com> wrote in message
news:%O2xo.761$kS.755@newsfe17.iad...
Arfa Daily wrote:
As if any more reasons were needed on top of their horrible startup
characteristics, their ugliness, their sick coloured light, and their
inability to last for a fraction of the claimed lifetime :-(

Like most of us, I suspect, I have hundreds of component drawers, which
over the years have become mixed up and confused, so in the
circumstances of work being very quiet at the moment, I decided to have
a major tidy up and clear out of redundant components. As a first move,
I decided to rationalise the resistors, and re-store them by individual
value, rather than in groups of values in the same drawer.

Now the other day, the bulb in my Anglepoise bench light failed, and as
it was the last 60 watt pearl one I had - nowhere stocking such an
animal any more due to EU ecobollox intervention - I put in a CFL that
had come free in a cornflake packet or some such nonsense. Once it has
warmed up in the morning - at least one coffee drinking time needed for
this - it seemed to work reasonably well. Until, that is, I started
trying to identify the resistors in my old drawers to move them into
the
individual value drawers in the new location.

The spectrum from this lamp is so poor and discontinuous, that it is
almost impossible to resolve red from brown from orange, or violet from
blue or grey. Absolutely bloody useless. If I can't find any more 60
watt pearl bulbs on the 'net, then I'm going to modify the lampholder
to
take a low voltage halogen downlighter bulb, and hook it to a 12v
transformer.

Arfa

People like you have real issues. I have had 100% CFL's in my home for
decades. Guess what, they are better than candles.
I will be switching to LED's when they are available for all around use.

--
LSMFT

Maybe I do have issues - see my post in this thread about colour
blindness.
But setting that aside, I am sick of people telling me that I can't
actually
see what I clearly can, because *they* can't see it, and are happy to be
led
by the nose down the route of this substitute technology in the name of
green mist brigade ecobollox.

And you know what else ? You're right ! CFLs are better than candles. But
compared to incandescent lamps, they suck big time. So if that's the sum
total of your contribution, and you are happy with the shitstreet pieces
of
crap, that's just fine.

I, and thousands of others, are not.

Arfa

A few stripes of red permanent-ink felt-tip pen over the CFL tubes "warms"
up the colour lovely - what's all the fuss about ?