Another reason to hate CFLs ...

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

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.

My first wife did that circa 1974. You can patch the coils and refill them,
HOWEVER what I did not learn until a few years ago is that you have to
to empty the coils with a vacuum pump before you add new refrigerant.

Adding new refigerant to a system with air in it does not work very well.

You also may want to not mention this to anyone, don't you need a permit
to release refrigerant into the air in California?

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
To help restaurants, as part of the "stimulus package", everyone must order
dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it.

 

[Jeffrey Angus]

On 10/24/2010 11:14 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

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.

I just use a garden hose hooked to the hot water heater.

(Ever since I ruined on with a screwdriver)

Jeff

 

[Brenda Ann]

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ia3bqd$ktb$1@news.eternal-september.org...

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.

I have an hypothesis that I wish there were a way to explore. Whereas a
given color of light (or what we call a color) is a definate wavelength, and
therefore a constant.... BUT.. is human perception of colors universal? ie
we know when we are seeing "red" (~650nm) because that's what we LEARNED to
call the color we see as red. Does this necessarily mean that we are all
perceiving the same hue, or do we each see something a bit different, but we
all call it the same thing?

As a totally out of the park example: let's say you and your friend are
looking at a stopsign. You both know that the sign is "red". But perhaps
what you see is more of an orange, whilst your friend sees something more
like yellow. As a subjective appearance, the difference in color perception
would be "normal" to the viewer, whereas were the two of you to "swap"
perceptions, the world around you would look quite strange.

It may sound like a very offbeat idea, but when you think about it, most
sensors have a skew in one direction or another: no two cameras register
color exactly the same.

Just another strange thought to ponder..

 

[Rich Webb]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:43:01 +0900, "Brenda Ann"
<newsgroups@fullspectrumradio.org> wrote:

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ia3bqd$ktb$1@news.eternal-september.org...

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.



I have an hypothesis that I wish there were a way to explore. Whereas a
given color of light (or what we call a color) is a definate wavelength, and
therefore a constant.... BUT.. is human perception of colors universal? ie
we know when we are seeing "red" (~650nm) because that's what we LEARNED to
call the color we see as red. Does this necessarily mean that we are all
perceiving the same hue, or do we each see something a bit different, but we
all call it the same thing?

As a totally out of the park example: let's say you and your friend are
looking at a stopsign. You both know that the sign is "red". But perhaps
what you see is more of an orange, whilst your friend sees something more
like yellow. As a subjective appearance, the difference in color perception
would be "normal" to the viewer, whereas were the two of you to "swap"
perceptions, the world around you would look quite strange.

It may sound like a very offbeat idea, but when you think about it, most
sensors have a skew in one direction or another: no two cameras register
color exactly the same.

Just another strange thought to ponder..

Not only possible but likely. The front-end sensors, the cone cells, can
differ slightly between individuals in the concentration and molecular
structure of the photo-pigments that trigger the cell to fire when a
photon is absorbed, resulting in slightly different response curves.

Even cooler -- most birds, as well as some other critters, have a
distinct fourth color receptor.

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I have an hypothesis that I wish there were a way to explore. Whereas a
given color of light (or what we call a color) is a definate wavelength,
and
therefore a constant... BUT... is human perception of colors universal? ie
we know when we are seeing "red" (~650nm) because that's what we
LEARNED to call the color we see as red. Does this necessarily mean
that we are all perceiving the same hue, or do we each see something
a bit different, but we all call it the same thing?

It would be very odd if what I call "blue" looks like what you would call
"red", as most human beings are chemically and neurologically essentially
identical.

However, I noticed many years ago that my eyes differ slightly. One has a
(very) slightly "cooler" or "bluer" balance. Why, I don't know.

 

[Brenda Ann]

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ia3ssb$5f1$1@news.eternal-september.org...

I have an hypothesis that I wish there were a way to explore. Whereas a
given color of light (or what we call a color) is a definate wavelength,
and
therefore a constant... BUT... is human perception of colors universal?
ie
we know when we are seeing "red" (~650nm) because that's what we
LEARNED to call the color we see as red. Does this necessarily mean
that we are all perceiving the same hue, or do we each see something
a bit different, but we all call it the same thing?

It would be very odd if what I call "blue" looks like what you would call
"red", as most human beings are chemically and neurologically essentially
identical.

However, I noticed many years ago that my eyes differ slightly. One has a
(very) slightly "cooler" or "bluer" balance. Why, I don't know.

In theory, yes. In fact, most likely not. There are variations in our other
senses that are much easier to quantify, for example, pain thresholds and
scent thresholds, as well as variations in perception of audio due to ear
shape, etc.

The example, though, was meant to amplify and clarify the idea, rather than
necessarily as a solid example. A difference in perception might be more
subtle, like the difference between burgundy and crimson, or such.

 

[Jeffrey Angus]

On 10/25/2010 7:18 AM, Rich Webb wrote:

Even cooler -- most birds, as well as some other critters, have a
distinct fourth color receptor.

Oddly enough, they can see magnetic lines of force.
<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070927-magnetic-birds.html>

Jeff

 

[Tim Schwartz]

On 10/23/2010 9:28 PM, 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

Hello all,

I have certainly observed issues with color spectrum and actual life
vs. claimed life on these lams, as many of you have already noted.

I've also notice that there is a huge variation in turn on
characteristics and color, so unlike traditional filament lamps, which
are pretty consistent from brand to brand, there is a huge variation in
the CFL's

What no one here seemed to mention is the fall off of light output from
the CFL's as they age. I've noticed that if you want the claimed light
output from these, you probably need to replace them every 750-100 hours
or so, again with a huge variation from model to model. A Philips lamp
catalog I once looked at failed to list the light output at the end of
the rated bulb life, something that was listed for virtually every other
type of lamp in the catalog.

I find the CFL's a poor choice in an area where I'm going to read or
work, but just fine in hallways where you just don't want to walk into
things. I was quite surprised when one CFL failed after a year (likely
2000 hours in my application and I replaced it with an identical lamp
form the same package and noted the HUGE difference in brightness.

I feel that the quoted lumens of the CFL's is for a 'young' bulb and
that the fall off is quite rapid. If I had to take a guess on my
hallway light, I would say that at 2000 hours the lamp was down to 40%
of its original output.

I have been using LED lamps in some 'high hat' (PAR30 flood light)
applications in my home. Expensive but worth it.

Regards,
Tim Schwartz
Bristol Electronics

 

[N_Cook]

GE dumping CFLs in the UK.? Supermarket and separately a hardware barn with
GE 11W and 15W CFL at 10 pence (<>15 cents ) each. So broke into a 15W one
240V, 144 mA
FLE15TBXT3/827 10Y
PbF desolders easy enough on the bayonet buttons.
This time 3.3uF , 400V, 105 deg C and 2x BU103A so whatever current rating
of BU102 the BU103A is likely 33 percent higher, still TO92. Much same else
inc 32V diac

 

[N_Cook]

Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm@mendelson.com> wrote in message
news:slrnicb5ic.iiq.gsm@cable.mendelson.com...

N_Cook wrote:
GE dumping CFLs in the UK.? Supermarket and separately a hardware barn
with
GE 11W and 15W CFL at 10 pence (<>15 cents ) each.

I thought there was some government subsidy for them, and a tax credit to
the
power companies if they give them out (with possibly a requirment to).

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
To help restaurants, as part of the "stimulus package", everyone must
order
dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat
it.

When can I claim my nominal cost utility-friendly fridge ? from the same
economics
Monitors mains f and drops out/fails to come on when f below a threshold
http://www.dynamicdemand.co.uk/grid.htm

 

[Meat Plow]

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 13:30:20 -0500, Jeffrey Angus wrote:

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

Yes it's a transition thing. Halogen immediately and then supposedly a
smooth transition to CFL. I would assume if designed correctly and decent
quality parts used that it should suffer no quicker death than a
traditional CFL.



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

 

[Meat Plow]

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 21:14:32 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

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.

I've seen two office refrigerators end up in the trash because
secretaries thought they could use letter openers and a hammer to
carefully break the ice up. Why doesn't your unit have a timed defrost on
it like most home units do?



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

 

[Bruce Esquibel]

Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> 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 :-(

I didn't read every message in this thread so sorry if this has been brought
up already...

<http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/21/ge-introduces-hybrid-bulb-with-both-halogen-and-cfl-elements/>

Look like others share in your observation with startup times.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com

 

[William Sommerwerck]

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

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.

Yes it's a transition thing. Halogen immediately and then supposedly a
smooth transition to CFL. I would assume if designed correctly and decent
quality parts used that it should suffer no quicker death than a
traditional CFL.

Agreed. But that wasn't what I said. (See above.)

Halogen lamps don't "like" being turned on and off a lot. They need to come
up to full temperature for an extended time so the "recycling" effect can
kick in. Bulbs operated at a temperature slightly /below/ this point will
fail quickly. (I saw this at a friend's house.)

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Tim Schwartz wrote:

I feel that the quoted lumens of the CFL's is for a 'young' bulb and
that the fall off is quite rapid. If I had to take a guess on my
hallway light, I would say that at 2000 hours the lamp was down to 40%
of its original output.

You might think that, but in many cases you would be wrong. When I recently
replaced a year old Osram brand CFL with another of the same wattage, I
noticed immediately it was much brighter.

Then I looked at the old lamp and the box for the new one. The old one was
rated 2/3s of the lumens of the new one.

So in this case, and will all of the osram lamps we bought that day (we bought
several in different sizes and wattages) they were much brighter by design than
the ones just a year old.

What I want to see is a long necked refrigerator bulb.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
To help restaurants, as part of the "stimulus package", everyone must order
dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I find the CFL's a poor choice in an area where I'm going
to read or work...

The "right" fixture (a subjective thing) can help immensely.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 06:24:04 +0000 (UTC), "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
<gsm@mendelson.com> wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
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.

My first wife did that circa 1974. You can patch the coils and refill them,
HOWEVER what I did not learn until a few years ago is that you have to
to empty the coils with a vacuum pump before you add new refrigerant.

This is a small 4 cubic foot Kenmore fridge. About $120 to replace.
There are no refill valves and no easy way to refill. The "coils" are
a flat plate that fits under the freezer section. It will soon make a
tolerable paint storage cabinet somewhere in the yard.

I've been doing the screwdriver and hammer defrosting trick for about
35 years without problems. I'm not sure why I failed this time, but
it probably had something to do with spending too much time on the
computer and on Usenet.

Adding new refigerant to a system with air in it does not work very well.

True. My understanding is that the reason for the vacuum pump cycle
is to prevent any refrigerant from escaping into the atmosphere. In
the days before we discovered ecology, a purge cycle, where the
refrigerant pressure was used to purge the system, was deemed
adequate.

You also may want to not mention this to anyone, don't you need a permit
to release refrigerant into the air in California?

I have no idea, but with I'm sure that there's a law or rule
designating everything I'm doing as illegal. For example, I'm
required to remove the door from a disused refrigerator to prevent the
neighborhood kids from climbing inside and locking the door. Never
mind that fridges with locking doors went out of style in the 1960's.

--
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

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:02:57 +0000 (UTC), Meat Plow
<mhywatt@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Sun, 24 Oct 2010 21:14:32 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

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.

I've seen two office refrigerators end up in the trash because
secretaries thought they could use letter openers and a hammer to
carefully break the ice up. Why doesn't your unit have a timed defrost on
it like most home units do?

Nope. It's a small bar type 4 cu ft fridge. It doesn't even have a
light inside. My previous giant monster fridge had one of those
self-defrosting features. I disabled it when I discovered that a
substantial part of my monthly electric bill was dedicated to
defrosting. The water bed followed soon after.

--
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

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

N_Cook wrote:

GE dumping CFLs in the UK.? Supermarket and separately a hardware barn with
GE 11W and 15W CFL at 10 pence (<>15 cents ) each.

I thought there was some government subsidy for them, and a tax credit to the
power companies if they give them out (with possibly a requirment to).

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
To help restaurants, as part of the "stimulus package", everyone must order
dessert. As part of the socialized health plan, you are forbidden to eat it.

 

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:10:00 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
<grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

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


Halogen lamps don't "like" being turned on and off a lot. They need to come
up to full temperature for an extended time so the "recycling" effect can
kick in. Bulbs operated at a temperature slightly /below/ this point will
fail quickly. (I saw this at a friend's house.)

I created my own "transition" solution some time ago. Use a 2 bulb
fixture with an LED bulb and a CFL. The first one I installed was in
an entry way where full brightess isn't as important as instant
response. The LED lights imediately and the CFL follows in a fraction
of a second. Even a small LED bulb provides enough light that the
person entering doesn't repeatedly toggle the switch because the light
didn't come on instantly (the CFL isn't an instant on; instant on
CFL's have shorter lives than the slow start versions - read the
warranty labels).

A 3 watt LED is probably visually equivalent to a 25 watt incandescent
bulb, so use a 3 watt LED with a 40 watt equivalent CFL to get close
to 60 watt equivalent brightness. None of this is measured with
instruments, just with people's reactions - which is often the
deciding factor in home lighting - and why the lights for the bathroom
mirror are a mix of incandescent and CFL: what my wife is happy with
for color balance. When I find an LED with a color balance she likes,
the incandescents will go away.

John