compact flourscent lights

[JohnEd]

My comment about the fixture going out with the bulb pertains ONLY to the 12 volt flo fixtures.  I must have thrown away 4 or 5 of those fixtures.  Three of the failed bulbs were blackened and didn't work well in a good fixture.  I threw those away as I thought that the bulb might have taken out the fixture.  The rest had old but good bulbs in them when the fixture failed.  None of these were the $30-40 items sold at Camping world.  They were smaller and half the price of the spendy ones or less.  "I guess I am having difficulty understanding" all of it, as well as you".  I have no facts, figures, theories or even a vague hunch.  The ones I have bought have had a short life and given that most of the bulbs taken from those fixtures worked, albeit badly in most cases,  I have concluded that the fixture was taken out by the bulb failing or aging.  Those 12 V items didn't work out well anyway as they have low lumen output.  I don't take issue with anything you said....only offering clarification of my prior comments.

Of the 120V fixtures, I have had 2 fail after a few years use.  No long as flo goes.  I replaced them with fixtures that appear identical.  The insides are different.  The old ones that failed had transformers inside but the new ones have solid state circuit boards.  These fixtures have a bulb that has the same diameter as the common 4 foot bulbs but are shorter.  Cheap bulbs....none have failed....cheap fixture, two out of 6 have failed in a few years.  Easy fix.

In my house o have replaced everything incondes with CFL's where they will fit.  Under cabnets, where CFL's are subject to being bumped....tubes.

You can purchase LED's in any temp you wish and gang them up to get whatever lumen count you like. The common LED's are getting cheap and they have some new generation items that put out huge lumens but they are very spendy and don't last more the 10 or 20,000 hrs.



HTH,

John

[Just Dallas]

Removed

[Len Silva]

Guys with diesel in their veins and 90 wt in their joints, are not going to be affected by a little mercury

[WEC4104]

Sounds like John is also referencing the non-integrated type fixtures where the ballast is part of the fixture (not part of the bulb).  Be aware that there are also 12VDC CFLs of the integrated type, with the ballast in the bulb.  Some of the have E27 screw in base that every one pictures when they think of a typical incandecent bulb. In this instance there is nothing special about the fixture.

Picture:
http://www.solarpower.org/art17.html

[JohnEd]

YEP!

[WEC4104]

Interesting that a news story broke today regarding CFLs.  The story's main point is that the efficiency of CFLs is overstated because they lose their efficiency at a faster rate during their lifetime. Instead of losing 7% of their light output rating near the  end of their life like incandescent bulbs, the CFLs drop of by 22%

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575858,00.html?test=latestnews