Hardware Insights Forum

https://sound-au.com/articles/incandescent.htm

It isn't really surprising, when you think about it, that these things are built as cheaply as possible. Even the major brands aren't good quality. But good luck explaining to a layperson that these things are much more complicated than incandescent bulbs, and can't be cheap without sacrificing quality.

What comes as a shock is this:

It seems that as far as many manufacturers are concerned, melted plastic, evil-smelling smoke and other similar issues are considered normal modes of failure at the end-of-life of a CFL.

WTF are the safety authorities smoking???

Also worth mentioning: Even leaving the dimmer on maximum isn't safe. Even "dimmable" units can only be used with the more expensive trailing-edge dimmers. (If it isn't specifically identified, assume it's leading-edge.)

Bad capacitors aside, a Philips Genie 18W that I opened today has the brown death glue. They should never have made fluorescent lamps as retrofits for incandescent bulbs. (The old lightbulb sockets are relics, anyway - that they are totally unsafe is common knowledge.) Ready-made LED lamps aren't necessarily high-quality, either. If you want quality, there's only one way to get it.

(This only applies to the units with an internal ballast designed as retrofits for incandescent lamps. The ones with 4-pin bases, used with a separate ballast (rarely seen in homes but common in commercial buildings), are as safe and reliable as the big linear tubes.)

I've seen the tubes fail in commercial style 4 pin lights, but that's it. I've never had an incandescent retrofit fail at all (even when used in a sealed enclosure). I do agree, though, that their only advantage is their lower power usage. Just about everything else about them is a serious downside, such as the way they are made and their failure modes.

The batch of Philips Essential 14W lamps I have contain very mysterious capacitors - "Bright 04" IIRC. And, yes, some of them had popped (often flickering and clicking before total failure to start).

In regard to colour temperature, I prefer 4000K ("cool white"), but in some CFLs, you can only get 6500K ("cool daylight"), which is too blue, and 2700K ("warm white", meant to look like incandescent bulbs), which is too orange.

As usual, the only actual fluoro fittings I have are the ones that take straight 18W or 36W T8 tubes (what's your experience with them???). As far as colour rendition goes, all of the fluoros I have (regardless of colour temperature, and whether linear or compact) appear to emit five bands of colour - red, amber, green, aqua (? - not sure what the name is, but it's definitely between green and blue), and violet. (Detected using the good old optical-disc-diffraction trick.)

I haven't found the T8 tubes to be much different to the larger tubes which are often used in commercial buildings. I've occasionally seen them fail as they age, but that's about it

I'm sad to say that some electronic-ballasted fittings for conventional fluorescent tubes can be about as crappy as the ones in CFLs.

I just got - and disassembled - a Crompton FL13D. Inside the ballast is:

• One of those "fusible" resistors
• A single small coil and a 400VDC film capacitor for EMI filtering
• Two 3.3µF 250V Aishi caps (used to implement a "valley-fill" circuit, if that's any small positive)
• TO-92 switchers (as in many CFLs)

The included tube is featureless. The box states that it's 4000K, but I'm not brave enough to install it to see if that's actually the case.

Looks like the only safe bet is to go with the old-fashioned, (somewhat) inefficient inductive ballasts. At least those last forever.

You can also include your experiences with external electronic ballasts in the poll.

TO-92 switchers (as in many CFLs)

CSL13003s to be exact.

The casing of the ballast identifies it as a "YALTAN ME035". It claims to have a power factor of 0.95, but I don't think so.

APPOVAL MARK:SAA110216EA

The typo aside, I couldn't find that with Google.

There are also supposed terminal marks on the casing, but the wires are soldered to the PCB.

The wires inside the fitting were all white. I would have used the IEC standard brown for live and blue for neutral, black for one end of the tube, and white for the other end, to eliminate the risk of confusion.

It's safe to say I have no intention of using this POS.

Two key things here:

Crompton has been around since 1887, and I'm sure many people will buy from them on that basis, even though I've demonstrated that you just can't rely on time in business as an indicator of quality.

Electronic ballasts are touted as being "green". The high quality ones, maybe, but the cheap crappy ones don't stand a chance.