[Boatanchors] Replacing 866s with 3B28s thread drift to CFLs

[Alex Whitaker]

I was having really bad luck with incandescents....my line voltage is about 125 here in Indianapolis.  Plus, before my bariatric surgery, I weighed way too much to get up on a ladder easily and change light bulbs in my 10 foot ceilings.  So, I started replacing all my bulbs with CFLs (I did this on my "good" days when I had someone to help me).  I have had all these bulbs in a minimum of 1 year....some have been in for three years.  I have yet to replace one.....although one in my kitchen has gone intermittent and needs to be replaced.  It's been in for about a year to a year and a half.  Most of them provide as much light as an incandescent, run cooler, and use far less current than an incandescent does.  I really don't see much of a down side to them, except the mercury issue.  I've never used them because of environmental idealism (definitely not a "greenie")......just for convenience and less power used.  

They do make electrical hash that I can hear on the AM broadcast band, but haven't heard them much on my HF rig.  However, I haven't had a boatanchor setup in a while, and there is the possibility of them getting into that, provided the shielding in one isn't as good as my IC-735.  

My $.02 on this seemingly endless thread,

Alex
AA9XY

--- On Fri, 12/31/10, Glen Zook <gzook at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Glen Zook <gzook at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Boatanchors] Replacing 866s with 3B28s thread drift to CFLs
To: WA5CAB at cs.com, sdaitch at kuw.ibb.gov
Cc: boatanchors at mailman.qth.net
Date: Friday, December 31, 2010, 11:33 AM

The concept of whether or not a person "lucked up" and got bad CFL bulbs is more indicative of the actual quality of the manufacture of the bulb.  I have noticed that certain brands of CFL bulbs definitely have a very short life whereas other brands have a much longer life.  The price paid is not, at least in my experience, indicative of the quality in that the bulbs that had the very short life span were considerably more expensive than those that last longer.

As for 120 volt bulbs:  If the ambient line voltage is 120 volts or less, then the life span of the 120 volt bulbs is going to be fine.  Unfortunately, the target line voltage of most major electric companies today is 125 volts +/- 2 volts with the "+" side being much more common than the "-" side.  This over voltage is what causes the failure of the incandescent bulbs when they are rated at 120 volts instead of 130 volts.

Although most of the light bulbs in my house are now CFL, I have a number of lights with 130 volt bulbs that have outlasted 2, 3, 4, and even 5 of the CFL bulbs.  My ambient live voltage is usually around 127 volts.

Glen, K9STH

Website:  http://k9sth.com


--- On Fri, 12/31/10, sdaitch at kuw.ibb.gov <sdaitch at kuw.ibb.gov> wrote:

am I understanding your experience with the incandescent lamps are lasting 4 to 8 times the life of comparable CFLs?
 
I do understand the idea of using 130V bulbs on 120V power to increase the life, but I suppose you could eliminate bulb replacement by going to 220V bulbs.  They'd last nearly forever, but if you are like me, the light output is highly unsatisfactory.
 
Only kidding about the 220V bulbs on 120V, but I don't see incandescent lamps lasting four to eight times longer than CFLs.  That is not my experience, nor some other posters.
 
I can only gather you really got two bad CFLs.


      
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