[Elecraft] CFL's

[Jeremiah McCarthy]

I had this same experience in a living room lamp...I feel that we came close to having a fire because the lamp socket was too hot to touch...The white base of the bulb is not ceramic, it is plastic and is hollow, containing a number of electronic components...In my case, the white base was cooked to a light brown, was cracked, and it collapsed when I tried to unscrew it...The PCB inside was burned to a crisp...This bulb bore the name and logo of a bed-rock American company and was made in China...It would seem that the hype selling these bulbs to rhe public should include a warning about allowing the bulb, which runs relatively cool, to be too close to flammable objects, such as lampshades...

Jerry, wa2dkg

Message: 7
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 21:23:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Tyrrell <w1tf at yahoo.com<mailto:w1tf at yahoo.com>>
Subject: [Elecraft] smoke test
To: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net<mailto:Elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Message-ID: <57718.1518.qm at web53207.mail.re2.yahoo.com<mailto:57718.1518.qm at web53207.mail.re2.yahoo.com>>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

As I sit at my computer the radio desk is to my back. I heard a burst of static behind me. That was odd since no radios were on.  The only thing on at the radio desk was the desk lamp and a power supply that keeps the batteries charged. Both are plugged into a strip that switches power to them.

I went over to the radio desk and looked at my equipment, both off. Still puzzled I turned on the 2m rig, all normal. Then I turned on the K3. All normal. I turned them off again. The K1 sits by, not connected to anything at this time.

Still puzzled  I sat there wondering if something had happened to my battery bank or one of the batteries.  I have three 26AH batteries in parallel. Each battery is fused before to goes to a fused buss.

Then my nose began to notice the smell we all dread. Something electrical was over heated.  Still I did not noticed a symptom I should have noticed earlier, the desk lamp was off. I touched the top of the lamp and it was very hot.  The bulb, a 13 Watt Florissant had failed. The ceramic base was too hot to touch. 

How often do Florissant bulbs fail this way?

I had the feeling that if I were not there a fire may have started.

73, Ty, W1TF, K3 #696, K1 #1423
    
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/elecraft/attachments/20081005/d95acb8e/attachment.htm