David Hansen wrote:
On Tue, 4 Jul 2006 19:06:16 +0100 someone who may be Helen Deborah
Vecht wrote this:-

They will need a much better emission spectrum, they'll need to fit most
luminaires, they'll need to be easily available in all sizes and shapes
etc, etc, etc...

With regard to your last two points things have changed a lot in the
past couple of years. For example, there is a fair range at
http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/bro...ode=pg&CatID=6

With regard to your first point things have also changed a lot in
the past couple of years. However this has not always been for the
better with some lamps:-(

There is an almost complete lack of dimmable CFLs in the UK. there are
*some*, not generally available, that have four or five fixed settings,
which are cycled by flicking the power on and off to the lamp, but none
that can be dimmed using a standard lightswitch dimmer function. I use
dimmers so that the same lighting fixture conveniently provides task
lighting and mood lighting - and I'm not about to get in an electrician
(Part P) and plasterer to chase in a new lighting circuit and set of
switches to separate the two functions - that will be far too
expensive. There are non-CFL continuously dimmable solutions, which I
am told are breathtakingly expensive for domestic use. I use CFLs
where I can, despite the crap light quality (having tried much more
than £50 of different lamps), but I can well understand why they do
not 'fly off the shelves'.

I agree completely with other contributors to this discussion that more
scientific info on the packaging would be useful. It is not possible
to make an informed solution with the information on standard packaging
- and not easy to find it elsewhere.

I like the idea behind CFLs. The implementation is crap.

Sid