On Oct 20, 8:52 am, "TKM" wrote:
"Jeff" wrote in message

... Has anyone tried dimmable compact fluorescent bulbs. How well do the work
and do they smoothly dim? What brand name did you use?

Thanks,
"Beachcomber" wrote in message

...







Same as experience as TKM and Ken. I bought one Philips Marathon
Classic 65 CFL dimmable flood as a test because I wanted to replace
the 20 or so I have installed in can lights throughout the house. The
CFL dimmed fairly smooth until it cut out completely at about the last
third of the dimmers range. The lamps output was very cool as I
expected. I took it out after about 30 seconds. My opinion is that
they suck.

The government wants us to use the CF lamps and LEDs and companies
like GE are dramatically scaling down their incandescent bulb
production.

Unless there are some new technology breakthroughs, our dimming days
are going to be over...

There will be plenty of changes in residential lighting during the next few
years, no doubt. I think we'll see improvements in CFL dimming, however,
because commercial fluorescent dimming systems already do a good job -- they
dim smoothly right down to zero output. The problem is that the dimmer
controls we have around today were designed for incandescent lamps. We now
need controls specifically designed for CFLs.

The CFL dimming test that I reported also had a second part which was
dimming an LED downlight (the LR6 unit made by LLF which draws 12 watts).
Seehttp://www.llfinc.com/index.aspx Using the same standard Lutron
dimmer, the LR6 nicely dimmed down to about 3 watts without any significant
color change and then it went out. Our little test group concluded that
LEDs dim better than screw-in CFLs, and with a bit of work on the controls,
LEDs would dim just fine.

TKM- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


I haven't even gotten to the dimming issue. I bought a 4 pack of FEIT
CFL's that look like indoor floods. Put them in my kitchen. First
problem, they don't fit the can because the neck area is slightly
wider than a regular flood. And yes, they are the correct R type for
the can. So, I have to buy extenders.

Next proiblem, they take a good 2 mins to reach maybe 75% of
brightness. In the first min, it's like a 30W bulb, which is just
great when you come into the kitchen at night. Solution? We'll
since they use less energy, I just leave them on a lot more... Doh!

Second problem, one failed after 2 months. Replaced it with another,
and it's gone in a month too.

I've had much better results with the spira type that I use in my
garage. They get to reasonable output a lot faster and haven't blown
up yet.

The huge problem here is a lack of specs. When you go to buy them,
you should be able to read on the package how long they take to reach
70% of output, how low you can dim them, how long they last... Oh,
wait, they already tell you that, and in some cases, it's a lie.