In om, terry wrote:
On Oct 28, 3:44 pm, Jim Yanik wrote:
wrote in
oups.com:

This post is not about using a CFL in a touch sensitive lamp, but
about the two sharing the same room!

I recently installed a CFL bulb in a ceiling fixture of a bedroom that
also has a touch sensitive 3 way lamp plugged into a wall outlet. The
touch sensitive lamp was turned on while I replaced the ceiling bulb.
As soon as I turned on the ceiling fixture at the wall switch both the
CFL bulb and the touch lamp started freaking out - flickering
strongly, the touch lamp cycled through its brightness levels. Within
about 30 seconds the CFL went out and never came back on.

some CFLs radiate a lot of electronic noise.
The lamp touch-sensor circuit may be very sensitive to it.

Ah! Another source of RFI (Radio frequency interference)? While I
always find these technological clashes somewaht humorous there is/are
serious side/s to it.

Wondering if the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in the USA
and the equivalent agencies in other countries have standards for not
radiating undue radio-noise. Beginning to suspect there are none or
that those existing are not enforced. So some cheap lamps, say, are
imported and don't meet any particular standards? nd hen it comes to
something like that I don't think we can depend on ToysR'Us to recall
like whenthey find lead paint on something?

Line-voltage-powered CFLs with electronic ballasts, when marketed in the
USA, do have to be FCC approved. With the exception of most dollar store
models, in my experience these do have "FCC ID".

Most dollar store CFLs in my experience lack something else that
integral-ballast line-voltage-powered CFLs in the USA normally have: UL
listing!

If your CFL was not a dollar store stool specimen, and especially if it
had "Energy Star" approval and/or was made by one of the "Big Three" (GE,
Philips or Sylvania), then it was probably defective. I suspect something
on the circuit board broke and the CFL simply seriously malfunctioned and
fairly quickly died.

One more thing about most dollar store CFLs: In my experience, those
with light output claims fall short, occaisionally by a factor of three!

Another thing about them: In my experience, most have an icy cold
bluish "daylight" color, even some claiming "soft warm white light". They
also usually have a spectrum like that of "Old Tech" Daylight
fluorescents, which have a color rendering index of 79 and color
distortions mostly of reds and to a lesser extent greens being "darker and
duller than proper". Non-dollar-store CFLs have CRI of 82 and distortions
mostly in the direction of "brighter and more vivid than proper", though
some reds come out orangish.
There are some warm color dollar store CFLs, but they mostly have a
spectrum like that of "Old Tech Warm White", which has a color rendering
index of 53!

Yet another thing about dollar store CFLs: My experience is that they
have more than their fair share of early failures, malfunctions right out
of the package, and scary spectacular failures.

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Many CFLs don't like the heat buildup in recessed ceiling fixtures.
However, it appears to me that they merely die early after overheating
(either days-weeks or something along the lines of roughly half their
normal life expectancy). Radio interference is not a complaint I have
heard of before from this.

There are CFLs rated to take the heat of recessed ceiling fixtures. The
example I remember best is non-dimmable version of Philips SLS of wattages
up to 23 watts.

- Don Klipstein )