wrote in message
...
On Dec 30, 8:49 am, "Arfa Daily" wrote:
I have just returned from a Christmas trip to Vegas, staying in the
same big
name Strip-side hotel that I always do. However, since I was last
there a
year ago, they seem to have had a big drive to turn the room
lighting over
to CFLs. Now, instead of getting a decent light in the room when
you come in
the door, it's like someone is going round lighting candles one at
a time.
When the rotten things have finally warmed up enough to give out
some light,
the room appears dingy and uninviting. Although at first glance,
the colour
temperature and CRI look a 'reasonable' match to incandescent, the
light
actually has a most unpleasant 'sick' quality to it.

Above the beds, there are standard 'large format' reflector spots,
for
reading. These have now been replaced by lamps with a similar form
factor,
but which contain a double spiral CFL element. The light that these
output,
again once they have warmed up enough to produce light worth
bothering
about, is singularly unsuitable for reading by, and after a couple
of
nights, I gave up trying.

Now if this is the level that the technology has reached, and this
is the
sort of product that forthcoming government legislation in my
country (UK)
and several others I believe, is aiming to force us to accept by
banning
sales of incandescents, then I for one, will be stocking up on
enough light
bulbs to see my days out ...

Arfa

The US congress is also talking aout MANDATING CFLs because of the
energy use - translate: Global Warming.
We have a house as full of them as possible and I don't give a hoot
about GW but we DO care about the electric bill. In southen CA
electric rate is $0.25/ KWh so anything that helps is OK by me. There
is a large difference between CFLs from different manufacturers, the
old Philips taking a few seceond to even BEGIN to light and then a
minute to come up to full brilliance. OTOH its one of the first ones I
bought 7 years ago and still going strong. Be aware that some are only
rated to have the base down and unenclosed and they do fail FAST if
you don't follow the instructions.

When light bulbs are outlawed only outlaws......

Happy New Year
GG

I'm with you on the GW thing. I think that there's enough evidence to make
the case for it being man-made, dubious at very best. Also, like Smitty, I
think that there are better ways to save. As far as it being an economics
thing, I would guess that is why a 3000 room hotel in Vegas is going over to
them. I can't imagine the corporation that owns this particular hotel ( and
50% of the others on the Strip ) actually caring too much about the eco
aspect. But I really think that these lamps need to get a lot better *in
general* to make mandating their use a truly viable option. I am sure that
there are some very good ones at the leading edge of the technology, but the
ones that I encountered in this particular hotel, sure as hell didn't fall
into any category down at the 'acceptable' end of the scale, let alone the
'good' end.

On the other hand, I did see some stunning examples of the latest LED
technology. You can always see new forms of this in use in Vegas, and a lot
of the hotels seem to be going over to LED floodlamps for their properties,
with spectacularly good results. The Venetian has just completed a new
accommodation tower, which was due to open a few days after we left. During
the last couple of days that we were there, they were carrying out
commissioning tests on the new LED giant TV screen outside. Now there are a
lot of these down The Strip, but this one was so bright, it was blinding.
I'm sure that once they can get the CRI right for making LED based
'incandescent-look-alike' bulbs, they will quickly knock CFLs off their
shaky eco-perch.

Arfa