Wayne Boatwright wrote:

On Sun 27 Apr 2008 12:42:38p, Pete C. told us...


Don Klipstein wrote:

In article , Art Todesco
wrote:
Blattus Slafaly ? (3) ¼ wrote:
Tony Hwang wrote:
Hi,
Came across a 23W dimmable CFL. Got one to try it out.
It worked ~2 hours and pop, it went to full brightness and no more
dimmable??!! Are they this unreliable? Or I got bad one.

You can't really expect a CFL to have the same range as an
incandescent bulb. If you are testing it to extremes you can expect
it to pop.

I don't believe that it should be
expected to pop. I have 2 of them.
They don't dim very well. By that I
mean, when dimmed, they flicker
quite a bit. The range is good if you
can stand the blinkety blink. There
are spots where they seem to settle down
and be ok. BTW, I am
using this on an X10 lamp module, so
finding a "good" spot is quite
difficult. With a real dimmer, it might be easier.

I have this sinking feeling that dimmable screw-base CFLs at least
sometimes lack provision to have their filaments maintained at a proper
temperature when they are dimmed. I would expect some compromise in
life expectancy with severe or moderately severe dimming.

One scheme mentioned a lot in some thread in sci.engr.lighting
earlier
this year is to have two sets of lights in a room - one for bright
lighting and another for dim lighting.

Back to the old style 3-way lighting from before they made multi
filament lamps and used several individual lamps instead. Put three
small normal CFLs in that type of fixture and you're all set.


Hmm... Yes, like the old floor lamps that had 3 standard base sockets and
one central mogul base socket. I wish I still had one of the really nice
ones that my parents had. It was a beautiful lamp with marble base and
engraved bronze post. An adapter could be put in the mogul base in order
to use a CFL there, too.

They have big honkin' CFLs with mogul bases too. They're starting to
appear at the big boxes. You have to be careful though because there are
also some similar looking mogul based CFLs that are designed to directly
replace HID lights such as mercury vapor without removing the HID
ballast.


We have several true antique tiffany-style glass and craftsman style lamps
with mica shades that have either 2 or 3 pull chain sockets in them.
However, I still use clear incandescent bulbs in them because the CFLs make
them look extremely dull. I have thumbwheel dimmers on the line cords and
I use slightly higher wattage bulbs than one might want so that when dimmed
they give a much warmer light.

Have you tried looking for a CFL with a warmer (lower) color
temperature? Also if you try them be sure to try them for a few days
since your eyes will adjust.