On 10/24/2010 8:32 AM Arfa Daily spake thus:
"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...
On 10/23/2010 6:28 PM Arfa Daily spake thus:
The spectrum from this lamp is so poor and discontinuous, that it
is almost impossible to resolve red from brown from orange, or
violet from blue or grey. Absolutely bloody useless. If I can't
find any more 60 watt pearl bulbs on the 'net, then I'm going to
modify the lampholder to take a low voltage halogen downlighter
bulb, and hook it to a 12v transformer.
Hate to say it, Arfa, but you sound like a Croat ranting about how
much he hates automobiles, having driven nothing but Yugos all his
life.
CFLs used to be like that, sure. The ones I use (here in the Untied
Snakes) are much better in all the parameters you mentioned:
instant on, no appreciable warm-up time, pleasing color spectrum,
long life.
(Well, their packages still leave something to be desired in some
applications, but other than that they're good.)
Over the years since this technology was vaunted as the 'replacement'
for incandescent light, I have bought many examples from different
manufacturers. Whilst there has been some improvement in their
performance in that time, they remain, IMHO, a 'substitute'
technology, rather than a 'replacement' one. They do not start up in
the few mS that it takes an incandescent to come on, no matter how
good and up to date they are in that respect. Neither do they reach
full output for some considerable time after they are powered. Most
seem to be rated to produce 80% of their maximum light output after
15 seconds. The remaining 20% takes a lot longer than that. Both
shortcomings are exacerbated by low ambient temperature. The power
ratings and light output are typically specced for an ambient
temperature of 25 deg C. Whilst some parts of the world may achieve
this most of the time, we don't here in the UK, and UK homes are
certainly not heated to that level from autumn through spring. Apart
from that, they don't sit properly in many decorative light fittings,
and change the colour aesthetics of some lampshades - notably for
instance, in a rather nice Tiffany style table lamp that I have. When
I tried one in that, the beautiful ruby red panels changed to a muddy
colour, and the whole shade took on a muted look, with much of the
colour vibrancy that is a trademark of this type of shade, gone. I
went back to an incandescent in it. I was able to use a clear one, as
the bulb is not visible.
[snip]
First let me say that I totally believe you and your tale of woe
concerning CFLs vs. incandescents.
But as someone else here pointed out, this merely points to what is
apparently the comparatively poor availability of decent CFLs in your
island nation compared to other places (U.S., for example). More's the pity.
And yes, contrary to your strenuous assertions to the contrary, there
*are* compelling environmental and energy-conservation reasons to switch
to CFLs, and damn fast too. Not just some empty-headed notion from tree
huggers.
But it would be in the best interests of UK citizens if they were
presented a decent range of alternatives to incandescent bulbs before
being forced to give them up. The process actually seems to be going
pretty well on this side of the ocean, with many people switching on
account of a good range of inexpensive alternatives to the old
heat-producers.
--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.
- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (
http://antiwar.com)