Came home tonight to find my CF bulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

wrote:
Came home tonight to find my CF bulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?
I had a problem that wasn't exactly like that. I had a CF bulb in a
socket where the bulb was horizontal, and always on, in the utility
room. When I got home it was melting and sparking. Fortunately the
floor was cement so no fire started.

Mysterious Traveler

On Jul 20, 9:33*pm, " wrote:
Came home tonight to find my CF bulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

Only with x10 electronic switches have I had it happen, maybe just a
bad switch?

On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:33:51 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

Came home tonight to find my CF bulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

Chances are there is a hot wire somewhere close to it and it
was conducting a fair amount of current at that time. Even static
electricity can cause any florescent lamp to give off some light.

On Jul 20, 9:33*pm, " wrote:
Came home tonight to find my CF bulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

Is it on a dimmer that is leaking current? Some two wire dimmers
(like old X10) require a small voltage flow through the filiment at
all times. X10 dimmers with a neutral connection dont have this
problem. Otherwise some other wire is supplying current to the lamp
socket after the switch.

On Jul 21, 8:11*am, wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:33:51 -0700 (PDT), "

wrote:
Came home tonight to find my CF bulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

* * * * Chances are there is a hot wire somewhere close to it and it
was conducting a fair amount of current at that time. *Even static
electricity can cause any florescent lamp to give off some light.

Static, that reminds me, in winter I had a cfl bulb sitting on the
counter, that static I had in me would lite the bulb for maybe 3
seconds if I touched it, and if I grounded myself I didnt have enough
static charge for a shock or spark. I guess its the high voltage
needed to light them.

Is it on a dimmer that is leaking current? *Some two wire dimmers
(like old X10) require a small voltage flow through the filiment at
all times. *X10 dimmers with a neutral connection dont have this
problem. *Otherwise some other wire is supplying current to the lamp
socket after the switch.


Likewise if its on a 2 wire timer that requires a filament for current
flow, that would cause the CFL to blink also.

wrote:
Came home tonight to find my CF bulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

I've seen it happen with regular florescent fixtures
when the neutral instead of the hot lead is switched.
I know an idiot who thinks it's better to switch the
neutral. He drinks a lot and I wont let him touch any
of my wiring. *snicker*

TDD

On Jul 21, 2:44�pm, The Daring Dufas
wrote:
wrote:
Came home tonight to find myCFbulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

I've seen it happen with regular florescent fixtures
when the neutral instead of the hot lead is switched.
I know an idiot who thinks it's better to switch the
neutral. He drinks a lot and I wont let him touch any
of my wiring. �*snicker*

TDD

I have been VERY busy but hope to look at this soon. Last nite it
wasnt flickering/ Its in a outdoor light fixture.

On Jul 22, 5:00*pm, bob haller wrote:
On Jul 21, 2:44 pm, The Daring Dufas
wrote:





wrote:
Came home tonight to find myCFbulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

I've seen it happen with regular florescent fixtures
when the neutral instead of the hot lead is switched.
I know an idiot who thinks it's better to switch the
neutral. He drinks a lot and I wont let him touch any
of my wiring. *snicker*

TDD

I have been VERY busy but hope to look at this soon. Last nite it
wasnt flickering/ Its in a outdoor light fixture.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

One of my neighbors installed a light switch to his shed in his house.
Power was already in the shed so all he did was run the switch circuit
back to the house. It worked fine with an incandescent bulb but made a
CFC flicker when the switch was off. When it was wired to a switch in
the shed it worked fine with either the CFC or the incandescent. Im
thinking it must be because of the wire to wire capacitance of the
cable. It may be a fun experiment to try different values of C in
series with a CFC to see if this can be replicated.

Jimmie

On Jul 22, 10:59�pm, JIMMIE wrote:
On Jul 22, 5:00�pm, bob haller wrote:





On Jul 21, 2:44 pm, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

wrote:
Came home tonight to find myCFbulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

I've seen it happen with regular florescent fixtures
when the neutral instead of the hot lead is switched.
I know an idiot who thinks it's better to switch the
neutral. He drinks a lot and I wont let him touch any
of my wiring. *snicker*

TDD

I have been VERY busy but hope to look at this soon. Last nite it
wasnt flickering/ Its in a outdoor light fixture.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

One of my neighbors installed a light switch to his shed in his house.
Power was already in the shed so all he did was run the switch circuit
back to the house. It worked fine with an incandescent bulb but made a
CFC flicker when the switch was off. When it was wired to a switch in
the shed it worked fine with either the CFC or the incandescent. Im
thinking it must be because of the wire to wire capacitance of the
cable. It may be a fun experiment to try different values of C in
series with a CFC to see if this can be replicated.

Jimmie- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

light is at front door at most 3 feet of wire between switch and
light. not flickering tonight.

i need to rig up a adapter to check the voltage at the lamp.

its a hard place to work on staps with limited access

In , M Traveler wrote:

SNIP

I had a problem that wasn't exactly like that. I had a CF bulb in a
socket where the bulb was horizontal, and always on, in the utility
room. When I got home it was melting and sparking. Fortunately the
floor was cement so no fire started.

Can you tell us what brand and model? Or even what brand?

I have known a few dollar store stool specimens (mostly not UL listed)
to do scary things, but I have yet to see anywhere a major brand CFL do
that or show signs of having done that.

BTW - I only see UL logo on light bulbs with built-in ballasts.

- Don Klipstein )

On 2009-07-27, Don Klipstein wrote:
In , M Traveler wrote:

SNIP

I had a problem that wasn't exactly like that. I had a CF bulb in a
socket where the bulb was horizontal, and always on, in the utility
room. When I got home it was melting and sparking. Fortunately the
floor was cement so no fire started.

Can you tell us what brand and model? Or even what brand?

I think about every one of one particular batch I bought had a melted
balast case when the died.

It makes you wonder about them.

I don't recall which brand it was, maybe something like "Bright Ideas",
but I can't remember for sure. But I do remember that I bought them in a
multi-pack at Home Depot for around $10.

And I *do* remember that they *were* UL listed.

On Jul 21, 3:02*pm, ransley wrote:
On Jul 21, 8:11*am, wrote:





On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:33:51 -0700 (PDT), "

wrote:
Came home tonight to find my CF bulb on my exterior door light
flickering and barely glowing. Assumed the new bulb was bad till I got
inside to turn off the switch and found it already off.

I guess I will have to check the voltage at that outlet. How wierd.

Its hard to reach lamp is over steps

Anyone else have this happen?

* * * * Chances are there is a hot wire somewhere close to it and it
was conducting a fair amount of current at that time. *Even static
electricity can cause any florescent lamp to give off some light.

Static, that reminds me, in winter I had a cfl bulb sitting on the
counter, that static I had in me would lite the bulb for maybe 3
seconds if I touched it, and if I grounded myself I didnt have enough
static charge for a shock or spark. I guess its the high voltage
needed to light them.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes have seen fluorescent tubes placed in RF (radio frequency) field
which glow, even though there are no connections to them whatsoever!

On Jul 27, 1:02*am, ShadowTek wrote:
On 2009-07-27, Don Klipstein wrote:

In , M Traveler wrote:

SNIP

I had a problem that wasn't exactly like that. I had a CF bulb in a
socket where the bulb was horizontal, and always on, in the utility
room. When I got home it was melting and sparking. Fortunately the
floor was cement so no fire started.

* Can you tell us what brand and model? *Or even what brand?

I think about every one of one particular batch I bought had a melted
balast case when the died.

It makes you wonder about them.

I don't recall which brand it was, maybe something like "Bright Ideas",
but I can't remember for sure. But I do remember that I bought them in a
multi-pack at Home Depot for around $10.

And I *do* remember that they *were* UL listed.

I have remains of a cheap CFL here on the desk which fell apart!!!!
However closer examination showed a loose (badly soldered wire from a
component) on the little circuit board! Also the CFL base is plastic
with an inside diam. a bit over one inch. It's a bit worrying to think
of 115 volts circulating within that base.

In ,
stan wrote in part:

I have remains of a cheap CFL here on the desk which fell apart!!!!
However closer examination showed a loose (badly soldered wire from a
component) on the little circuit board! Also the CFL base is plastic
with an inside diam. a bit over one inch. It's a bit worrying to think
of 115 volts circulating within that base.

The only CFLs that I ever had falling apart were dollar store stool
specimens without UL listing.

My experience suggests that 120V lamps in USA with integral ballasts,

(other than tungsten filaments deployed inside the bulb like usual
incandescent filaments, as in mercury vapor lamps with ballast filaments)

are normally subject to UL listing as "self ballasted lamp". I find that
most dollar store CFLs do not have UL listing. I am aware of one of those
being recalled for having its ballast housing constructed of a plastic
other than industry-standard flame retardant plastic.

There are standards for spacing/clearance between conductors that have
to be met in order for an integral-ballast CFL to achieve UL listing. My
experience is that pretty much all other than dollar store stool specimen
ones achieve UL listing, esecially if they have "Energy Star" logo and/or
are of one of the "Big 3" brands (GE, Philips, Sylvania).

- Don Klipstein )