"Jeff Volp" wrote in message
...
Except for the "intricately curved delicate glass tubes", 120V LEDs have
essentially the same production and noise issues as CFLs.

That's a pretty big exception. As a guy who custom builds electronics by
hand, I am sure that you realize that even one delicate step in a process,
say soldering an SMD component to a circuit board by hand, can cause your
reject rate to soar. Take a look at some of the spiral shapes of bulbs and I
think you'll realize that it takes some significant heat and tooling to
create narrow but even diameter glass tubes that then must be twisted into
spiral shape, uniformly coated internally with phosphor, primed with
mercury, and then sealed and capped with electrodes. Forgive me for taking
a technical note and turning it into polemic, but this is an important
issue.

Even if LED and CFL production costs were equal, manufacturing CFL's means
increasing the mining for mercury and causing much more of the neurotoxin to
enter the world at large. It may very well turn out that CFLs looked good
on paper but turned out not to be so good when all costs are computed, just
like biofuels.

While one dot of mercury might not seem so bad, almost 300 million CFL's
were sold in the United States last year (or so says the New York Times in a
Feb. 17, 2008, editorial). But what worries me is the even more staggering
figure that CFL's are currently used in only 10% to 20% of the fixtures in
residential home. That could extrapolate into perhaps 3 *billion* CFL's
getting deployed after the mandate's phased in. Even when you talk about
micrograms per bulbs, that's a lot of mercury going into landfills,
incinerators and eventually, the bloodstream of newborn babies.

That Lumform 4W MR16 LED gets too hot to touch, and is a very strong
radiator of 121KHz powerline noise.

Both technologies have shortcomings, agreed, but fluorescent technology has
been around for a much longer time than LEDs and if such CFL problems had
solutions, one would expect them to be uncovered by now. Some say
fluorescents began in 1856 when Heinrich Geissler created a *mercury* g
vacuum pump that was much more efficient than any other of the time. When
current was applied through the "Geissler tube", it glowed. Commercial
fluorescents didn't really hit the market in force until after their debut
by GE at the 1939 World's Fair.

Either way, that's a long head start for fluorescents to just now be almost
neck and neck with LEDs, a nascent technology that's only really been a home
lighting contender for 10 years at most. Because it's difficult to sustain
an arc in a fluorescent tube at low power levels, CFLs will probably never
equal tungsten or LED lights when it comes to smooth, linear dimming.

My contention is that these subtle, but persistent CFL flaws (size,
incompatibility with existing timers, photocell-controlled lamps, dimmers,
X-10 and the like) mean that LEDs *have* to rule to roost, eventually.
Competition is a fascinating thing, summed up by the old joke punchline: "I
don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you!" Even very
slight-seeming advantages can add up to a killer blow over the long haul.
The CFL is running hard, but true LED "cold light" will win the race, even
over a characteristic as lowly as higher resistance to breakage. All the
studies I've seen say LEDs have much greater "room to grow" in both
efficiency and cheaper production costs than CFLs and should surpass them
very soon in both categories.

I read a lot about LEDs before trying those initial 12V MR16 landscape
lights. The DOE CALiPER reports on Solid-State Lighting indicate that
reliability and brightness fall-off are major problems for LED lighting.

I agree completely. The current landscape of LED offerings is hauntingly
reminiscent of the introduction of CFLs. Cheap, crappy products and
hyper-expensive products dominated the landscape; the early adopters who
tried them rejected them and developed long-lasting negative attitudes
towards them. This has acted as quite a drag on their acceptance.

The reports of CFL penetration say time and time again that people who try
them and have issues like a smoky, stinky burnout are much more reluctant to
try them a second time. My wife hates both the occasional very spectacular
stinky burn-up and the frequent flickering and has had me stock up on
incandescents for her sewing room and all the hallway and critical short
on/off time lights that never last as long as the makers claim.

As for reliability, that's not so clear cut. Take for instance an LED
traffic light. Made up of many LED elements, they are far more reliable on
the whole than the tungsten bulbs they replace. CFL's are so wimpy, they
need not even apply for this job! An LED element failure in a stop or tail
light still leaves a lot of other LEDs elements to continue to shine. Since
the LEDs can produce incredibly pure red light, there's no energy loss
involved in filtering white light to get the red color.

Progress is being made, and eventually another technology will supercede
CFLs. From my limited testing, the LEDs aren't there yet.

Agreed. But they're close enough that the mercury element should make the
decision between the two a no-brainer, at least if someone *really* cares
about the environment. It's bad reasoning to believe that putting mercury in
perhaps 3 billion consumer bulbs will magically offset mercury in smokestack
exhausts. That's especially true now because the Feds are finally getting
off their butts and invoking the *right* solution: enforcing mercury
emission laws. Once that happens, the tradeoff fails.

Far worse, we've created a brand-new mercury dispersal system that reaches
every corner of the country, even areas where they get most of their
electricity from dams or other non-coal sources and there was never any
value to the trade-off to begin with. Do you really want grandkids with
lifelong neurological problems because you want to save on your electric
bill? Or your light bulb costs? Or because the color of the light isn't
quite right? I don't.

What worries me the most is the cost of remediation if we eventually find
that many more than 630,000 newborns a year have mercury levels way above
recommendations. Lots of folks here know the incredible costs and issues
involved in removing asbestos or lead paint from a home. Mercury abatement
has the potential to make removing those two hazards look like child's play.
Who will pay for the care of kids born with brain damage because we didn't
realize CFL's were such a hazard? We will. With yet more tax dollars.

Like climate change, these processes take time and I suspect that mercury is
only now entering the environment from pre-ban alkaline batteries that went
into dumps years ago. What happens when the CFL bulbs start getting to dumps
in big numbers? We just don't know, and so we should consider how deeply we
get into something that could make the US one giant Superfund site. We put
deposit requirements on innocuous glass soda bottles but not on "special
needs recycling" hazardous material bearing CFL's. That's idiotic. When the
choice was just CFL v. incandescent, the tradeoff worked, but now there's a
serious new contender, the LED, and it's far greener than the CFL because it
uses no mercury.

On the whole, people have a hard time evaluating the threat of materials
like mercury and carcinogens like asbestos and TCE because the cause and
effect are sometimes years, even decades, apart. But the cancer statistics,
state by state prove that certain areas produce statistically meaningful
clusters of deaths. Sadly, those clusters tend to be in areas with large
manufacturing operations.

http://www3.cancer.gov/atlasplus/new.html

We already know that trace amounts of mercury can be very toxic, especially
to the fetuses of pregnant women. They have been told each year that it's
increasingly less safe for them to eat any fish at all. As far back as 2004,
the EPA raised a red flag:

"E.P.A. Raises Estimate of Babies Affected by Mercury Exposure - More than
one child in six born in the United States could be at risk for
developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother's womb,
according to revised estimates released last week by Environmental
Protection Agency scientists. The agency doubled its estimate, equivalent to
630,000 of the 4 million babies born each year, because recent research has
shown that mercury tends to concentrate in the blood in the umbilical cord
of pregnant women." Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/sc...-exposure.html

There is a brighter 12V MR16 LED available now, but it costs 3X as much as
the Feit
CFLs. It is hard to justify replacing an inexpensive halogen with a $20
LED
having unknown longevity.

It's not hard to justify if there's a hidden downside to CFLs: poisoning the
next generation of Americans. Efficiency and longevity of LEDs has been
increasing greatly in just the past few years. Here's a study done by
Carnagie Mellon:

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildin..._chicago09.pdf

They concur that LED lighting still has a long way to go, but that it's
closing ground fast and it's going to very rapidly overtake CFLs in nearly
every category when those eventual improvements arrive. That only makes
sense since commercial fluorescent technology is at least 70 years old.
CFL's may be a new form factor, but the technology is considered by some to
outdate the tungsten filament bulb.

Stokes at Cambridge discovered electrical fluorescence in 1852, which by
some accounts makes it well over 150 years old. That's a lot of time for the
damn things to remain so buggy compared to a simple incandescent bulb. And
it's precisely why they'll fail against LEDs. One of the most cynical
touches in the film "Blade Runner" is Harrison Ford having to flick the
glass bulb of a future fluorescent bulb to get it to come on. It's a
prediction that even in the future, those damn fluorescent bulbs will not
have improved very much.

People harp on the mercury used in CFLs. Mercury has been used in
fluorescent lighting for decades.

Yes, that's true. Asbestos also saw incredibly widespread use before people
realized it was a potent carcinogen. Use for decades really doesn't mean
safe. It takes a long time for waste in dumps to percolate. It takes even
longer for experts to "put it all together" as in the case of asbestos,
whose use continued many years after its lethal effects were *very* well
known. There's already a lot of mercury seeping into the ground in
landfills. While most of the environmental mercury currently does appear to
come from power plant emissions, those are relatively easy fixes. Why didn't
Obama and Congress spend the stimulus money on scrubbing dirty power plant
stacks and not on million dollar "retention" bonuses for fat cat bankers?

While most mercury in CFL's appears just a trifling few milligrams, some
sources claim that 5mg of mercury can contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinking
water. This site talks about some of the common sense things we so easily
overlook:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/

"It's kind of ironic that on the one hand, the agency [EPA] is saying, 'Don'
t worry, it's a very small amount of mercury.' Then they have a whole page
of [instructions] how to handle the situation if you break one . . ."

When you start to talk about 2 or 3 billion light bulbs, that 5mg (or even
1mg in the newer bulbs) becomes a significant amount in the aggregate.
Couple that to Americans and their incredibly low recycling compliance (last
I checked it was 6% or so), it's very likely to spell serious trouble,
especially if the conclusion that only 5mg of mercury can contaminate 6,000
gallons of water proves true. I haven't read the paper they're referring to,
but based on EPA's schizoid recommendations on CFLs, I have no reason to
doubt it.

One report I read said the mercury used in fluorescent bulbs is much less
than the

amount that would have been released into the environment by burning coal
to

produce an equivalent amount of incandescent light.

That's only because the EPA under Bush was basically prevented from cleaning
up the dirtiest of the coal plants. Didn't the "indirect approach" of the
Feds giving money to the banks that created the financial meltdown have
little effect on the foreclosure rate? That should tell us that indirect
methods tend to be political creations that can't be relied upon. Clean up
the stacks and the alleged tradeoff that people so frequently tout turns
into nothing more that a new vector for getting toxic mercury into every
garbage dump in America.

Do we really want to condemn 10's of thousands or more children to living
with birth defects because we want lower electric bills or we want a
slightly warmer-colored light no matter what the environmental cost? Not me.
It's bad enough that we're laying the cost of the bailout, two failed wars
and a fraud-riddled Medicare system on them. Must we poison them, too?

As we move away from carbon based fuels, that tradeoff will diminish.

And it is even better with LEDs. But do we know for sure that trace

elements used in LED production will not also turn out
to be harmful to the environment?

The Mellon study referenced above, among others, looked at those very
questions by examining every step of the process and how much power it used.
Look on page 25 for the graph that compares production costs of CFL,
incandescent and LEDs. Scientists are a lot better at accounting for the
real costs of items these days, looking at the entire life cycle of a
product to determine what it costs, money and environmental hazard-wise, to
produce items like LEDs and CFLs.

A lot of Pacific ocean mercury comes from the stacks of the Chinese coal
plants powering the manufacture of CFL bulbs. The US stood poised to lead
the world in developing LED technology, but instead, we're shoring up banks
that caused the mess we're in.

Ironically, those banks, with lots of help from the same Congress that's
mandating the new bulbs, have turned that wonderful, "seems like a good
idea" invention called the credit card into the near downfall of the world's
economy. Not every new idea is a good idea and some of them, like giving
women estrogen to prevent breast cancer, turned out to be EXACTLY the wrong
thing to do. Actual studies, rather than "feel good, should work" guesses
showed that the treatments actually increased the risk of breast cancer and
they were stopped.

Nothing I've seen in the literature so far suggests that LED bulbs contain
anything as near as toxic as mercury. In the past LEDs contained arsenic
compounds, but most of the newer diodes do not. Because the world is
generally awakening to the idea that little amounts of poison add up, Apple
stopped using arsenic in its LCD panels in 2008. Remember, LEDs fulfill the
same promise as CFLs of reduced power plant emissions, but they do it
without the insane tradeoff of involving a known deadly poison whose levels
are so high pregnant women are told not to eat tuna.

There are companies working on a new generation of lighting. One is still
based on CFL technology. Only time will tell whether one of these becomes
dominant in the marketplace.

Sometimes, the marketplace isn't the best determiner of what's good for
society. That lesson seems abundantly clear in the aftermath of the current
financial mess we're in. If we know that mercury is toxic and that
scientists believe great improvements in LEDs are coming, does it make sense
to push a bad technology like CFLs forward by government mandate? This is
toxic stuff and George Orwell wouldn't be surprised at how easily we now
swallow big lies like "adding mercury will take away mercury." Here's how
the indirect solution is working out in the real world:

"MONDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A study involving more than 6,000
American women suggests that blood levels of mercury are accumulating over
time, with a big rise noted over the past decade.

"Using data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a researcher from
the University of California, Los Angeles, found that while inorganic
mercury was detected in the blood of 2 percent of women aged 18 to 49 in the
1999-2000 NHANES survey, that level rose to 30 percent of women by
2005-2006." Source:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/n...ory_88506.html

From two to thirty percent in just five years is an OUTRAGEOUS jump and it's
a clear indication that something's very, very wrong with the current way of
doing business. But we never seem to learn that some problems can mushroom
incredibly quickly and go way out of control. Human mercury levels in women
of childbearing age has jumped from nearly insignificant to nearly 30% of
all such women.

Pretending that adding more mercury in the form of CFL's to every home and
garbage dump in America will reverse that trend is just not credible. I'm
very sadly *not* surprised, though, because what I've seen pass for truth in
the last ten years is pretty scary. Rumor becomes instant fact, especially
when people want to believe something's true. There was an article in the
news the other days about how Congressmen from both parties put items in the
record that had been written by lawyers working for the drug lobby.

I believe that instead of counting on CFLs we should clean up the mercury
spewing coal power plants (here and in China) and put some serious DOE
research money into improving LEDs to the point where they easily surpass
CFLs. I just saw an item about Sharp's new dimmable AND color tunable LED
light bulbs, two areas where CFLs fall pretty short.

http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/090611_2.html

"The models DL-L401N/L LED Lamps offer extremely economical operation, and
can be run for approximately 11 hours at a cost of only one yen!" (-:
(That;'s $0.011 US)

It just doesn't make sense to so fully embrace a poisonous technology when a
very close substitute is available, and its cost is dropping almost daily as
light output is increasing. It would drop even more if people's dollars went
to supporting a rapidly evolving technology with great promise like LEDs
instead of buying into the mostly bottomed-out CFL technology that requires
toxic materials to operate.

Fortunately, the "deal with the devil" involving CFL's is getting more and
more exposu

http://www.google.com/search?q=cfl+mercury+problem

and I believe that the mercury issue alone will be enough to doom CFL's and
in very short order. If the EPA finds it to be a serious source of human
mercury contamination (something they may be forced to do should the trace
amounts of mercury in Americans continue to climb) they could easily ban the
sale of CFLs just the way they are banning incandescents. I don't believe
that's a very far-fetched scenario based on experience with chemicals like
chlordane and DDT:

http://cfpub.epa.gov/eroe/index.cfm?...248&subtop=381

Installed my first set of Philips LED "stumble lights" today! They are
surprisingly warm white and put out almost enough light to light up the
stairway with a single four diode strip. I'll probably use two or even four
since they can be slaved together, run off very low voltage and have built
in motion sensors. It's qualities like these that will spell doom for
CFL's, the eight-track of home lighting.

Sorry for the length, but there's a lot about CFLs and mercury that people
need to consider.

So, Jeff, how will your XTB products help me overcome the issues I'm going
to doubtless face in switching from CFLs to LEDs? (-: I made an
interesting discovery the other day. One of the nVision CFL bulbs that had
been flashing madly when off when connected to an X-10 module suddenly
stopped flashing.


--
Bobby G.




xpost to comp.home.automation,alt.home.repair

On Nov 20, 3:02*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
"Jeff Volp" wrote in message

...

Except for the "intricately curved delicate glass tubes", 120V LEDs have
essentially the same production and noise issues as CFLs.

That's a pretty big exception. As a guy who custom builds electronics by
hand, I am sure that you realize that even one delicate step in a process,
say soldering an SMD component to a circuit board by hand, can cause your
reject rate to soar. Take a look at some of the spiral shapes of bulbs and I
think you'll realize that it takes some significant heat and tooling to
create narrow but even diameter glass tubes that then must be twisted into
spiral shape, uniformly coated internally with phosphor, primed with
mercury, and then sealed and capped with electrodes. * Forgive me for taking
a technical note and turning it into polemic, but this is an important
issue.

Even if LED and CFL production costs were equal, manufacturing CFL's means
increasing the mining for mercury and causing much more of the neurotoxin to
enter the world at large. It may very well turn out that *CFLs looked good
on paper but turned out not to be so good when all costs are computed, just
like biofuels.

While one dot of mercury might not seem so bad, almost 300 million CFL's
were sold in the United States last year (or so says the New York Times in a
Feb. 17, 2008, editorial). But what worries me is the even more staggering
figure that CFL's are currently used in only 10% to 20% of the fixtures in
residential home. That could extrapolate into perhaps 3 *billion* CFL's
getting deployed after the mandate's phased in. Even when you talk about
micrograms per bulbs, that's a lot of mercury going into landfills,
incinerators and eventually, the bloodstream of newborn babies.

That Lumform 4W MR16 LED gets too hot to touch, and is a very strong
radiator of 121KHz powerline noise.

Both technologies have shortcomings, agreed, but fluorescent technology has
been around for a much longer time than LEDs and if such CFL problems had
solutions, one would expect them to be uncovered by now. Some say
fluorescents began in 1856 when Heinrich Geissler created a *mercury* g
vacuum pump that was much more efficient than any other of the time. When
current was applied through the "Geissler tube", it glowed. *Commercial
fluorescents didn't really hit the market in force until after their debut
by GE at the 1939 World's Fair.

Either way, that's a long head start for fluorescents to just now be almost
neck and neck with LEDs, a nascent technology that's only really been a home
lighting contender for 10 years at most. Because it's difficult to sustain
an arc in a fluorescent tube at low power levels, CFLs will probably never
equal tungsten or LED lights when it comes to smooth, linear dimming.

My contention is that these subtle, but persistent CFL flaws (size,
incompatibility with existing timers, photocell-controlled lamps, dimmers,
X-10 and the like) mean that LEDs *have* to rule to roost, eventually.
Competition is a fascinating thing, summed up by the old joke punchline: "I
don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you!" Even very
slight-seeming advantages can add up to a killer blow over the long haul.
The CFL is running hard, but true LED "cold light" will win the race, even
over a characteristic as lowly as higher resistance to breakage. All the
studies I've seen say LEDs have much greater "room to grow" in both
efficiency and cheaper production costs than CFLs and should surpass them
very soon in both categories.

I read a lot about LEDs before trying those initial 12V MR16 landscape
lights. The DOE CALiPER reports on Solid-State Lighting indicate that
reliability and brightness fall-off are major problems for LED lighting..

I agree completely. The current landscape of LED offerings is hauntingly
reminiscent of the introduction of CFLs. Cheap, crappy products and
hyper-expensive products dominated the landscape; the early adopters who
tried them rejected them and developed long-lasting negative attitudes
towards them. This has acted as quite a drag on their acceptance.

The reports of CFL penetration say time and time again that people who try
them and have issues like a smoky, stinky burnout are much more reluctant to
try them a second time. My wife hates both the occasional very spectacular
stinky burn-up and the frequent flickering and has had me stock up on
incandescents for her sewing room and all the hallway and critical short
on/off time lights that never last as long as the makers claim.

As for reliability, that's not so clear cut. Take for instance an LED
traffic light. Made up of many LED elements, they are far more reliable on
the whole than the tungsten bulbs they replace. CFL's are so wimpy, they
need not even apply for this job! An LED element failure in a stop or tail
light still leaves a lot of other LEDs elements to continue to shine. Since
the LEDs can produce incredibly pure red light, there's no energy loss
involved in filtering white light to get the red color.

Progress is being made, and eventually another technology will supercede
CFLs. From my limited testing, the LEDs aren't there yet.

Agreed. But they're close enough that the mercury element should make the
decision between the two a no-brainer, at least if someone *really* cares
about the environment. It's bad reasoning to believe that putting mercury in
perhaps 3 billion consumer bulbs will magically offset mercury in smokestack
exhausts. That's especially true now because the Feds are finally getting
off their butts and invoking the *right* solution: enforcing mercury
emission laws. Once that happens, the tradeoff fails.

Far worse, we've created a brand-new mercury dispersal system that reaches
every corner of the country, even areas where they get most of their
electricity from dams or other non-coal sources and there was never any
value to the trade-off to begin with. Do you really want grandkids with
lifelong neurological problems because you want to save on your electric
bill? Or your light bulb costs? Or because the color of the light isn't
quite right? *I don't.

What worries me the most is the cost of remediation if we eventually find
that many more than 630,000 newborns a year have mercury levels way above
recommendations. Lots of folks here know the incredible costs and issues
involved in removing asbestos or lead paint from a home. Mercury abatement
has the potential to make removing those two hazards look like child's play.
Who will pay for the care of kids born with brain damage because we didn't
realize CFL's were such a hazard? We will. With yet more tax dollars.

Like climate change, these processes take time and I suspect that mercury is
only now entering the environment from pre-ban alkaline batteries that went
into dumps years ago. What happens when the CFL bulbs start getting to dumps
in big numbers? We just don't know, and so we should consider how deeply we
get into something that could make the US one giant Superfund site. We put
deposit requirements on innocuous glass soda bottles but not on "special
needs recycling" hazardous material bearing CFL's. That's idiotic. *When the
choice was just CFL v. incandescent, the tradeoff worked, but now there's a
serious new contender, the LED, and it's far greener than the CFL because it
uses no mercury.

On the whole, people have a hard time evaluating the threat of materials
like mercury and carcinogens like asbestos and TCE because the cause and
effect are sometimes years, even decades, apart. But the cancer statistics,
state by state prove that certain areas produce statistically meaningful
clusters of deaths. Sadly, those clusters tend to be in areas with large
manufacturing operations.

http://www3.cancer.gov/atlasplus/new.html

We already know that trace amounts of mercury can be very toxic, especially
to the fetuses of pregnant women. They have been told each year that it's
increasingly less safe for them to eat any fish at all. As far back as 2004,
the EPA raised a red flag:

"E.P.A. Raises Estimate of Babies Affected by Mercury Exposure - More than
one child in six born in the United States could be at risk for
developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother's womb,
according to revised estimates released last week by Environmental
Protection Agency scientists. The agency doubled its estimate, equivalent to
630,000 of the 4 million babies born each year, because recent research has
shown that mercury tends to concentrate in the blood in the umbilical cord
of pregnant women." Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/sc...timate-of-babi...



There is a brighter 12V MR16 LED available now, but it costs 3X as much as
the Feit
CFLs. It is hard to justify replacing an inexpensive halogen with a $20
LED
having unknown longevity.

It's not hard to justify if there's a hidden downside to CFLs: poisoning the
next generation of Americans. Efficiency and longevity of LEDs has been
increasing greatly in just the past few years. Here's a study done by
Carnagie Mellon:

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildin...s/ssl/matthews...

They concur that LED lighting still has a long way to go, but that it's
closing ground fast and it's going to very rapidly overtake CFLs in nearly
every category when those eventual improvements arrive. That only makes
sense since commercial fluorescent technology is at least 70 years old.
CFL's may be a new form factor, but the technology is considered by some to
outdate the tungsten filament bulb.

Stokes at Cambridge discovered electrical fluorescence in 1852, which by
some accounts makes it well over 150 years old. That's a lot of time for the
damn things to remain so buggy compared to a simple incandescent bulb. And
it's precisely why they'll fail against LEDs. One of the most cynical
touches in the film "Blade Runner" is Harrison Ford having to flick the
glass bulb of a future fluorescent bulb to get it to come on. It's a
prediction that even in the future, those damn fluorescent bulbs will not
have improved very much.

People harp on the mercury used in CFLs. Mercury has been used in
fluorescent lighting for decades.

Yes, that's true. Asbestos also saw incredibly widespread use before people
realized it was a potent carcinogen. Use for decades really doesn't mean
safe. It takes a long time for waste in dumps to percolate. It takes even
longer for experts to "put it all together" as in the case of asbestos,
whose use continued many years after its lethal effects were *very* well
known. There's already a lot of mercury seeping into the ground in
landfills. While most of the environmental mercury currently does appear to
come from power plant emissions, those are relatively easy fixes. Why didn't
Obama and Congress spend the stimulus money on scrubbing dirty power plant
stacks and not on million dollar "retention" bonuses for fat cat bankers?

While most mercury in CFL's appears just a trifling few milligrams, some
sources claim that 5mg of mercury can contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinking
water. This site talks about some of the common sense things we so easily
overlook:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/

"It's kind of ironic that on the one hand, the agency [EPA] is saying, 'Don'
t worry, it's a very small amount of mercury.' Then they have a whole page
of [instructions] how to handle the situation if you break one . . ."

When you start to talk about 2 or 3 billion light bulbs, that 5mg (or even
1mg in the newer bulbs) becomes a significant amount in the aggregate.
Couple that to Americans and their incredibly low recycling compliance (last
I checked it was 6% or so), it's very likely to spell serious trouble,
especially if the conclusion that only 5mg of mercury can contaminate 6,000
gallons of water proves true. I haven't read the paper they're referring to,
but based on EPA's schizoid recommendations on CFLs, I have no reason to
doubt it.

One report I read said the mercury used in fluorescent bulbs is much less

than the

amount that would have been released into the environment by burning coal

to

produce an equivalent amount of incandescent light.

That's only because the EPA under Bush was basically prevented from cleaning
up the dirtiest of the coal plants. Didn't the "indirect approach" of the
Feds giving money to the banks that created the financial meltdown have
little effect on the foreclosure rate? That should tell us that indirect
methods tend to be political creations that can't be relied upon. Clean up
the stacks and the alleged tradeoff that people so frequently tout turns
into nothing more that a new vector for getting toxic mercury into every
garbage dump in America.

Do we really want to condemn 10's of thousands or more children to living
with birth defects because we want lower electric bills or we want a
slightly warmer-colored light no matter what the environmental cost? Not me.
It's bad enough that we're laying the cost of the bailout, two failed wars
and a fraud-riddled Medicare system on them. Must we poison them, too?

As we move away from carbon based fuels, that tradeoff will diminish.
And it is even better with LEDs. But do we know for sure that trace
elements used in LED production will not also turn out
to be harmful to the environment?

The Mellon study referenced above, among others, looked at those very
questions by examining every step of the process and how much power it used.
Look on page 25 for the graph that compares production costs of CFL,
incandescent and LEDs. Scientists are a lot better at accounting for the
real costs of items these days, looking at the entire life cycle of a
product to determine what it costs, money and environmental hazard-wise, to
produce items like LEDs and CFLs.

A lot of Pacific ocean mercury comes from the stacks of the Chinese coal
plants powering the manufacture of CFL bulbs. The US stood poised to lead
the world in developing LED technology, but instead, we're shoring up banks
that caused the mess we're in.

Ironically, those banks, with lots of help from the same Congress that's
mandating the new bulbs, have turned that wonderful, "seems like a good
idea" invention called the credit card into the near downfall of the world's
economy. Not every new idea is a good idea and some of them, like giving
women estrogen to prevent breast cancer, turned out to be EXACTLY the wrong
thing to do. Actual studies, rather than "feel good, should work" guesses
showed that the treatments actually increased the risk of breast cancer and
they were stopped.

Nothing I've seen in the literature so far suggests that LED bulbs contain
anything as near as toxic as mercury. In the past LEDs contained arsenic
compounds, but most of the newer diodes do not. Because the world is
generally awakening to the idea that little amounts of poison add up, Apple
stopped using arsenic in its LCD panels in 2008. Remember, LEDs fulfill the
same promise as CFLs of reduced power plant emissions, but they do it
without the insane tradeoff of involving a known deadly poison whose levels
are so high pregnant women are told not to eat tuna.

There are companies working on a new generation of lighting. One is still
based on CFL technology. Only time will tell whether one of these becomes
dominant in the marketplace.

Sometimes, the marketplace isn't the best determiner of what's good for
society. That lesson seems abundantly clear in the aftermath of the current
financial mess we're in. If we know that mercury is toxic and that
scientists believe great improvements in LEDs are coming, does it make sense
to push a bad technology like CFLs forward by government mandate? This is
toxic stuff and George Orwell wouldn't be surprised at how easily we now
swallow big lies like "adding mercury will take away mercury." Here's how
the indirect solution is working out in the real world:

"MONDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A study involving more than 6,000
American women suggests that blood levels of mercury are accumulating over
time, with a big rise noted over the past decade.

"Using data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a researcher from
the University of California, Los Angeles, found that while inorganic
mercury was detected in the blood of 2 percent of women aged 18 to 49 in the
1999-2000 NHANES survey, that level rose to 30 percent of women by
2005-2006." Source:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/n...ory_88506.html

From two to thirty percent in just five years is an OUTRAGEOUS jump and it's
a clear indication that something's very, very wrong with the current way of
doing business. But we never seem to learn that some problems can mushroom
incredibly quickly and go way out of control. Human mercury levels in women
of childbearing age has jumped from nearly insignificant to nearly 30% of
all such women.

Pretending that adding more mercury in the form of CFL's to every home and
garbage dump in America will reverse that trend is just not credible. I'm
very sadly *not* surprised, though, because what I've seen pass for truth in
the last ten years is pretty scary. Rumor becomes instant fact, especially
when people want to believe something's true. * There was an article in the
news the other days about how Congressmen from both parties put items in the
record that had been written by lawyers working for the drug lobby.

I believe that instead of counting on CFLs we should clean up the mercury
spewing coal power plants (here and in China) and put some serious DOE
research money into improving LEDs to the point where they easily surpass
CFLs. I just saw an item about Sharp's new dimmable AND color tunable LED
light bulbs, two areas where CFLs fall pretty short.

http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/090611_2.html

"The models DL-L401N/L LED Lamps offer extremely economical operation, and
can be run for approximately 11 hours at a cost of only one yen!" (-:
(That;'s $0.011 US)

It just doesn't make sense to so fully embrace a poisonous technology when a
very close substitute is available, and its cost is dropping almost daily as
light output is increasing. It would drop even more if people's dollars went
to supporting a rapidly evolving technology with great promise like LEDs
instead of buying into the mostly bottomed-out CFL technology that requires
toxic materials to operate.

Fortunately, the "deal with the devil" involving CFL's is getting more and
more exposu

http://www.google.com/search?q=cfl+mercury+problem

and I believe that the mercury issue alone will be enough to doom CFL's and
in very short order. If the EPA finds it to be a serious source of human
mercury contamination (something they may be forced to do should the trace
amounts of mercury in Americans continue to climb) they could easily ban the
sale of CFLs just the way they are banning incandescents. I don't believe
that's a very far-fetched scenario based on experience with chemicals like
chlordane and DDT:

http://cfpub.epa.gov/eroe/index.cfm?...iewInd&lv=list....

Installed my first set of Philips LED "stumble lights" today! *They are
surprisingly warm white and put out almost enough light to light up the
stairway with a single four diode strip. *I'll probably use two or even four
since they can be slaved together, run off very low voltage and have built
in motion sensors. *It's qualities like these that will spell doom for
CFL's, the eight-track of home lighting.

Sorry for the length, but there's a lot about CFLs and mercury that people
need to consider.

So, Jeff, how will your XTB products help me overcome the issues I'm going
to doubtless face in switching from CFLs to LEDs? *(-: * I made an
interesting discovery the other day. *One of the nVision CFL bulbs that had
been flashing madly when off when connected to an X-10 module suddenly
stopped flashing.

--
Bobby G.

xpost to comp.home.automation,alt.home.repair

Why not write a book while you're at it! 8^)

bob_v

Robert Green wrote:
"Jeff Volp" wrote in message
...
Except for the "intricately curved delicate glass tubes", 120V LEDs have
essentially the same production and noise issues as CFLs.

That's a pretty big exception. As a guy who custom builds electronics by
hand, I am sure that you realize that even one delicate step in a process,
say soldering an SMD component to a circuit board by hand, can cause your
reject rate to soar. Take a look at some of the spiral shapes of bulbs and I
think you'll realize that it takes some significant heat and tooling to
create narrow but even diameter glass tubes that then must be twisted into
spiral shape, uniformly coated internally with phosphor, primed with
mercury, and then sealed and capped with electrodes. Forgive me for taking
a technical note and turning it into polemic, but this is an important
issue.

Even if LED and CFL production costs were equal, manufacturing CFL's means
increasing the mining for mercury and causing much more of the neurotoxin to
enter the world at large. It may very well turn out that CFLs looked good
on paper but turned out not to be so good when all costs are computed, just
like biofuels.

While one dot of mercury might not seem so bad, almost 300 million CFL's
were sold in the United States last year (or so says the New York Times in a
Feb. 17, 2008, editorial). But what worries me is the even more staggering
figure that CFL's are currently used in only 10% to 20% of the fixtures in
residential home. That could extrapolate into perhaps 3 *billion* CFL's
getting deployed after the mandate's phased in. Even when you talk about
micrograms per bulbs, that's a lot of mercury going into landfills,
incinerators and eventually, the bloodstream of newborn babies.

That Lumform 4W MR16 LED gets too hot to touch, and is a very strong
radiator of 121KHz powerline noise.

Both technologies have shortcomings, agreed, but fluorescent technology has
been around for a much longer time than LEDs and if such CFL problems had
solutions, one would expect them to be uncovered by now. Some say
fluorescents began in 1856 when Heinrich Geissler created a *mercury* g
vacuum pump that was much more efficient than any other of the time. When
current was applied through the "Geissler tube", it glowed. Commercial
fluorescents didn't really hit the market in force until after their debut
by GE at the 1939 World's Fair.

Either way, that's a long head start for fluorescents to just now be almost
neck and neck with LEDs, a nascent technology that's only really been a home
lighting contender for 10 years at most. Because it's difficult to sustain
an arc in a fluorescent tube at low power levels, CFLs will probably never
equal tungsten or LED lights when it comes to smooth, linear dimming.

My contention is that these subtle, but persistent CFL flaws (size,
incompatibility with existing timers, photocell-controlled lamps, dimmers,
X-10 and the like) mean that LEDs *have* to rule to roost, eventually.
Competition is a fascinating thing, summed up by the old joke punchline: "I
don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you!" Even very
slight-seeming advantages can add up to a killer blow over the long haul.
The CFL is running hard, but true LED "cold light" will win the race, even
over a characteristic as lowly as higher resistance to breakage. All the
studies I've seen say LEDs have much greater "room to grow" in both
efficiency and cheaper production costs than CFLs and should surpass them
very soon in both categories.

I read a lot about LEDs before trying those initial 12V MR16 landscape
lights. The DOE CALiPER reports on Solid-State Lighting indicate that
reliability and brightness fall-off are major problems for LED lighting.

I agree completely. The current landscape of LED offerings is hauntingly
reminiscent of the introduction of CFLs. Cheap, crappy products and
hyper-expensive products dominated the landscape; the early adopters who
tried them rejected them and developed long-lasting negative attitudes
towards them. This has acted as quite a drag on their acceptance.

The reports of CFL penetration say time and time again that people who try
them and have issues like a smoky, stinky burnout are much more reluctant to
try them a second time. My wife hates both the occasional very spectacular
stinky burn-up and the frequent flickering and has had me stock up on
incandescents for her sewing room and all the hallway and critical short
on/off time lights that never last as long as the makers claim.

As for reliability, that's not so clear cut. Take for instance an LED
traffic light. Made up of many LED elements, they are far more reliable on
the whole than the tungsten bulbs they replace. CFL's are so wimpy, they
need not even apply for this job! An LED element failure in a stop or tail
light still leaves a lot of other LEDs elements to continue to shine. Since
the LEDs can produce incredibly pure red light, there's no energy loss
involved in filtering white light to get the red color.

Progress is being made, and eventually another technology will supercede
CFLs. From my limited testing, the LEDs aren't there yet.

Agreed. But they're close enough that the mercury element should make the
decision between the two a no-brainer, at least if someone *really* cares
about the environment. It's bad reasoning to believe that putting mercury in
perhaps 3 billion consumer bulbs will magically offset mercury in smokestack
exhausts. That's especially true now because the Feds are finally getting
off their butts and invoking the *right* solution: enforcing mercury
emission laws. Once that happens, the tradeoff fails.

Far worse, we've created a brand-new mercury dispersal system that reaches
every corner of the country, even areas where they get most of their
electricity from dams or other non-coal sources and there was never any
value to the trade-off to begin with. Do you really want grandkids with
lifelong neurological problems because you want to save on your electric
bill? Or your light bulb costs? Or because the color of the light isn't
quite right? I don't.

What worries me the most is the cost of remediation if we eventually find
that many more than 630,000 newborns a year have mercury levels way above
recommendations. Lots of folks here know the incredible costs and issues
involved in removing asbestos or lead paint from a home. Mercury abatement
has the potential to make removing those two hazards look like child's play.
Who will pay for the care of kids born with brain damage because we didn't
realize CFL's were such a hazard? We will. With yet more tax dollars.

Like climate change, these processes take time and I suspect that mercury is
only now entering the environment from pre-ban alkaline batteries that went
into dumps years ago. What happens when the CFL bulbs start getting to dumps
in big numbers? We just don't know, and so we should consider how deeply we
get into something that could make the US one giant Superfund site. We put
deposit requirements on innocuous glass soda bottles but not on "special
needs recycling" hazardous material bearing CFL's. That's idiotic. When the
choice was just CFL v. incandescent, the tradeoff worked, but now there's a
serious new contender, the LED, and it's far greener than the CFL because it
uses no mercury.

On the whole, people have a hard time evaluating the threat of materials
like mercury and carcinogens like asbestos and TCE because the cause and
effect are sometimes years, even decades, apart. But the cancer statistics,
state by state prove that certain areas produce statistically meaningful
clusters of deaths. Sadly, those clusters tend to be in areas with large
manufacturing operations.

http://www3.cancer.gov/atlasplus/new.html

We already know that trace amounts of mercury can be very toxic, especially
to the fetuses of pregnant women. They have been told each year that it's
increasingly less safe for them to eat any fish at all. As far back as 2004,
the EPA raised a red flag:

"E.P.A. Raises Estimate of Babies Affected by Mercury Exposure - More than
one child in six born in the United States could be at risk for
developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother's womb,
according to revised estimates released last week by Environmental
Protection Agency scientists. The agency doubled its estimate, equivalent to
630,000 of the 4 million babies born each year, because recent research has
shown that mercury tends to concentrate in the blood in the umbilical cord
of pregnant women." Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/sc...-exposure.html

There is a brighter 12V MR16 LED available now, but it costs 3X as much as
the Feit
CFLs. It is hard to justify replacing an inexpensive halogen with a $20
LED
having unknown longevity.

It's not hard to justify if there's a hidden downside to CFLs: poisoning the
next generation of Americans. Efficiency and longevity of LEDs has been
increasing greatly in just the past few years. Here's a study done by
Carnagie Mellon:

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildin..._chicago09.pdf

They concur that LED lighting still has a long way to go, but that it's
closing ground fast and it's going to very rapidly overtake CFLs in nearly
every category when those eventual improvements arrive. That only makes
sense since commercial fluorescent technology is at least 70 years old.
CFL's may be a new form factor, but the technology is considered by some to
outdate the tungsten filament bulb.

Stokes at Cambridge discovered electrical fluorescence in 1852, which by
some accounts makes it well over 150 years old. That's a lot of time for the
damn things to remain so buggy compared to a simple incandescent bulb. And
it's precisely why they'll fail against LEDs. One of the most cynical
touches in the film "Blade Runner" is Harrison Ford having to flick the
glass bulb of a future fluorescent bulb to get it to come on. It's a
prediction that even in the future, those damn fluorescent bulbs will not
have improved very much.

People harp on the mercury used in CFLs. Mercury has been used in
fluorescent lighting for decades.

Yes, that's true. Asbestos also saw incredibly widespread use before people
realized it was a potent carcinogen. Use for decades really doesn't mean
safe. It takes a long time for waste in dumps to percolate. It takes even
longer for experts to "put it all together" as in the case of asbestos,
whose use continued many years after its lethal effects were *very* well
known. There's already a lot of mercury seeping into the ground in
landfills. While most of the environmental mercury currently does appear to
come from power plant emissions, those are relatively easy fixes. Why didn't
Obama and Congress spend the stimulus money on scrubbing dirty power plant
stacks and not on million dollar "retention" bonuses for fat cat bankers?

While most mercury in CFL's appears just a trifling few milligrams, some
sources claim that 5mg of mercury can contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinking
water. This site talks about some of the common sense things we so easily
overlook:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/

"It's kind of ironic that on the one hand, the agency [EPA] is saying, 'Don'
t worry, it's a very small amount of mercury.' Then they have a whole page
of [instructions] how to handle the situation if you break one . . ."

When you start to talk about 2 or 3 billion light bulbs, that 5mg (or even
1mg in the newer bulbs) becomes a significant amount in the aggregate.
Couple that to Americans and their incredibly low recycling compliance (last
I checked it was 6% or so), it's very likely to spell serious trouble,
especially if the conclusion that only 5mg of mercury can contaminate 6,000
gallons of water proves true. I haven't read the paper they're referring to,
but based on EPA's schizoid recommendations on CFLs, I have no reason to
doubt it.

One report I read said the mercury used in fluorescent bulbs is much less
than the

amount that would have been released into the environment by burning coal
to

produce an equivalent amount of incandescent light.

That's only because the EPA under Bush was basically prevented from cleaning
up the dirtiest of the coal plants. Didn't the "indirect approach" of the
Feds giving money to the banks that created the financial meltdown have
little effect on the foreclosure rate? That should tell us that indirect
methods tend to be political creations that can't be relied upon. Clean up
the stacks and the alleged tradeoff that people so frequently tout turns
into nothing more that a new vector for getting toxic mercury into every
garbage dump in America.

Do we really want to condemn 10's of thousands or more children to living
with birth defects because we want lower electric bills or we want a
slightly warmer-colored light no matter what the environmental cost? Not me.
It's bad enough that we're laying the cost of the bailout, two failed wars
and a fraud-riddled Medicare system on them. Must we poison them, too?

As we move away from carbon based fuels, that tradeoff will diminish.

And it is even better with LEDs. But do we know for sure that trace

elements used in LED production will not also turn out
to be harmful to the environment?

The Mellon study referenced above, among others, looked at those very
questions by examining every step of the process and how much power it used.
Look on page 25 for the graph that compares production costs of CFL,
incandescent and LEDs. Scientists are a lot better at accounting for the
real costs of items these days, looking at the entire life cycle of a
product to determine what it costs, money and environmental hazard-wise, to
produce items like LEDs and CFLs.

A lot of Pacific ocean mercury comes from the stacks of the Chinese coal
plants powering the manufacture of CFL bulbs. The US stood poised to lead
the world in developing LED technology, but instead, we're shoring up banks
that caused the mess we're in.

Ironically, those banks, with lots of help from the same Congress that's
mandating the new bulbs, have turned that wonderful, "seems like a good
idea" invention called the credit card into the near downfall of the world's
economy. Not every new idea is a good idea and some of them, like giving
women estrogen to prevent breast cancer, turned out to be EXACTLY the wrong
thing to do. Actual studies, rather than "feel good, should work" guesses
showed that the treatments actually increased the risk of breast cancer and
they were stopped.

Nothing I've seen in the literature so far suggests that LED bulbs contain
anything as near as toxic as mercury. In the past LEDs contained arsenic
compounds, but most of the newer diodes do not. Because the world is
generally awakening to the idea that little amounts of poison add up, Apple
stopped using arsenic in its LCD panels in 2008. Remember, LEDs fulfill the
same promise as CFLs of reduced power plant emissions, but they do it
without the insane tradeoff of involving a known deadly poison whose levels
are so high pregnant women are told not to eat tuna.

There are companies working on a new generation of lighting. One is still
based on CFL technology. Only time will tell whether one of these becomes
dominant in the marketplace.

Sometimes, the marketplace isn't the best determiner of what's good for
society. That lesson seems abundantly clear in the aftermath of the current
financial mess we're in. If we know that mercury is toxic and that
scientists believe great improvements in LEDs are coming, does it make sense
to push a bad technology like CFLs forward by government mandate? This is
toxic stuff and George Orwell wouldn't be surprised at how easily we now
swallow big lies like "adding mercury will take away mercury." Here's how
the indirect solution is working out in the real world:

"MONDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A study involving more than 6,000
American women suggests that blood levels of mercury are accumulating over
time, with a big rise noted over the past decade.

"Using data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a researcher from
the University of California, Los Angeles, found that while inorganic
mercury was detected in the blood of 2 percent of women aged 18 to 49 in the
1999-2000 NHANES survey, that level rose to 30 percent of women by
2005-2006." Source:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/n...ory_88506.html

From two to thirty percent in just five years is an OUTRAGEOUS jump and it's
a clear indication that something's very, very wrong with the current way of
doing business. But we never seem to learn that some problems can mushroom
incredibly quickly and go way out of control. Human mercury levels in women
of childbearing age has jumped from nearly insignificant to nearly 30% of
all such women.

Pretending that adding more mercury in the form of CFL's to every home and
garbage dump in America will reverse that trend is just not credible. I'm
very sadly *not* surprised, though, because what I've seen pass for truth in
the last ten years is pretty scary. Rumor becomes instant fact, especially
when people want to believe something's true. There was an article in the
news the other days about how Congressmen from both parties put items in the
record that had been written by lawyers working for the drug lobby.

I believe that instead of counting on CFLs we should clean up the mercury
spewing coal power plants (here and in China) and put some serious DOE
research money into improving LEDs to the point where they easily surpass
CFLs. I just saw an item about Sharp's new dimmable AND color tunable LED
light bulbs, two areas where CFLs fall pretty short.

http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/090611_2.html

"The models DL-L401N/L LED Lamps offer extremely economical operation, and
can be run for approximately 11 hours at a cost of only one yen!" (-:
(That;'s $0.011 US)

It just doesn't make sense to so fully embrace a poisonous technology when a
very close substitute is available, and its cost is dropping almost daily as
light output is increasing. It would drop even more if people's dollars went
to supporting a rapidly evolving technology with great promise like LEDs
instead of buying into the mostly bottomed-out CFL technology that requires
toxic materials to operate.

Fortunately, the "deal with the devil" involving CFL's is getting more and
more exposu

http://www.google.com/search?q=cfl+mercury+problem

and I believe that the mercury issue alone will be enough to doom CFL's and
in very short order. If the EPA finds it to be a serious source of human
mercury contamination (something they may be forced to do should the trace
amounts of mercury in Americans continue to climb) they could easily ban the
sale of CFLs just the way they are banning incandescents. I don't believe
that's a very far-fetched scenario based on experience with chemicals like
chlordane and DDT:

http://cfpub.epa.gov/eroe/index.cfm?...248&subtop=381

Installed my first set of Philips LED "stumble lights" today! They are
surprisingly warm white and put out almost enough light to light up the
stairway with a single four diode strip. I'll probably use two or even four
since they can be slaved together, run off very low voltage and have built
in motion sensors. It's qualities like these that will spell doom for
CFL's, the eight-track of home lighting.

Sorry for the length, but there's a lot about CFLs and mercury that people
need to consider.

So, Jeff, how will your XTB products help me overcome the issues I'm going
to doubtless face in switching from CFLs to LEDs? (-: I made an
interesting discovery the other day. One of the nVision CFL bulbs that had
been flashing madly when off when connected to an X-10 module suddenly
stopped flashing.


--
Bobby G.




xpost to comp.home.automation,alt.home.repair





I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis or
lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit
ultra violet light like the sun does.

Good ****ing god, you people don't have to quote every damn line of text
just to make a simple reply.

Think you could trim your post to post a snipe, in future?

"Bob Villa" wrote in message
...
Why not write a book while you're at it! 8^)

bob_v

On Nov 20, 3:02 am, "Robert Green" wrote:
"Jeff Volp" wrote in message

huge post snipped out

Interesting. Everything I have ever heard says the opposite about
fluorescents, of the right colour.

How can UV from the sun affect these maladities? Sun exposure usually
affects many maladities in a good way. Breast cancer is one that is
statistically reduced, big time.

The flickering of fluorescents was always blamed for some problems but the
sun doesn't flicker at 120Hz.

"Chuck" wrote in message
...
I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis or
lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit ultra
violet light like the sun does.

Chuck wrote:

I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis or
lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit
ultra violet light like the sun does.

I have arthritis, and my rheumatologist has never suggested that I avoid
fluorescent lighting.

Nevertheless, I am trying to replace CFLs by LEDs -- but for the energy
savings, not for anything related to health.

Perce

And you would benefit from less foul language.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"ShadowTek" wrote in message
n.
xxxx xxxxxxx xxx, you people don't have to quote every xxxx
line of text
just to make a simple reply.

In article ,
"Josepi" wrote:


How can UV from the sun affect these maladities? Sun exposure usually
affects many maladities in a good way. Breast cancer is one that is
statistically reduced, big time.

Was wondering the same things. About the only thing I could think of
was that some medications make you more sensitive to UV radiation and
thus more susceptible to sun burn. But I haven't seen anything in 25
years of nursing to support that as a problem outside the sun or tanning
booths.

--
To find that place where the rats don't race
and the phones don't ring at all.
If once, you've slept on an island.
Scott Kirby "If once you've slept on an island"

With the energy required to manufacture LED bulbs. And the
cost of the bulbs. I doubt there is any real savings. Either
to your wallet, or to the planet, by converting to LED light
indoors.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Percival P. Cassidy" wrote in message
...

I have arthritis, and my rheumatologist has never suggested
that I avoid
fluorescent lighting.

Nevertheless, I am trying to replace CFLs by LEDs -- but for
the energy
savings, not for anything related to health.

Perce

On Nov 20, 8:40*am, ShadowTek wrote:
Good ****ing god, you people don't have to quote every damn line of text
just to make a simple reply.

ESAD, FH

He made his point quite well though.

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in message
...
And you would benefit from less foul language.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.


"ShadowTek" wrote in message
n.
xxxx xxxxxxx xxx, you people don't have to quote every xxxx
line of text
just to make a simple reply.

Try a little netiquette to avoid being here alone.

Thanx for trimming.

"Bob Villa" wrote in message
...
ESAD, FH


On Nov 20, 8:40 am, ShadowTek wrote:
Good ****ing god, you people don't have to quote every damn line of text
just to make a simple reply.

LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient than incandescent
bulbs. On top of all that the more efficient ***white*** LED bulbs are made
with phospours, similiar to CFL bulbs. I beleive the mercury is not there as
the electrical energy is converted, the first time, by LED technology.

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in message
...
With the energy required to manufacture LED bulbs. And the
cost of the bulbs. I doubt there is any real savings. Either
to your wallet, or to the planet, by converting to LED light
indoors.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.


"Percival P. Cassidy" wrote in message
...

I have arthritis, and my rheumatologist has never suggested
that I avoid
fluorescent lighting.

Nevertheless, I am trying to replace CFLs by LEDs -- but for
the energy
savings, not for anything related to health.

Perce

Robert Green wrote:

The reports of CFL penetration say time and time again that people
who try them and have issues like a smoky, stinky burnout are much
more reluctant to try them a second time. My wife hates both the
occasional very spectacular stinky burn-up and the frequent
flickering and has had me stock up on incandescents for her sewing
room and all the hallway and critical short on/off time lights that
never last as long as the makers claim.

We installed CFLs everywhere in our home four years ago when we completely
rewired the house, and so far the only complaint we have is the supposed
five-year life of these lights is problematic--some originals are still
going strong, others only lasted a year or two--quality control in mfg. I
suppose. But we've had no "stinky burnout" and the only flickering we've
seen is on some outdoor floods used in security fixtures. What we did
immediately notice was a significant reduction in our electricity bill. Our
local hardware store and community center both collect CFLs (and batteries)
for proper disposal, so getting rid of dead ones is no problem.

I expect LED lighting to come on strong, we've even noticed LED
stage-lighting in nightclubs lately. But so far we're pleased with CFLs,
and since we don't just toss them in the trash when they're dead hopefully
the mercury in them isn't finding its way into the environment (although I'd
like to know more about how the CFLs we leave at the hardware store are
disposed of).

Josepi wrote:
LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient than incandescent
bulbs.

I know my LED flashlight can run for hours and hours, while the
incandescent flashlight burns through batteries quickly while providing
less light.

Here's a chart (with pictures, yet) showing some actual measurements of
various types of lighting.

http://www.mge.com/home/appliances/l...comparison.htm

"Josepi" wrote:

LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient than incandescent
bulbs. On top of all that the more efficient ***white*** LED bulbs are made
with phospours, similiar to CFL bulbs. I beleive the mercury is not there as
the electrical energy is converted, the first time, by LED technology.

The electronics used to control my SMD GU10 LEDS seem to consist of a
couple of capacitors and other small SMD components. They certainly
do not have the inductors and other complex electronics used to strike
the CFLs.

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:32 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Not according to testing labs that have made lumen mesurements. Are you
including the inverters or other lossy type gadgets to accomodate different
types of bulbs? Have you actually measured the "equivalent" light output or
does it just look about the same? Brilliance is a logarithmic scale and can
be very deceiving to the human eye.

Trouble with the lab measurements is they are not usually dated when
completed and the technology advances quite rapidly.

wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:27:09 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient than
incandescent
bulbs.

Say WHAT?

I have replaced all of the incandescent lamps on my sailboat ,
including the navigation lights. The LED's use 1/10th the power for
the same amount of light. That's not a random number - a typical light
that drew 2 amps gets replaced by an LED that is a little brighter and
draws slightly less than .2 amps.

On a cruising sailboat, you have to keep careful track of your
electrical budget.


--
John Perry

http://www.redoak.co.uk

Sadly, wasn't Lary this time. Though, he must be a hoot in
real life, whoever it is that plays Larry the cable guy.

I had some trouble with my cable recentl. I called for a
tech to come out, and Dennis was the one who arried. Tall
guy in his twenties, seems to know hs stuff. As he looked to
find the power plug, he pulled a three D-cell Mag out of his
back pocket, with a practiced motion.

I noticed it was a LED bulb mag. Asked about that, and he
told me a little about it. Formerly was a filament bub mag,
and he bought the LED bulb only, and put that in. He said
it's a lot better on batteries. I asked about that, and this
is what he told me.

One time he was in a crawl space, and forgot and left it in
the crawl space. Turned on. It was the wekend, and he was
able to get back to recover his light, three days later. The
light was still on, having run for three days all the time.
he says he was able to use it for about a week after that,
on the same batteries, before having to replace the
batteries.

I'm totally amazed. He sounded like he was telling the
truth. Wow! That's a long time on one set of batteries.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"JimH" wrote in message
...
Josepi wrote:
LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient
than incandescent
bulbs.

I know my LED flashlight can run for hours and hours, while
the
incandescent flashlight burns through batteries quickly
while providing
less light.

I can't remember what he tried to say. Don't bother
requoting it, either.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Josepi" wrote in message
...
He made his point quite well though.

"Stormin Mormon" wrote
in message
...
And you would benefit from less foul language.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:48:53 -0500, "Robert L Bass"
wrote:

"Robert Green" wrote:

"Jeff Volp" wrote:

Except for the "intricately curved delicate glass tubes"...

That's a pretty big exception. As a guy who custom
builds electronics by hand, I am sure that you realize
that even one delicate step in a process, say
soldering an SMD component to a circuit board by
hand...

That's misleading at best, Robert. None of the processes are done by hand,
except packaging and that step is largely the same for either type of product.
Once the patterns have been made and accepted, the glass tubes are made by
machines. Modern plants use robotic systems to "blow" the glass tubes.
Electronic circuit boards for inexpensive devices like CFL's are not made by
hand any more either.

Here's a link to a CFL-manufacturing firm. There's no one soldering anything.
No one is blowing glass either. That's another fully automated process done
elsewhere. Circuit boards are assembled on a robotic line and dip-soldered en
masse. The final product is then assembled on fully automated systems. You
won't find a single person using a soldering iron. This kind of robotic
assembly is nothing new either. Manufacturers in the alarm industry have been
using it for better than 20 years. Heck, computer system makers such as
MOD-COMP (now defunct, I think) were using automated manufacturing systems 35 or
more years ago.

http://www.lightsindia.com/products....turing-machine

Take a look at some of the spiral shapes of bulbs and I
think you'll realize that it takes some significant heat and
tooling to create narrow but even diameter glass tubes...

That is all supposition, Bobby. You don't know to what temperature glass for
CFL's is heated let alone if it's greater than, less than or the same as in
making incandescent bulbs. You clutter the discussion with wild guesses, then
argue the merits of CFL's as though whatever you suppose is established fact.
That is disingenuous and does nothing to help readers discern the benefits or
negatoives of CFL's.

Here's a link to an article on CFL-Haters (I didn't realize there were enough of
them around that they need to be categorized) :^)

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/...tell-them.html

that then must be twisted into spiral shape...

... Forgive me for taking a technical note and
turning it into polemic, but this is an important
issue.

If that were what you did, I'd happily forgive. Unfortunately, you have built a
fire of guesses and wishes as fact, then shoveled personal preference into the
mix. Now you stand back and warn, "See, this stuff burns very hot."

Even if LED and CFL production costs were equal,
manufacturing CFL's means increasing the mining
for mercury and causing much more of the neurotoxin
to enter the world at large....

That is pure, unadulterated, male bovine excrement. CFL's cost more to build so
they cost more than incandescent bulbs. In the process of making them, more
people are employed (not exactly a bad thing given the current economic
situation). The benefits are twofold.

(1) Quality CFL's last long enough to repay the investment by not buying many
more incandescents *and* by using less electricity.

(2) Using less electricity means burning less coal. This reduces mercury
contamination far more than the small amount of mercury in the bulbs themselves.
Furthermore, the mercury in used CFL's can be recycled. A number of
manufacturers are now accepting used bulbs back from the public, as well as from
institutional users. That which is not recycled goes into land fills where a
small percentage may eventually seep back into the earth. By comparison, the
mercury emitted by coal burning electrical plants goes directly into the
atmsphere and from there enters the food chain.

It may very well turn out that CFLs looked good
on paper but turned out not to be so good when
all costs are computed, just like biofuels.

It *may* be that CFL's will be just one step on the path to restoring the
environment. More likely, they will be one of many methods in simultaneous use
as various technologies develop. Only time will tell. Meanwhile, there's
nothing better that performs effectively at a reasonable cost so CFL's should be
used wherever possible. It's the right thing to do.

While one dot of mercury might not seem so bad,
almost 300 million CFL's were sold in the United
States last year...

Without knowing how big the "dot" is and how much mercury they *don't* use by
reducing electric consumption, that proves nothing. If you want to understand
the real affect of mercury in CFL's vs coal, you must first you learn how much
they introduce into landfills. Then you have you learn what portion of it gets
out of the landfills (in all likelihood, the major portion does not re-enter the
environment but I can't prove that; it's supposition). Next you have to measure
the amount of mercury *not* introduced because CFLs use less power. Finally,
you have to quantify the effect of mercury sent directly into the air from
electric usage.

Do all that. Report back next week. There will be a quiz on Tuesday. :^)

Lets not overlook the fact that florescent lights have been around for
a Looooooong time. The traditional tubes that light the entire world
of retail, manufacturing, hospitals, schools, public buildings,
offices, etc, are each much bigger and contain a lot more mercury tha
a CFL. No one ever really got upset about those. and In fact, they are
still being used to light the world, and CFL haters don't seem to know
they exist.

The only thing "new" about CFL's is their size and shape. Otherwise,
its' VERY old technology.

On Nov 20, 5:52*pm, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
Sadly, wasn't Lary this time. Though, he must be a hoot in
real life, whoever it is that plays Larry the cable guy.

I had some trouble with my cable recentl. I called for a
tech to come out, and Dennis was the one who arried. Tall
guy in his twenties, seems to know hs stuff. As he looked to
find the power plug, he pulled a three D-cell Mag out of his
back pocket, with a practiced motion.

I noticed it was a LED bulb mag. Asked about that, and he
told me a little about it. Formerly was a filament bub *mag,
and he bought the LED bulb only, and put that in. He said
it's a lot better on batteries. I asked about that, and this
is what he told me.

One time he was in a crawl space, and forgot and left it in
the crawl space. Turned on. It was the wekend, and he was
able to get back to recover his light, three days later. The
light was still on, having run for three days all the time.
he says he was able to use it for about a week after that,
on the same batteries, before having to replace the
batteries.

I'm totally amazed. He sounded like he was telling the
truth. Wow! That's a long time on one set of batteries.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
*www.lds.org
.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
*www.lds.org
.

"JimH" wrote in message

...

Josepi wrote:
LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient
than incandescent
bulbs.

I know my LED flashlight can run for hours and hours, while
the
incandescent flashlight burns through batteries quickly
while providing
less light.

Just think...when they perfect LEDs for headlights...we won't have to
yell at the wife for draining down the battery!

bob_v

What I don't understand is why LEDs are so excellent in flashlights (the
3W Task Force light kicks a Mag-Lite's ass BTW) bike head/taillights,
truck taillights and traffic lights but it is so difficult to find good
ones for home lighting and/or retrofitting into car taillights?

nate

Stormin Mormon wrote:
Sadly, wasn't Lary this time. Though, he must be a hoot in
real life, whoever it is that plays Larry the cable guy.

I had some trouble with my cable recentl. I called for a
tech to come out, and Dennis was the one who arried. Tall
guy in his twenties, seems to know hs stuff. As he looked to
find the power plug, he pulled a three D-cell Mag out of his
back pocket, with a practiced motion.

I noticed it was a LED bulb mag. Asked about that, and he
told me a little about it. Formerly was a filament bub mag,
and he bought the LED bulb only, and put that in. He said
it's a lot better on batteries. I asked about that, and this
is what he told me.

One time he was in a crawl space, and forgot and left it in
the crawl space. Turned on. It was the wekend, and he was
able to get back to recover his light, three days later. The
light was still on, having run for three days all the time.
he says he was able to use it for about a week after that,
on the same batteries, before having to replace the
batteries.

I'm totally amazed. He sounded like he was telling the
truth. Wow! That's a long time on one set of batteries.



--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
Chuck wrote:

I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis
or lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit
ultra violet light like the sun does.

I have arthritis, and my rheumatologist has never suggested that I avoid
fluorescent lighting.

Nevertheless, I am trying to replace CFLs by LEDs -- but for the energy
savings, not for anything related to health.

Perce
I will post the info I have on the harm that UV does to folks that have
Lupus and fibromyalgia. Probably tomorrow.

salty wrote:

Cue Twilight Zone theme...

Indeed. That one bent the needle on the bull****ometer.

Chuck wrote:
I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis or
lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit
ultra violet light like the sun does.

Does your wife have some form of Cutaneous porphyria?

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote:
Chuck wrote:
I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis
or lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit
ultra violet light like the sun does.

Does your wife have some form of Cutaneous porphyria?

TDD

The reference I have found relates to Lupus. I was somewhat incorrect
saying it also affected RA and Fibro. Her Dr. had said that folks with
auto immune problems should avoid UV. Since she has Lupus and Fibro,
(auto-immune diseases) I assumed it caused problems for both. Since RA
is also an auto-immune disease, I again assumed that uv might be a problem.
The Dr. was addressing just the Lupus. Here is the reference I found
for Lupus: www.itzarion.com/lupus-uv.html

She can only be in Walmart or HD for a few minutes. Then she has a very
bad reaction. Any time outside she must be wearing a sun hat (blocks UV's).
Sorry if I rattled anybodies cage. Chuck

I'm not sure if it's CFL envy, or what. But I've seen signs
in back of stores, that fluorescent tubes are disposed
differently than rest of the trash. So, there is some effort
to contain the mercury.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


wrote in message
news
Lets not overlook the fact that florescent lights have been
around for
a Looooooong time. The traditional tubes that light the
entire world
of retail, manufacturing, hospitals, schools, public
buildings,
offices, etc, are each much bigger and contain a lot more
mercury tha
a CFL. No one ever really got upset about those. and In
fact, they are
still being used to light the world, and CFL haters don't
seem to know
they exist.

The only thing "new" about CFL's is their size and shape.
Otherwise,
its' VERY old technology.

That, or timer. Five minutes afer the key is turned off.
That kind of thing.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Bob Villa"
wrote in message
...

Just think...when they perfect LEDs for headlights...we
won't have to
yell at the wife for draining down the battery!

bob_v

I've seen LED replacments for tail lights. Any good? Dunno.
Would be nice to see fairly priced LED replace for household
bulbs. I've not seen them yet.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Nate Nagel"
wrote in message ...
What I don't understand is why LEDs are so excellent in
flashlights (the
3W Task Force light kicks a Mag-Lite's ass BTW) bike
head/taillights,
truck taillights and traffic lights but it is so difficult
to find good
ones for home lighting and/or retrofitting into car
taillights?

nate

(Dave Houston) writes:

Here's a chart (with pictures, yet) showing some actual measurements of
various types of lighting.

http://www.mge.com/home/appliances/l...comparison.htm

"Josepi" wrote:

LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient than incandescent
bulbs. On top of all that the more efficient ***white*** LED bulbs are made
with phospours, similiar to CFL bulbs. I beleive the mercury is not there as
the electrical energy is converted, the first time, by LED technology.

Interesting point on the graph is how much better linear fluorescent
can be than CF... also that metal halide basically starts where LED
leaves off.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)

Nate Nagel writes:

What I don't understand is why LEDs are so excellent in flashlights
(the 3W Task Force light kicks a Mag-Lite's ass BTW) bike
head/taillights, truck taillights and traffic lights but it is so
difficult to find good ones for home lighting and/or retrofitting into
car taillights?

Haven't looked into home LED home lighting yet, but the basic problem
with car taillights is that the fixture is designed for a point source
and the "replacements" are anything but. An LED taillight assembly (as
you can see on many cars and trucks today), designed for LEDs, works
great.

Unfortunately, the "replacements" are bought by idiots looking for a kewl
effect, who have no idea that they might as well just leave the wiring
harness unplugged for all the good their taillights do them --
frequently the other end of the car has headlights with blue glass
('cause blue is brighter) hidden behind a smoked glass shield.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)

Chuck wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:
Chuck wrote:
I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis
or lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They
emit ultra violet light like the sun does.

Does your wife have some form of Cutaneous porphyria?

TDD

The reference I have found relates to Lupus. I was somewhat incorrect
saying it also affected RA and Fibro. Her Dr. had said that folks with
auto immune problems should avoid UV. Since she has Lupus and Fibro,
(auto-immune diseases) I assumed it caused problems for both. Since RA
is also an auto-immune disease, I again assumed that uv might be a problem.
The Dr. was addressing just the Lupus. Here is the reference I found
for Lupus: www.itzarion.com/lupus-uv.html

She can only be in Walmart or HD for a few minutes. Then she has a very
bad reaction. Any time outside she must be wearing a sun hat (blocks UV's).
Sorry if I rattled anybodies cage. Chuck

One of my roommates has a form of Porphyria and instead of a tan
he gets lesions on his exposed skin and it makes him very sick.

TDD

"Percival P. Cassidy" wrote:

Chuck wrote:

I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis or
lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit
ultra violet light like the sun does.

I have arthritis, and my rheumatologist has never suggested that I avoid
fluorescent lighting.

Nevertheless, I am trying to replace CFLs by LEDs -- but for the energy
savings, not for anything related to health.

Perce

If you're trying for energy savings, you're going the wrong way as LEDs
produce lower lumens per Watt than CFLs currently. The only way you get
energy savings with LEDs over CFLs currently is if you do exclusively
task lighting where the directionality of LEDs can let you use a lower
Wattage LED lamp than CFL. LEDs are certainly improving over time so
eventually they may pass CFLs for efficiency, but they don't currently.
The current LED lamps also suffer from color temperature inconsistencies
which are problematic if you have more than one LED lamp in a room.

wrote:

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:32 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Not according to testing labs that have made lumen mesurements. Are you
including the inverters or other lossy type gadgets to accomodate different
types of bulbs?

No inverters or "lossy gadgets" involved, other than what is built
into the base of the lamps. The draw measured includes any and all
parts of the assembly.

Have you actually measured the "equivalent" light output or
does it just look about the same?

Measured. Nav lights have to meet strict legal requirements and be
certified.

Brilliance is a logarithmic scale and can
be very deceiving to the human eye.


You really can't stand being wrong, can you?

Trouble with the lab measurements is they are not usually dated when
completed and the technology advances quite rapidly.


Sorry that you have such a hard time with reality.

LEDs are considerably more efficient than ordinary incandescents, but
they are still less efficient than CFLs. Many of the fixtures you'd be
using on a boat benefit from the directionality of LEDs, which is
another reason they perform better.

Robert L Bass wrote:
"Josepi" wrote:

Think you could trim your post to post a snipe, in future?

Here's a brief comment on CFL's from the US Energy
Star program:

"CFLs save consumers money in the long run, as these bulbs draw far less
power (resulting in lower electric bills), and they last longer (so they
don't need to be replaced nearly as often). But they also work to save
the environment by lessening greenhouse gases. If every American home
replaced just one standard incandescent light bulb with a long-lasting
CFL, the resultant energy savings would eliminate greenhouse gases equal
to the emissions of 800,000 cars..."


Not saying that CFL's aren't a good thing. But press releases full of
SWAG numbers like that irritate me. Way too many uncontrolled variables
for them to come up with a hard number. How many hours a day is this
'one bulb per house' supposed to be on and what wattage? What type of
cars are those 80,000 cars, and how many hours a day are they lit up,
and at what speeds? And so on and so on...

--
aem sends....

When they talk about saving Watts then we know they are informed...LOL

"aemeijers" wrote in message
...
Robert L Bass wrote:
"Josepi" wrote:

Think you could trim your post to post a snipe, in future?

Here's a brief comment on CFL's from the US Energy
Star program:

"CFLs save consumers money in the long run, as these bulbs draw far less
power (resulting in lower electric bills), and they last longer (so they
don't need to be replaced nearly as often). But they also work to save
the environment by lessening greenhouse gases. If every American home
replaced just one standard incandescent light bulb with a long-lasting
CFL, the resultant energy savings would eliminate greenhouse gases equal
to the emissions of 800,000 cars..."


Not saying that CFL's aren't a good thing. But press releases full of SWAG
numbers like that irritate me. Way too many uncontrolled variables for
them to come up with a hard number. How many hours a day is this 'one bulb
per house' supposed to be on and what wattage? What type of cars are those
80,000 cars, and how many hours a day are they lit up, and at what speeds?
And so on and so on...

--
aem sends....

Apparently you don't understand the scale used for illumination by your
silly comment used to attempt to disguise it. I will assume the rest is
bull**** then too, for now.


wrote in message
...
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:32 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Not according to testing labs that have made lumen mesurements. Are you
including the inverters or other lossy type gadgets to accomodate
different
types of bulbs?

No inverters or "lossy gadgets" involved, other than what is built
into the base of the lamps. The draw measured includes any and all
parts of the assembly.

Have you actually measured the "equivalent" light output or
does it just look about the same?

Measured. Nav lights have to meet strict legal requirements and be
certified.

Brilliance is a logarithmic scale and can
be very deceiving to the human eye.


You really can't stand being wrong, can you?

Trouble with the lab measurements is they are not usually dated when
completed and the technology advances quite rapidly.


Sorry that you have such a hard time with reality.



wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:27:09 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient than
incandescent
bulbs.

Say WHAT?

I have replaced all of the incandescent lamps on my sailboat ,
including the navigation lights. The LED's use 1/10th the power for
the same amount of light. That's not a random number - a typical light
that drew 2 amps gets replaced by an LED that is a little brighter and
draws slightly less than .2 amps.

On a cruising sailboat, you have to keep careful track of your
electrical budget.

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:43:59 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I've seen LED replacments for tail lights. Any good? Dunno.
Would be nice to see fairly priced LED replace for household
bulbs. I've not seen them yet.

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The
only thing I don't like about them on my car is that there is no
warmth generated to de-ice the lenses in winter. Tail light lenses are
plastic, so there is a limit to how much you can do to clear them with
an ice scraper without scratching them.

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:35:47 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


wrote:

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:32 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Not according to testing labs that have made lumen mesurements. Are you
including the inverters or other lossy type gadgets to accomodate different
types of bulbs?

No inverters or "lossy gadgets" involved, other than what is built
into the base of the lamps. The draw measured includes any and all
parts of the assembly.

Have you actually measured the "equivalent" light output or
does it just look about the same?

Measured. Nav lights have to meet strict legal requirements and be
certified.

Brilliance is a logarithmic scale and can
be very deceiving to the human eye.


You really can't stand being wrong, can you?

Trouble with the lab measurements is they are not usually dated when
completed and the technology advances quite rapidly.


Sorry that you have such a hard time with reality.

LEDs are considerably more efficient than ordinary incandescents, but
they are still less efficient than CFLs. Many of the fixtures you'd be
using on a boat benefit from the directionality of LEDs, which is
another reason they perform better.

Tell that to my 360 degree LED anchor light at the top of the mast
which is brighter and can be seen farther than the incandescent it
replaced, and uses 1/10th the power.

All nav lights have to cover specified arcs of visibility. The
directional nature of LED's is actually a disadvantage for boats that
had to be overcome, which is done by using arrays of smaller LED's

They now have LED's that produce as much as 200 lumens per watt.

Compare that to a CFL. :-)