This is my first post, just so you know.

http://www.cnet.com/news/see-ya-cfl-ge-moves-on-from-fluorescent-light-bulbs/

GE is not going to make CFLs anymore because they have a bad reputation, LEDs are competing with them,
And that stores are running out of space.

Depending on your view on CFLs, This can be good or bad. Time to stock up!
 
 

LED are primarily a marketing success. They are promoting as the "greenest" thing in every account, and this works

In a way, the CFLs became the voodoo doll for the LEDs :

 - The users faced a change from the ~100 years familiar Incandescent light with the new CFLs, and the CFLs got the bulk of the backlash. Only 10..15 years later, its in big part the same generation now getting moved to the LEDs, and they dont complain as bad second time

 - The users know that CFLs are Fluorescents, and associate them with bad experiences (or bad things said about) old linear Fluorescents, while in fact they dont hold for CFLs : Light spectrum (different phosphors compared to old Halo linears), Flickering (eliminated by HF drive), and some of them are myths even for the Linears in the 1st place : UV hazards and EM emmisions hazards. The LEDs are promoted to not have any of those deficiencies. (In fact LEDs do have some of the problems CFLs dont, yet CFLs were blamed for, but this is much better hidden. LEDs are marketed to be perfect)

 - The users know that CFLs contain Mercury, which got way too much worrying than it deserves : The CFLs got the name of a health hazard and environmental hazard and so on. (Nevermind that the Mercury in CFLs is neither of them as long as they are recycled. The materials used in the making of the circuit board and 2 transistors in the base of the CFL, however, are). LEDs got much more toxic and environmentally deadly stuff involved in their making, but that is beyond the knowledge, and concerns, of the user



The Lm/W is a secondary factor at best. The big and noticable step in savings was the x4.5 times from Incandescent to CFL, not the x1.5 from CFL to LED

Im not planning to stock up CFL almost at all. I have some reserved for collection but compared to incandescent and mercury vapor stock-up, this is nothing. Also, CFL's kind of difficult for a long time stock-up or even for collecting purpose. Mostly because there are electrolytic capacitor inside and those things ages even if you dont use the lamp. That's why CFL's like almost everything else electronic today has limited lifespan before it just wont work(unlike older light sources which could still work perfectly after 100 years of sitting in storage shelf).

What comes to mercury in CFL's (Or other light sources) yes, in personal level it's a hazard you can avoid by safe handling like every other toxic material. The problem is when it's used as widely as it is nowadays or previously in history. In chemical and biological aspect mercury is very problematic substance. Mostly because it's liquid(most lamp today use mercury amalgam) at room temperature and thus very easely absorbed in nature and food chain (There is even name for that, called Mercury cycle.) and that's bad because mercury acts like neurotoxin when it's end up at the top of the food chain, us humans. That where the phrase "mad as a hatter" comes because mercury was used in process of making felt which was then used by making hats and people working in that industry would suffer health effects caused by exposure to mercury.

Not all of the mercury containing lamps get recycle properly and some will end up in wrong place usually because user of the lamp did not care. Also safe handling of mercury when producing lamps can be questioned in some coutries.

But of course there are other industries which have much bigger releases of mercury to environment like power plants that use coal as energy source and gold mining.

Why electrolytic capacitors, ages even when not in use?

Over the time electrolyte inside the capacitor tends to evaporate or dry out and that will have significant impact on the capacitance and ESR. How that will effect the operation of apparatus depents a lot of things and how strict tolerances the circuitry has. Ambient temperature has huge impact on how fast this will happen so without any use, stored in cool dry place, it wont happen in a year or two but more like we are talking something like 10-15 years or even more if the quality of the capacitor is good.

Over the time electrolyte inside the capacitor tends to evaporate or dry out and that will have significant impact on the capacitance and ESR. How that will effect the operation of apparatus depents a lot of things and how strict tolerances the circuitry has. Ambient temperature has huge impact on how fast this will happen so without any use, stored in cool dry place, it wont happen in a year or two but more like we are talking something like 10-15 years or even more if the quality of the capacitor is good.

Yes, but even in the best situation, The capacitors would not last very long because of the stress they handle (Hot ballast compartment, low air flow, and rapid switching).
And preheat CFLs could solve most of these problems.

Mercury is not technically difficult to handle safely :

The Mercury can be processed into Amalgam at a very early stage, right after it is refined in the metals/chemicals factory. So the path it makes as a liquid metal is short, and can be well controlled

The lamp recycling can be made so, the users will see economical benefit in recycling : Turn in burned lamps to get X discount for buying a new lamp. Then more of them will bother to take the burned lamps to the shop and not trashing them at home



I would be more concerned with the chemicals used in the processing of the printed circuit board material, and the semiconductors

The Etching/other chemicals are liquids as well

They are handled in their "dangerous" form throughout much more significant part of the production process - right up to disposal

They are used in the factories by the cubic meter container and not by the small quantities like Mercury

When they are spent they dont just "disappear", such big volume will eventually find its way to where it does not belong



But everyone knows about the Mercury and there is a lot of hype about it. Barely anyone of the users or "greenies" even knows what etching is..

Mercury is not technically difficult to handle safely :

The Mercury can be processed into Amalgam at a very early stage, right after it is refined in the metals/chemicals factory. So the path it makes as a liquid metal is short, and can be well controlled

The lamp recycling can be made so, the users will see economical benefit in recycling : Turn in burned lamps to get X discount for buying a new lamp. Then more of them will bother to take the burned lamps to the shop and not trashing them at home



I would be more concerned with the chemicals used in the processing of the printed circuit board material, and the semiconductors

The Etching/other chemicals are liquids as well

They are handled in their "dangerous" form throughout much more significant part of the production process - right up to disposal

They are used in the factories by the cubic meter container and not by the small quantities like Mercury

When they are spent they dont just "disappear", such big volume will eventually find its way to where it does not belong



But everyone knows about the Mercury and there is a lot of hype about it. Barely anyone of the users or "greenies" even knows what etching is..

The "greenies" likely assume the ballast is some kind of special component, But is actually lots of individual parts soldered together. This presents another problem, As the ballast parts are probably soldered together with Lead solder, or Lead free solder. The Lead is yet another toxic part other than Mercury.

The solering have been Lead free for the last 10 years or so, at least for consumer electronics in Europe (RoHS directive)

The Lead free soldering is of questionable ecological benefit in complex electronics (Lead free BGA soldering is more likely to fail from thermal cycling, which is indeed how a lot of computer hardware ends its life. And there goes the pollution of making a whole new laptop and trashing the old one, instead of only the added Lead content). But with the fairly low tech assembly and low component count of CFLs, i doubt the Lead free soldering would be a significant causee of failures there

Electrolytic capacitors have another problem far worse than a tiny bit of evaporation that is that they depolarise after about a year sat with no voltage applied that's why you should never put a cap that's been on the shelf for ages straight on to full volts

I think a realistic shelf life is about 10 years. For most users, that is by far sufficient. But this raiss a few other concerns :

Electrolitic capacitors are present not only in CFLs. Most Elctronic ballasts - including ones for Linear FL, Induction, HID, and some of the LED drivers have them as well. And most of them are hardwired into electrical systems, which we normally dont regard as having a limited shelf life

Things that have Electrolitic capacitors are inappropriate for applications tht will see use once in 10 years. Which is, thinking of this, quite a long list of applications, in most of which you REALLY want the light to work properly when you switch it on :

 - Everything emergency related : emergency exit corridors, staircases, tunnels, bomb shelters, ...

 - Everything maintenance related : lighting for a boiler or air conditioning units room, cable tunnel, structural voids in or under a building or bridge, and so on, where (in some places) nobody goes unless there is something broken. And may require being fixed fast, before it floods the place with water from a busted pipe and so on

The latter gives one more consideration : If you power up something with a bad capacitor, it may initially power up "fine", then die after a few minutes. This may be exactly the time you climbed somewhere deep in the boiler room or foundations of a building, and then a failed capacitor finally blows and the light goes out, or it trips the breaker and all lights in the place go out

Those are the sort of places where nothing but Magnetic and Incandescent should be ever installed (And please let the greenies explain how energy savings on a light powered on once in 10 years make any sense)

I think a realistic shelf life is about 10 years. For most users, that is by far sufficient. But this raiss a few other concerns :

Electrolytic capacitors are present not only in CFLs. Most Elctronic ballasts - including ones for Linear FL, Induction, HID, and some of the LED drivers have them as well. And most of them are hardwired into electrical systems, which we normally dont regard as having a limited shelf life

Things that have Electrolitic capacitors are inappropriate for applications tht will see use once in 10 years. Which is, thinking of this, quite a long list of applications, in most of which you REALLY want the light to work properly when you switch it on :

 - Everything emergency related : emergency exit corridors, staircases, tunnels, bomb shelters, ...

 - Everything maintenance related : lighting for a boiler or air conditioning units room, cable tunnel, structural voids in or under a building or bridge, and so on, where (in some places) nobody goes unless there is something broken. And may require being fixed fast, before it floods the place with water from a busted pipe and so on

The latter gives one more consideration : If you power up something with a bad capacitor, it may initially power up "fine", then die after a few minutes. This may be exactly the time you climbed somewhere deep in the boiler room or foundations of a building, and then a failed capacitor finally blows and the light goes out, or it trips the breaker and all lights in the place go out

Those are the sort of places where nothing but Magnetic and Incandescent should be ever installed (And please let the greenies explain how energy savings on a light powered on once in 10 years make any sense)

Good thing we have replacements:
Ceramic, Film, Paper, Supercapacitors, Vaccum, Air gap, Glass, and Mica.
Another solution would to have the Electrolytic Capacitors replaceable, Or have some kind of backup.

Quote from: Ash on February 09, 2016, 03:03:39 PM

I think a realistic shelf life is about 10 years. For most users, that is by far sufficient. But this raiss a few other concerns :

Electrolytic capacitors are present not only in CFLs. Most Elctronic ballasts - including ones for Linear FL, Induction, HID, and some of the LED drivers have them as well. And most of them are hardwired into electrical systems, which we normally dont regard as having a limited shelf life

Things that have Electrolitic capacitors are inappropriate for applications tht will see use once in 10 years. Which is, thinking of this, quite a long list of applications, in most of which you REALLY want the light to work properly when you switch it on :

 - Everything emergency related : emergency exit corridors, staircases, tunnels, bomb shelters, ...

 - Everything maintenance related : lighting for a boiler or air conditioning units room, cable tunnel, structural voids in or under a building or bridge, and so on, where (in some places) nobody goes unless there is something broken. And may require being fixed fast, before it floods the place with water from a busted pipe and so on

The latter gives one more consideration : If you power up something with a bad capacitor, it may initially power up "fine", then die after a few minutes. This may be exactly the time you climbed somewhere deep in the boiler room or foundations of a building, and then a failed capacitor finally blows and the light goes out, or it trips the breaker and all lights in the place go out

Those are the sort of places where nothing but Magnetic and Incandescent should be ever installed (And please let the greenies explain how energy savings on a light powered on once in 10 years make any sense)

Good thing we have replacements:
Ceramic, Film, Paper, Supercapacitors, Vaccum, Air gap, Glass, and Mica.
Another solution would to have the Electrolytic Capacitors replaceable, Or have some kind of backup.

Yes, there are alternatives but most non-special grade electronics uses electrolytic capacitors atlest where bigger capacitors are needed (I remember reading somewhere that usually all above 1 microfarad is electrolytic)because cost- and sizewise those are best option compared to other types.

Quote from: wattMaster on February 10, 2016, 07:10:17 AM

Quote from: Ash on February 09, 2016, 03:03:39 PM

I think a realistic shelf life is about 10 years. For most users, that is by far sufficient. But this raiss a few other concerns :

Electrolytic capacitors are present not only in CFLs. Most Elctronic ballasts - including ones for Linear FL, Induction, HID, and some of the LED drivers have them as well. And most of them are hardwired into electrical systems, which we normally dont regard as having a limited shelf life

Things that have Electrolitic capacitors are inappropriate for applications tht will see use once in 10 years. Which is, thinking of this, quite a long list of applications, in most of which you REALLY want the light to work properly when you switch it on :

 - Everything emergency related : emergency exit corridors, staircases, tunnels, bomb shelters, ...

 - Everything maintenance related : lighting for a boiler or air conditioning units room, cable tunnel, structural voids in or under a building or bridge, and so on, where (in some places) nobody goes unless there is something broken. And may require being fixed fast, before it floods the place with water from a busted pipe and so on

The latter gives one more consideration : If you power up something with a bad capacitor, it may initially power up "fine", then die after a few minutes. This may be exactly the time you climbed somewhere deep in the boiler room or foundations of a building, and then a failed capacitor finally blows and the light goes out, or it trips the breaker and all lights in the place go out

Those are the sort of places where nothing but Magnetic and Incandescent should be ever installed (And please let the greenies explain how energy savings on a light powered on once in 10 years make any sense)

Good thing we have replacements:
Ceramic, Film, Paper, Supercapacitors, Vaccum, Air gap, Glass, and Mica.
Another solution would to have the Electrolytic Capacitors replaceable, Or have some kind of backup.

Yes, there are alternatives but most non-special grade electronics uses electrolytic capacitors atlest where bigger capacitors are needed (I remember reading somewhere that usually all above 1 microfarad is electrolytic)because cost- and sizewise those are best option compared to other types.

True, And the best place to look for a Capacitor is in led bulbs (At least in the Capacitive Droppers).

CFLs could likely get by on Full Wave rectified AC, Just with lots of flicker and no capacitors .
The problem with that is the typical people buying CFLs(And LED bulbs) would not like the flicker. Or even 3 Phase, With better flicker control. There just needs to be a new bulb base to support 3 phase.

3-phase would mean no flicker, but at least two wires to control. Rather impractical...