Best CFL?

[Nick1911]

I'm willing to try CFL's again.  I tried it about 5 years ago, and the light quality sucked.  The bulbs had a long startup time, appeared much dimmer then their incandescent "equivalents", and were hell on the eyes.

Recent threads have suggested that the technology is much better now.  So, I'm willing to try this again.  What do you recommend?  I'm looking for good representation across the visible spectrum, low startup time and no buzz or wine sounds.

Phillips?  GE? Sylvania? Other?

[K Frame]

They're evil, and they'll cost you 239,296,969,129,196,221 times MORE than an incandescent bulb...

I like either GE or Phillips. Look for the ones that are marketed was warm white.

Sylvania, ANY Sylvania bulb (incandescent, fluorescent, or halogen) have seriously poor quality control, in my opinion.

[AJ Dual]

Does anyone else remember David Letterman's top ten list as to why the public should buy GE light bulbs, way back when GE bought NBC?

I don't remember them all, but:

#5 We heard somewhere that Sylvania bulbs give off some kind of poison gas&

#4 Same for Westinghouse..

#3 The floursecent tubes make great "Star Wars" swords for the kids!

[bedlamite]

Does anyone else remember David Letterman's top ten list as to why the public should buy GE light bulbs, way back when GE bought NBC?

I don't remember them all, but:

#5 We heard somewhere that Sylvania bulbs give off some kind of poison gas&

#4 Same for Westinghouse..

#3 The floursecent tubes make great "Star Wars" swords for the kids!

http://www.mudslide.net/TopTen/lnwdxtra.html#extra68

[AJ Dual]

That was it! You rock!

[crt360]

#3 The floursecent tubes make great "Star Wars" swords for the kids!

They were used for that very purpose at my elementary school.  The kids would rescue them from the dumpster and have lightsaber fights out behind the cafeteria. 

Hmmm . . . I wonder if my exposure qualifies me for a government benefit.

[BrokenPaw]

I replaced the exterior flood lights on my house with CFL floods, with the idea that CFLs were supposed to last longer and thus expose me to less chance of Death By Ladder.  But when I turn on the switch, there's a pause just long enough to get me thinking that the bloody things have finally burnt out, and then the begin giving of an anaemic desultory sort of yellowish glow, and then over the course of about 5 minutes they work their way up to "Still pathetically dim, but bright enough to actually see by".  At which point I've likely already concluded whatever business I needed the light for.  So I never actually get the benefit of sufficient brightness.

And in the winter, it's even worse.

Back to evil incandescents next time.  Especially for exterior lights when you live in the woods, instant-on, instantly-bright is a Good Thing.

-BP

[Manedwolf]

#3 The floursecent tubes make great "Star Wars" swords for the kids!

There was a Darwin Award not long ago where two people tried to re-enact a lightsaber fight by cutting the ends off fluorescent tubes, pouring in some gasoline and lighting it, presumably to make it "light up". The results were predictable, and I think fatal for at least one of them.

[Gewehr98]

I've switched over to CFLs for all of the lighting here, save for the ones outside and in the unheated garage.  They just don't like starting up in winter temperatures.  When it got down to -20 last February, they barely flickered at all. 

[K Frame]

We don't have any problems during winter wtih the CFL floodlights that we installed in my community a number of years ago.

Yes, they take awhile to warm up.

Two ways of dealing with that.

Put them on timers or photo cells so that they come on when it gets dark and stay on until morning, or get a flashlight.

[Nick1911]

Put them on timers or photo cells so that they come on when it gets dark and stay on until morning, or get a flashlight.

What, you don't have a CFL in your flashlight? 

In all seriousness, I'm not a big fan of LED flashlights...

[K Frame]

I have a very cheap LCD flashlight that I bought for when I walked my dogs. It's very bright for its size.

[Nick1911]

I have a very cheap LCD flashlight that I bought for when I walked my dogs. It's very bright for its size.

LED?

[K Frame]

Yes, LED, not LCD... Sigh.

[Manedwolf]

Yes, LED, not LCD... Sigh.

LCD flashlight...

That could be cool. Project your favorite show on the wall to watch? 

[Nick1911]

Yes, LED, not LCD... Sigh.

LCD flashlight...

That could be cool. Project your favorite show on the wall to watch? 

I always thought a marketable product would be an LCD license plate cover.  Make it blank out the plate when the gas pedal is pressed to the floor.  I imagine it would sell pretty well to the "run red lights" crowd in areas where they have red light cameras.  Then my ethical/moral side kicks in, and I consider why exactly the moral implications of encourage people to run red lights at speed and endanger others?

[Paddy]

I'm beginning to see some cheap no name brands at less than 1/3 the price (like $2 for a 4 pack of 100 watters) here and there (don't tell fistful one of the stores was Wallyworld).  There's a sticker on them saying the price was discounted somehow through PG&E Pacific Gas & Electric to encourage their use. 

Anybody use the off brands?   Is there any diff in light quality vs. the name brands (Phillips, Westinghouse, GE, etc.)?

[K Frame]

I find that Phillips and Ge bulbs last FAR longer than any of the other CFLs I've tried.

Earthlights aren't terrible, but they're generally not great.

The Phillips I have in my post lamp out front has been in there for just over 3 years now. It's on a minimum of 8 hours a day, every day. In the winter, it's on a LOT longer.

The 13 watt GE on the back patio has been burning 24x7x365 for.... almost 5 years.

There are generally differences in light quality between all of the manufacturers; it has to do with the phosphor formulas they use to coat the insides of the tubes.

I recently had an overhead shop light go bad on me (transformer crapped), so I replaced and got new bulbs at the same time. The Sylvania bulbs I got (all they had that was reasonably priced for the laundry/work room at that point) have a distinctly different color to them than the similar "work room bulbs" by GE that are in the other three worklights in the room.

CFLs is one of those areas where I'll spend a bit more for the name brands.

[wooderson]

N:vision from Home Depot - they're the same price or cheaper than anyone on the shelf, get good reviews and have worked very well for me.

You only get 'sickly light' if you cheap out or buy the wrong color temp. For some reason I bought a round of 'daylight'-balanced bulbs for the first room I replaced them in - cuz hey, daylight is yellow, right? Wrong - very bright, but a very cool color cast, it was like working in a sci-fi movie. Get 'soft white' - the perfect color temp for reading, watching TV, etc..

[Ben]

Has anyone found dimmable bulbs for chandeliers? The kind that use the little bulbs shaped like a flame or whatever? The only ones I've found were the aforementioned N:vision brand, but they're only 3 watts which is like a 20 watt equivalent. I'm looking for around a 40 watt equivalent, but have only seen them as non-dimmable.

[Perd Hapley]

Fluorescent bulbs, or at least some of them, will have a Kelvin color-rating on the packaging.  I believe lamps at about 2500 k will give a yellowish light, about 4000 will give a white light, and about 6000 or higher will be bluish.  To me, the white and blue is noticabley brighter than the yellow.  More info here:
http://www.gelighting.com/na/business_lighting/education_resources/learn_about_light/color_specifying.htm#CCT

In public areas of apartment buildings, I have replaced many 60 W incandescents with CFLs that gave a much brighter, whiter light.  And this is coming from someone who usually doesn't notice such things.  The first CFLs I installed in my house were in my dimly lit basement.  The low-kelvin bulbs I put in first were dim and yellowish.  I replaced them with bluish bulbs that work much better. 

[Paddy]

That is really good information fistful. Thank you.  The 4 for $2 100W CFL's I bought yesterday don't have a kelvin rating, only lumens (1600).  The 'Daylight' version were $5 per bulb.  I'll check the package next time I'm in Walgreen's for a kelvin rating.

[Perd Hapley]

That is really good information fistful.

Brought to you by Sentences Rarely Uttered, By Anyone, on APS.    

This looks like a good chart, about half-way down the page. 
http://nemesis.lonestar.org/reference/electricity/fluorescent/lamps.html

On past threads, folks have complained about blue light from fluorescents.  According to what I've read on the pages that Google turned up, natural daylight actually has a bluish tinge. 

[Firethorn]

You only get 'sickly light' if you cheap out or buy the wrong color temp. For some reason I bought a round of 'daylight'-balanced bulbs for the first room I replaced them in - cuz hey, daylight is yellow, right? Wrong - very bright, but a very cool color cast, it was like working in a sci-fi movie. Get 'soft white' - the perfect color temp for reading, watching TV, etc..

The reason I bought a bunch of daylight bulbs is that I don't get enough of it, tending to work funny shifts.

[Perd Hapley]

You only get 'sickly light' if you cheap out or buy the wrong color temp. For some reason I bought a round of 'daylight'-balanced bulbs for the first room I replaced them in - cuz hey, daylight is yellow, right? Wrong - very bright, but a very cool color cast, it was like working in a sci-fi movie. Get 'soft white' - the perfect color temp for reading, watching TV, etc..

I think soft white is very bad for some things, while daylight works very well for other things, depending on the brightness of the bulb, how many bulbs in the area, etc.  As I mentioned earlier, soft/warm white was very dim in my basement, while the daylight bulbs are working pretty well.  Of course, soft white might have been fine if they were higher wattage or better quality.  But the daylight bulbs I bought were the same brand, same wattage, as the soft whites.  IICR.