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The ones I've tried still make a terrible humming noise much like a fluorescent bulb in a ballast, and cast a somewhat pinkish light. They also don't fit well i

The ones I've tried still make a terrible humming noise much like a fluorescent bulb in a ballast, and cast a somewhat pinkish light. They also don't fit well in fixtures designed for incandescent bulbs, sticking out at the end (looking at a bare lightbulb is no fun for the eyes). I really want to like CFLs but with all of these disadvantages and how much more difficult they are to safely dispose of than a plain incandescent, I still haven't switched.

stan_rogers 15y ago
The form factor (for some applications) is a genuine problem, but it's the only remaining problem in my recent experience. There is a reasonable facsimile of a 60-100W "A" bulb for use with lamp shades that clip onto the bulb, but the base widens too abruptly for some fixtures, and low-wattage bulbs do tend to be longer than their incandescent counterparts. I'm not using any "name" bulbs (except in photo lighting, which is another kettle of fish entirely) at the moment (they're the cheapies from Canadian Tire) and it has been a long time since I've experienced mechanical noise, flicker or an unacceptable spectrum (there are only a few very small gaps, as revealed by a diffraction spectrometer -- er, a CD held at an angle, which has served me well as a photographer over the years). And "pinkish" is weird -- it sounds like somebody's tried to use older "conventional" phosphors (which gave a very green-biased spectrum) and tried to overcompensate with the complement (magenta). I've never run into that with any of the brands I've tried (and I'm rather picky). ADDED: the buzzing shouldn't be a problem with a recent bulb, either. That's an artifact of an older ballast design that I haven't seen used in years. All of the ones I've tried in the last five years or so have had high-frequency ballasts and long-decay phosphors to deal with the flicker issue (it's not an issue anymore), so the 120Hz buzz went away at the same time.
- oinksoft 15y ago
  Maybe the humming I hear is due to old lighting fixtures, but I don't want to replace all of them in my apartment :) I think it's things like this that make mainstream adoption unlikely. And difficulty of safe disposal (but I'm being optimistic, and we might just get tons of mercury in our landfills if people are fine being negligent).

stan_rogers 15y ago

The form factor (for some applications) is a genuine problem, but it's the only remaining problem in my recent experience. There is a reasonable facsimile of a 60-100W "A" bulb for use with lamp shades that clip onto the bulb, but the base widens too abruptly for some fixtures, and low-wattage bulbs do tend to be longer than their incandescent counterparts. I'm not using any "name" bulbs (except in photo lighting, which is another kettle of fish entirely) at the moment (they're the cheapies from Canadian Tire) and it has been a long time since I've experienced mechanical noise, flicker or an unacceptable spectrum (there are only a few very small gaps, as revealed by a diffraction spectrometer -- er, a CD held at an angle, which has served me well as a photographer over the years). And "pinkish" is weird -- it sounds like somebody's tried to use older "conventional" phosphors (which gave a very green-biased spectrum) and tried to overcompensate with the complement (magenta). I've never run into that with any of the brands I've tried (and I'm rather picky). ADDED: the buzzing shouldn't be a problem with a recent bulb, either. That's an artifact of an older ballast design that I haven't seen used in years. All of the ones I've tried in the last five years or so have had high-frequency ballasts and long-decay phosphors to deal with the flicker issue (it's not an issue anymore), so the 120Hz buzz went away at the same time.

oinksoft 15y ago
Maybe the humming I hear is due to old lighting fixtures, but I don't want to replace all of them in my apartment :) I think it's things like this that make mainstream adoption unlikely. And difficulty of safe disposal (but I'm being optimistic, and we might just get tons of mercury in our landfills if people are fine being negligent).