The Most-Common Fluorescent Light Tubes Are Going Away This Year

[brewer12345]

But that's just the point. There is no legitimacy in "deciding for one's self" with regard to something that is intended in society's best interest. It simply isn't just all about ourselves all the time. It is one thing to work to improve the standards set forth for society so that those standards better support society's interests. It is another thing entirely to set aside society's best interests in favor of one's own, regarding how members of society use, exploit or abuse opportunities, when those opportunities have impact beyond one's own body, one's own home, and one's own worship. There is no escaping the fact that excessive energy usage is more than just a cost concern for the waste-er, but rather also weakens society itself, and therefore affect other people.

[Mod Edit]

 

[Mulligan]

Quite the opposite: I said we shouldn't take these actions. But if "society" wanted to cut energy use as a goal in itself (again--I don't think it should), increasing the cost of energy would be more effective than these inane pinpricks of downward-directed "do things this way even though you know it is dumb." I'm running my electric toaster oven on full blast and imposing many costs on others until you agree with my position.

Sam, you better have a back up toaster oven ready when the first one burns out as this appears to be a situation of "bunkered down, philosophical trench warfare"

 

[NW-Bound]

While there must be some compromise from each individual to have a functional society, we must be aware of protecting some personal freedom and choices.

What if, for the good of society, we pass a law saying there is no reason a man needs more than 500 sqft of space, and a couple no more than 1,000 sq.ft. Efficient use of space and reduced energy usage, you know? More than that, common walls between housing units would cut back on heating and cooling costs. Yep, round them up and put them in housing projects. And while we are at it, what are these lazy ER's people doing? Nothing? While they are still healthy and can still contribute to society by doing some gardening, trimming grass along the road way? That will get them some fresh air and good exercise to cut down on healthcare costs.

I wrote the above to show that we must strike a balance between the two extremes. And that is independent of what one thinks about this particular light bulb issue.

 

[samclem]

Sam, you better have a back up toaster oven ready when the first one burns out as this appears to be a situation of "bunkered down, philosophical trench warfare"

When the toaster burns out, I'll turn on the waffle iron, then the griddle, then the hair dryer. I'll heat my home with small electric appliances and I'll probably get a Christmas card from my power company and the high-sulfur coal company they buy from.

We need to start a movement: Those who want the freedom to buy electric bulbs of their choice should leave their (incandescent) porch lights burning 24/7. Let Lady Liberty's torch shine on free homes throughout suburbia. When the intrusive laws are extinguished, we'll turn off the porch lights.

 

[NW-Bound]

But then, the remaining incandescent bulbs I have will not last long!

 

[Mulligan]

When the toaster burns out, I'll turn on the waffle iron, then the griddle, then the hair dryer. I'll heat my home with small electric appliances and I'll probably get a Christmas card from my power company and the high-sulfur coal company they buy from. We need to start a movement: Those who want the freedom to buy electric bulbs of their choice should leave their (incandescent) porch lights burning 24/7. Let Lady Liberty's torch shine on free homes throughout suburbia. When the intrusive laws are extinguished, we'll turn off the porch lights.

My best laugh of the week! Highly motivating, too. The lights in my house are about 50/50. Makes me want to get up and unscrew the CFLs and throw them in the trash and open up my vault of Edison bulbs I already have stashed away for the future!

 

[ls99]

Ditto for samclam's and NW=bound's elaborations. ++++++++++ Far better wordsmiths than I.

By the way toaster ovens are roughly $5.- at goodwill, endless supply. I do resent society deciding how I will spend my money and on what.

[Mod Edit]

 

[JoeWras]

But now they are going to ban toaster ovens! I heard the replacements will be EZ-Bake types with internal 500W Halogen bulbs providing the heat.

Seriously, Halogen bulbs stink to high heaven. I used those in a few applications because I didn't like CFLs. I was trying to "save the world" or something. They burned out fast. Hated them.

I shouldn't admit this, but I've stocked up on 100, 60 and 40s and have a pretty good supply. When they run out, LED tech should finally be good enough. But I think I'm good for at least 10 years. I have sinned, my brothers and sisters...

Edit: oh yeah, I also have a nice stock of 75s too.

 

[M Paquette]

The shop light fixtures I have that use T-12 bulbs cost maybe twice what a pair of bulbs cost, and the damn things both flicker and eat bulbs. (Maybe they sell them as a loss leader to get more bulb sales?)

I've been thinking about replacing them anyway. This gives me a good excuse. More junk for the metal recyclers...

 

[Sue J]

Going away are T12 40w 4 foot tubes, 8 foot tubes, the U-tube, etc. "T12" is the tube diameter in eighths of an inch. A T12 is 1 1/2" in diameter. A few T8 (1" diameter)tubes are going away also.

Two weeks ago we replaced a T12 fixture with a T8 one. This is the ceiling light in the kitchen. The old T12 wasn't turning on right away and sometimes didn't turn on at all. DH switched bulbs and that didn't change anything. One of the ballasts looked darker than the other one and some wiring at one end looked aged so we thought replacing the fixture was better than trying to replace a ballast.

I had no idea that the T8 bulbs were being fazed out. Going by the package on the T8 bulbs that we bought (32W 3000K) the lifespan should be about 8 years so I guess it would be prudent to buy another set to keep on hand.

 

[ERD50]

I just bought five 30R LED flood lights (rated 22 year life) ...

So here's another scam being 'sold' to an uninformed public. Does the public know what 'rated lifetime' means? Probably not what most people think.

Capacitor selection helps achieve long lifetimes for LED lights | EDN

ENERGY STAR is specifying a lifetime requirement of more than 25,000 hours for residential applications and more than 35,000 hours for commercial applications. They describe the L70* characteristic for the lamp. This means that the relative light output must not fall below 70% of its initial brightness value in less than the rated lifetime of the system.

So all that means is that based on accelerated life testing, they expect the LED to still put out 70% as many lumens after 22 years of X/Hr/day use as it did when it was new.

It has nothing to do with the reliability of the circuit that drives the LED. And according to that article, electrolytic capacitors are used to reduce costs, and those LEDS get hot inside (even at ~ 4x more efficient than filament bulbs, they are still wasting most of the input energy as heat), and electrolytic capacitors are highly degraded by heat.

If we look inside the power supply on the solder side of the PCB, it might be as high as 100°C, matched by the output capacitor which also shows a case temperature (Tcase) of 100°C. ...
Even the best capacitor on the previous chart would last only 15,000 hours at 100°C.

And cheaper caps will only reach ~ 2,000 hours. With all the talk about how the price of LED bulbs have come down, I imagine they must be pinching pennies to compete on the shelf. I'm hoping this issue will be addressed in the future, another reason I want to hang on to my incandescents for a few more years.

-ERD50

 

[Koolau]

Quite the opposite: I said we shouldn't take these actions. But if "society" wanted to cut energy use as a goal in itself (again--I don't think it should), increasing the cost of energy would be more effective than these inane pinpricks of downward-directed "do things this way even though you know it is dumb."

I'm running my electric toaster oven on full blast and imposing many costs on others until you agree with my position.

I'll bet you're actually cooking bacon. I can smell it!

 

[JoeWras]

And cheaper caps will only reach ~ 2,000 hours. With all the talk about how the price of LED bulbs have come down, I imagine they must be pinching pennies to compete on the shelf. I'm hoping this issue will be addressed in the future, another reason I want to hang on to my incandescents for a few more years.

-ERD50

ERD has some really good points on the caps. Ask all the people who had expensive large Samsung TVs about capacitors. Those little buggers took down a lot of fairly new TVs in recent years.

 

[Walt34]

[mod hat on]

Can we keep this about light bulbs and leave the politics out?

Thanks.

[mod hat off]

 

[HFWR]

I've stated previously that I've only had one CFL fail ever. YMMV...

As for LEDs, wow, 100C? I have two LED arrays under my kitchen cabinets, probably 10-12 LEDs each, and they are barely warm to the touch. 100C seems pretty high.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Because the thread continues to veer farther from the OP's helpful discussion about options available for buying lightbulbs into the political realm with a dollop of the right to bear arms, we now present: