This post is not about using a CFL in a touch sensitive lamp, but about the two sharing the same room!
I recently installed a CFL bulb in a ceiling fixture of a bedroom that also has a touch sensitive 3 way lamp plugged into a wall outlet. The touch sensitive lamp was turned on while I replaced the ceiling bulb. As soon as I turned on the ceiling fixture at the wall switch both the CFL bulb and the touch lamp started freaking out - flickering strongly, the touch lamp cycled through its brightness levels. Within about 30 seconds the CFL went out and never came back on.
I've Googled to find information about what happened but couldn't find any information about using a CFL and a touch sensitive lamp in the same room. Is there something wrong with the wiring in the room? HAs anyone ever heard of anything like this before?
Ah! Another source of RFI (Radio frequency interference)? While I always find these technological clashes somewaht humorous there is/are serious side/s to it.
Wondering if the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in the USA and the equivalent agencies in other countries have standards for not radiating undue radio-noise. Beginning to suspect there are none or that those existing are not enforced. So some cheap lamps, say, are imported and don't meet any particular standards? nd hen it comes to something like that I don't think we can depend on ToysR'Us to recall like whenthey find lead paint on something?
Seems like in some circumstances we are getting smothered with extra technology which in turn interferes with existing services.
In Austria some time back a Civil Defense exercise had to cancelled because their power company was trying out digital Internet signals over it's power lines. Which were radiating at all sorts of frequencies interfering with ambulance radios, some times used to transmit patients vital signs while being ambulance transported! (e.g. DOA; cause of death = radio interference from .......????) Also local radio broadcasts to advise public of that exercise may have been interfered with? So it was cancelled; fortunately not the real thing, eh? I believe the power company was later enjoined (ordered) not to repeat the tests because the RFI problems caused could affect daily operations?
Quite apart from smart-touch lamps, that aren't so smart? All those digital signals and satellites TV feeds are going to goof up one of these days! (e.g. Sorry your brain scan is unresolved and must be repeated; two satellites were in conjunction and the resulting interference, just on our little patch of the planet, for just that period of time you were in the MRI makes it unreadable).
A touch lamp is a dimmer. You CAN NOT put a standard CFL on a dimmer. Thats what ruined it. As for the ceiling light causing the problems, I'd agree with the other replies. Yet, you CAN NOT put a CFL on any dimmer and you ruined the bulb doing so.
snipped-for-privacy@notmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
you didn't comprehend what he wrote; "I recently installed a CFL bulb in a ceiling fixture of a bedroom that also has a touch sensitive 3 way lamp plugged into a wall outlet.
He didn't have the CFL in the touch-lamp.
It's probably that the touch-lamp is overly sensitive to the EMI from the CFL. Those lamps are flaky at best,IMO.
Line-voltage-powered CFLs with electronic ballasts, when marketed in the USA, do have to be FCC approved. With the exception of most dollar store models, in my experience these do have "FCC ID".
Most dollar store CFLs in my experience lack something else that integral-ballast line-voltage-powered CFLs in the USA normally have: UL listing!
If your CFL was not a dollar store stool specimen, and especially if it had "Energy Star" approval and/or was made by one of the "Big Three" (GE, Philips or Sylvania), then it was probably defective. I suspect something on the circuit board broke and the CFL simply seriously malfunctioned and fairly quickly died.
One more thing about most dollar store CFLs: In my experience, those with light output claims fall short, occaisionally by a factor of three!
Another thing about them: In my experience, most have an icy cold bluish "daylight" color, even some claiming "soft warm white light". They also usually have a spectrum like that of "Old Tech" Daylight fluorescents, which have a color rendering index of 79 and color distortions mostly of reds and to a lesser extent greens being "darker and duller than proper". Non-dollar-store CFLs have CRI of 82 and distortions mostly in the direction of "brighter and more vivid than proper", though some reds come out orangish. There are some warm color dollar store CFLs, but they mostly have a spectrum like that of "Old Tech Warm White", which has a color rendering index of 53!
Yet another thing about dollar store CFLs: My experience is that they have more than their fair share of early failures, malfunctions right out of the package, and scary spectacular failures.
Many CFLs don't like the heat buildup in recessed ceiling fixtures. However, it appears to me that they merely die early after overheating (either days-weeks or something along the lines of roughly half their normal life expectancy). Radio interference is not a complaint I have heard of before from this.
There are CFLs rated to take the heat of recessed ceiling fixtures. The example I remember best is non-dimmable version of Philips SLS of wattages up to 23 watts.
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