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Re: Compact fluorescents in enclosed fixtures

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Re: Compact fluorescents in enclosed fixtures Victor Roberts 03-26-2007
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Posted by Richard on March 27, 2007, 12:54 pm


My long term experience is that open fixture compact Florescents tend to
last longer. I typically use lower wattage compacts in small enclosed
fixtures and higher wattage compacts in open fixtures. Never had a
significant performance problem; and far superior to edison bulbs that run
much hotter in either fixture.

Richard.



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Posted by Don Klipstein on March 28, 2007, 12:15 am


in part:
>
> I should have pointed out that screw-base CFL lifetime is function
> of both the life of the "wire lamp" and the ballast, with most
> failures in free air being caused by failure of the "wire lamp."
> The "wire lamp" failure rate is not a significant function of ambient
> temperature.

> The term "wire lamp" is GE-jargon for the fully functional lamp
> portion of the CFL excluding the ballast, ballast housing and base.
> Perhaps others use the same jargon. I would love to have a better
> name for this part of a CFL, but the term "lamp" is already taken
> since it refers to the whole, fully-functional CFL and the term "bulb"
> is already used to refer to the formed glassware before processing
> into a functional lamp.

I was not aware of "wire lamp" being GE-specific jargon. I saw that
term a bit in this newsgroup, and knew that it referred to the lamp
minus its base and any integral ballast. As in being the bulb,
everything within the bulb, and wires coming out of the bulb waiting
for a base to be attached.

I just have in my mind non-regular people taking a look at this
newsgroup, with not especially high chance of knowing what a "wire
lamp" is, and should they be told that "the bulb is the glass part of
the lamp" may still think of as a "bulb" the thing that most Americans
that are engineers or other "technical types" outside the automotive
industry call a lamp.

- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

Posted by on March 27, 2007, 2:18 pm



> Based on how much of a heat hellhole recessed cans often are, I suspect
> the electronic ballast in that lamp would have to have a life expectancy
> of a goodly 50,000-100,000 hours, probably closer to or maybe even above
> 100,000 hours, in free air in order to have that low an impact on life
> expectancy of a CFL in a recessed can. In a recessed can, air warmed by
> the lamp rises and the ballast will get hotter than anything else. And
> hot air around the ballast may be at least somewhat trapped there, and the
> ballast often gets pretty toasty warm to put it mildly. That is true even
> if the tip end of the tubing is not all that hot.

It may be that the recessed fixtures we've got are not as bad as most.
In these cans (cubes, more or less), the bulb is mounted horizontally
roughly in the middle, and there's a curved metallic reflector at the
top. So the ballast is definitely not at the highest, hottest point
in the fixture. Again, after running all night, the ballast was warm,
but I could hold it comfortably.

The box these bulbs came in says their "optimal" operating range goes
up to +140F. I think the ballast was less than 140F, maybe closer to
120F, though I haven't checked with a thermometer. I think 140F would
be too hot to touch, never mind hold comfortably?

I would be happy with a 50% reduction in operating life, given the
usual life expectancy of a CFL. Given the bulbs are $0.25 each, cost
isn't even an issue, I mainly want to avoid the environmental impact
of going through lots of bulbs.

-- Dave

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