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All:<br>
<br>
I, too have suffered the premature failures. So many, that on top
of the onerous mercury disposal rules, I'm over CFLs -- bought a
lifetime supply of incandescents while I could, and slowly
converting to LEDs Adding insult to injury, the CFLs are very RF
noisy -- so noisy, that my X-10 remote controls can turn one on, but
never off, not matter how much filtering I put in upstream of the
noise generator.<br>
<br>
<i>IEEE Spectrum</i> recently ran an article about a teardown, which
explains why the CFL's fail prematurely -- to keep manufacturing
costs down in China, the electronics in the base are hand soldered
(badly, to be kind, the pictured solder joints were terrible!). So,
when the get hot, solder joint fails . . . and another few grams of
mercury head to the land fill, err. recycling stream.<br>
<br>
Also confirmed in a separate IEE article what I had long suspected
-- LEDs are expensive because of the thermal managment issues -- 15
watts dissipated over a few square cm is a LOT of
BTU/hr-ft-squared! Still, volume <i>appriaching</i> the point
where prices will drop, then like all things semiconductor, the
price drop will be precipitous. Until then, incandescents here we
come . . .. <br>
<br>
<i>Spectrum</i> tends to shill for all things "green", so I'm a bit
skeptical of their predictions. <i>Still</i>, their data and my
own experience suggests that the LED price <i>will </i>come down,
only question is how soon and how fast.<br>
<br>
Good luck to all,<br>
73,<br>
Jim<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:wb4gcs@amsat.org">wb4gcs@amsat.org</a><br>
<br>
<br>
On 5/30/2011 9:18 PM, Bob Bruninga wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:201105310118.020241@msan1.usna.edu"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Interesting. About 1/3rd of mine are mounted upside down in ceiling fixtures, and I have not noticed any failures...
Bob, WB4APR
---- Original message ----
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> The only way one can get the many thousand hour life from a CFL is to
mount them base down. When the base is up the heat from the bulb rises into
the power supply in the base and is what kills them. Unfortunately, few
ceiling fixtures allow one to mount the bulb base down or have sufficient
ventilation for the base to cool in any configuration.
On the other hand, I have table lamps with CFL' s with the base down
that have lasted several years.
YMMV.
73,
Al, K9SI
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