Good CFL, bad CFL...user recommendations

[jayman]

Originally Posted by hobbit

What a piece of crap. Another fine example of how offs(w)horing
is killing our industry potential.

Good for you. So many folks out there get a bum product, they may quietly grumble to themselves, but never take it any further

[Shawn Clark]

The best customer experiences I've had come from U.S. made niche products. When something doesn't work as expected, you contact the vendor (often the owner/designer/creator) and try to figure it out. It's not like with multi-nationals where no feedback ever makes it to the designers and no corrective action is taken. I've sometimes had positive experiences with foreign specialty products too so I don't see this as a function of ownership nationality. I assume this is more of the impact of small scale operations with those answering the calls being passionate about making the best product possible

I'm involved in a bit of collaborative troubleshooting of this sort on two products at the moment (not lighting.) I'll update elsewhere if/when the issues are resolved.

[Boo]

October 2009 Consumer Reports tested 24 CFLs. Here's the Ratings Chart (Sorry if the image appears small on your screen -- I think the PriusChat software sometimes automatically resizes it, and sometimes it doesn't. But if it's too small on your screen, just zoom in/blow up the view to 200% and it'll be very legible.):



Guide to the Ratings

Overall score combines life and rapid-cycle testing, 3,000-hour brightness at 3,000 hours of use, and warm-up time performance. Life testing reflects how many 3-hour on and 20-minute off cycles a bulb survives after 3,000 hours of the "on" cycle. Rapid-cycle testing reflects the average number of 5-minute on and 5-minute off cycles each bulb survived. Brightness indicates the brightness (lumens) of each bulb after 3,000 hours of life testing, as compared with the brightness of a comparable incandescent. Warm-up time is how long the bulb took to reach near full brightness. Actual brightness (lumen) is the averaged measured brightness of 10 bulb samples after being life tested for 3,000 hours. Actual color temperature (kelvin) is the averaged measured color temperature of 10 bulb samples. Those with 2700 K are closest to incandescent bulbs; ones with 3000 K are similar to halogen bulbs. Claimed equivalent wattage is equivalent incandescent bulb that a manufacturer says the CFL will replace. Claimed life is how long the manufacturer says the bulb will last. Price is approximate retail.

[Shawn Clark]

Tom,

Thanks for posting. That image is tough to read until you blow it up to 200% but works then.

The Ecosmarts (n:vision/Consumer Electric) take top honors. This despite CR's idiotic failure to include an "instant on" factor. Want to see the Feit's and GE's fail miserably? Just test instant on. They suck so bad that the resultant vacuum of testing it will pull your eyeballs out. They don't work at all for instant on. Massive fail.

Consumer Reports testing fails compared to what it did 10-20 years ago. This is like testing cars without including some component for acceleration or braking. Warm up time is not sufficient. I could teach them a few things about useful testing from a consumer perspective and I don't have 1/10th the gear they do to perform a test.

[drees]

You know, the Feit's I've bought recently (past 2 years) are actually pretty good. Yes, the spirals I've bought turn on instantly. Only issue is that some seemed to die an early death.

The only CFLs I've bought recently (in the last year) that aren't instant on was a PAR40 and a globe-style CFL and some outdoor floods.

[fjpod]

I like my color temperature about 3,000 degrees Kelvin, but these are hard to find except by mail order, and they are more expensive. Incandescent is about 2800 and "normal fluorescents" are 3500 and up.

I've also had a lot of bad luck with CFLs burning out in enclosed fixtures.

And I find that in order to have the equivalent light of a 60 watt incandesceant bulb, I have to buy one rated for 75 watts.

[Shawn Clark]

Originally Posted by fjpod

I like my color temperature about 3,000 degrees Kelvin, but these are hard to find except by mail order, and they are more expensive. Incandescent is about 2800 and "normal fluorescents" are 3500 and up.

I've also had a lot of bad luck with CFLs burning out in enclosed fixtures.

And I find that in order to have the equivalent light of a 60 watt incandesceant bulb, I have to buy one rated for 75 watts.

While I would like a true 3000 or so CFL, standard CFL's are about 2700 K (soft white) same as basic incandescents. They are NOT 3500 and up! Not sure what bulbs you are using, sounds like the very old CFL's that were rather blue. You can get higher color temps at the Big Box stores, but they tend to be substantially higher temp, bluer than I want.

CFL's have done better for me in closed fixtures than incandescents. I can even go up in lumens if desired because of the reduced heat. It's nice being able to put a higher output bulb in a fixture previously rated for only 60W incandescent.

I've had to actually go down in equivalent watt rating for several CFL installations compared to the previous incandescents because they were too bright. This was noticeable in baths where I could use four 40 W equiv CFL's to replace four 60 W equivalent globes. In the other two baths I replaced an 8 light fixture with a 6, and a 6 light fixture with a 4, same equiv. wattage (much less actual of course.)

My present loss rate is about 1 CFL per year. The old GE's I have (roughly 4 years old) are the only ones I've had fail in the past 2 years if memory serves. They take increasingly longer to strike...the last one was taking 4 seconds before it finally died.


drees,

The several Feit's (Bright Effects) I've tried in the past two years have sometimes started well but noticeably declined within two weeks of installation. So far none have died as others report, but they start up much dimmer than many other CFL's. I just can't see any reason to buy them when much better performing CFL's are available at a better price.

[acdii]

I need some that are small candelabra based for 3 ceiling fixtures that I do NOT want to replace. I also have 2 fixtures that use flame bulbs, what can replace those? They are also candelabra based.

[hobbit]

I've put the ongoing "outdoor lighting" saga and more of its
developments here for general amusement. There may be a little
more added after the event in question and we see how it works.
.
_H*

[drees]

Originally Posted by Shawn Clark

The several Feit's (Bright Effects) I've tried in the past two years have sometimes started well but noticeably declined within two weeks of installation. So far none have died as others report, but they start up much dimmer than many other CFL's. I just can't see any reason to buy them when much better performing CFL's are available at a better price.

Don't know what to say. I bought a bunch of Feit 13w & 23w spirals about a year ago from Costco for something insanely cheap - like 10 bulbs for $5.

Out of the 20 or so bulbs I've put in use, I've had 2 die (which I took to Home Depot to recycle/dispose of). The rest still fire up instantly and provide good light (they all have some sort of shade on them).

Originally Posted by acdii

I need some that are small candelabra based for 3 ceiling fixtures that I do NOT want to replace. I also have 2 fixtures that use flame bulbs, what can replace those? They are also candelabra based.

At Home Depot they have a couple different candelabra bulbs under the EcoSmart of CFLs they have. They had some really small, low power ones that take a while to warm up but barely provide any light. They have other spirals that are 13w I think and those fire up instantly and are pretty good. Read the lumen ratings on them - that will tell you how much light it really puts out and watch out for the "pretty" enclosed ones which tend to take a while to warm up.