Good CFL, bad CFL...user recommendations

I first converted a home to CFL's about 4 years ago and have been pleased with them, moving my CFL's twice over 1,700 miles. Buying CFL's is a bit of crap shoot though as many of the types I've tested have had major flaws. I thought this might be a good place to make a list of one's I've liked and disliked. I encourage others to post their impressions of bulbs they have tried.

I consider instant on and near full intensity to be the primary requirements of a good CFL.

The good
"Commercial Electric" 100W spiral CFL's from Home Depot. These were the first ones I tried and I still have quite a few of them in "premium" service. Ironically, the very first package was a bad sample and all burned out within a few weeks/months--but were replaced by the store under warranty. I ruined several in a low hanging ceiling fan fixture as I occasionally would hit one by accident (not the bulb's fault.) The others have moved twice and are now 4 years old. Pluses: true instant on, close enough to full intensity that I don't notice warm up except when they are outside during winter.

n:Vision 40W soft white, 60W soft & bright white spiral CFL's from Home Depot. The bright white's are a bit too blue for my tastes but that is not really a fault of the bulb. They do provide excellent light in several services. I prefer the soft whites for most things. Pluses: instant on at full enough intensity that they don't appear dim. These bulbs do everything I ask of a CFL.

Edit: Another big plus, these bulbs are about 1/2" shorter than the equivalent GE CFL. 3/8" of this is in the base electronics housing, and 1/8" is in the spiral (GE has more of a nipple effect at the end.) This is really handy when helping someone convert ceiling fan lights and vanity lights with short bells.

EDIT: "ecosmarts" from Home Depot are the same bulbs as the n:vision and Consumer Electric that they previously sold. They have the same model numbers. Only thing I noted new was that the packaging says it has "Up to 70% less mercury than standard CFL bulbs."


LumaPro 75 & 90 W triple biaxial CFL's sold by Granger. These are excellent bulbs, but they are very, very long. This length issue limits them to open fixtures such as simple garage sockets or some table lamps with shades. Instant on, full intensity from start.

Sylvania micro-mini 100W & 60W equivalents found in Lowes. These are terrific niche bulbs and they are instant on. They are much smaller in length and diameter than the equivalent CFL and can fit in some recessed thread applications. This is accomplished through: a. the tube begins twisting immediately out of the base, rather than the brief vertical b. shorter base electronics body with 45 degree angle for 100/75W variants c. smaller glass tubing diameter in more twists per unit length. The design behind these is really smart, improving on several aspects of traditional CFL design. They are pricey at present, about $4.50 each for the 100's and 3.75 each for the 60's. The only ones I've seen so far are in the "soft white" 2700 K color range. I would really like to try a "bright white for the refrigerator.

So, so
Bright Effects monster sized 65W actual (~250W equivalent) spiral CFL's. I didn't buy these, previous homeower did. These have worked well as garage bulbs. Instant on. They do take some warm up to reach full intensity when it is cool, but the spiral is lit from end to end so it is not as objectionable as some. EDIT: Hobbit, however has tested a competing product from Home Depot and finds it far superior. He points out the Bright Effects are not durably made, are larger than they need to be, and are unsuitable for outdoor use.

I've done some luxmeter testing of this Bright Effects. It took about 2 minutes to reach full intensity from a cold start. The brightness increased 3.5x before it stabilized. (By contrast, some regular n:vision CFL's take less than a minute to stabilize and brightness increases by less than 2.5x in my testing.)

Poor, but serviceable
GE 60 and 100 W soft white spiral CFL's. I really don't like these because they have various amounts of lag when starting up--definitely not instant on. This makes them unsuitable for bathrooms and they look silly when in large clusters since it seems there is always one laggard. They appear to start up close enough to full intensity though. (EDIT: Luxmeter test shows 2.3x factor and stabilizing after 1 minute, about the same as an n:vision/Commercial Electric/ecosmart.) I'm stuck with them so use them for less important duty or in services where they are on for long periods at a time.

Edit: Another problem with the GE CFL's is that they are longer than the n:Visions, quite a bit longer in fact (1/2" for 60W). This is actually making them unsuitable or unattractive in appearance for most applications.

Bright Effects 60W spiral CFL from Lowes. I only have one of these, purchased as a test. It is okay, but is a little slower to turn on than the n:vision. EDIT: Luxmeter shows it to be very dim on startup, brightens 5.8x before stabilizing.

Bad
GE 65W R30 and 50W R20 reflector CFL's. These are really disappointing bulbs, I'm stuck with them as I had no other choices at the time. They have up to 2 seconds lag on start up although most are 0.5 to 1 second (I have a string of 6 in the kitchen that I timed.) Very slow to warm up with about half of the end of the internal spiral unlit at start up. They come up at low intensity, well less than half and take up to two minutes to reach full intensity--I tested one in a bathroom ceiling can and it started up at only 20% intensity compared to the light level 2 minutes later according to my lux meter. The intensity drop off on start increases somewhat with age. Why GE can't make bulbs that are instant on and full intensity is a mystery to me.

EDIT: Found a new problem with the GE R30's I have. The base's plastic just before the glass is too wide for some outdoor cans. I had to do some whittling of the plastic for a fixture that is 18 feet from grade. GE continues to earn their failing grades.

I'm moving the GE R20's outdoors for rarely used facade spot lighting. If they fail, no great loss.

Standard Sylvania 60W spiral CFL. Recollection is hazy since I returned them immediately after testing. They were not instant on and took too long to warm up. Interestingly, the micro-minis work well.

Bright Effects G25 globe 60W spiral CFL's (softwhite and bright white.) Unfortunately, they come up at about half intensity after a few weeks of use, and take a minute or so to reach full brightness. Partially lit spirals are unacceptable.

Bright Effects BR30 reflector 65W spiral CFL. This one is disappointing because I bought it for a bathroom to replace a very poor GE (start up at very low intensity). It worked great for a few weeks, then began dimming on start up, displaying behaviour similar to the GE.

Useless
GE 65W dimmable R30 projection bulbs. I tried a set of these for a pair of cans on a dimmer switch. They suffer from the typical GE defects: slow start up, not full intensity. In addition they don't turn down very far once they reach full intensity so they don't fulfill their basic function. (And I have a dimmable, double-circline fluorescent torchiere lamp with does an excellent job of dimming, so I realize it is possible.) These went right back to the store.

 

I've updated for info on lengths of GE's vs. n:Visions. I did some CFL conversion for my mother-in-law this weekend. There were some 60W GE CFL's in the house, but they stuck out of the bells of fan and vanity lights, so they weren't being used. I replaced them with 40 and 60W n:Visions. The 60's were 1/2" shorter, and the 40's were even shorter than that. The 40's worked well in the shorter bathroom light's bell, while the 60's worked in the fan light.

GE strikes out again.

 

JSH,

I find it hard to believe that the n:Vision and GE's "perform identically" for anyone on the criteria I listed. I've yet to see any GE's that are instant on...ANY, and I have many unfortunately. I've tested GE's that others purchased and were using in their homes and found theirs suffered from the same problems as I observe with those I've purchased here and in other states. Since I just did this again yesterday, I have a pretty current feel for the relative off/on performance.

Now perhaps GE did make better bulbs back in 2003 or earlier and their manufacturing/design has become inferior since then. I can't rule that out. The first GE's I used were in the 2005 timeframe and I still have them. Perhaps they were trying to reduce mercury, I don't know.

If you put a GE in a two or more bulb fixture next to an n:Vision, the GE will be the last to light. If you put in all GE's you will see them all flick on at slightly different times. If you put in n:Visions you will see them all light at the same time--or at least I can't perceive the sort of variation as with the GE's. (In bathrooms/closets folks will often flip the switch back off before the bulb lights if it is a GE.)

The GE's are more sensitive to "cold starts." And by cold I don't mean outside. I mean not having been operated in the past hour or longer. This was most noticeable in the flood/globe style enclosures where the GE's came up at low intensity and took as long as two minutes to warm up--stop watch. I didn't just pull this observation out of the air, I used a lux meter to quantify it--it was worse than I thought. (I'll try to hunt my numbers down to make sure the actual value is in there--I think the value I put in was actually too high and was only a placeholder.)

I've been paying ~$1.50/bulb for the n:Visions.

Adding to the data:
The 100W equivalent GE's are about 4" from the edge of the screw base to the end of the bulb. The Commercial Electric 100's are ~3-5/8". I comparison tested these against GE's when I put in new chandeliers. The GE's were slightly too long. The GE's were also annoying because they all turned on at different times.

 

Are those R20's or R30's? I've not yet tried one of them that I was happy with (only tested the GE's and "Bright Effects" so far.) n:Vision does have some new ones, but I haven't felt adventurous enough to test them yet as I have an overabundance of the accursed GE's. I'm considering garage selling the GE's for $1/each this Spring. My primary objection to them is that they are just way too dim for the first two minutes.

EDIT:
Found a review of the new R20 n:Vision--it's a mixed bag. Seems to suffer from the same problem as the GE's, slow to fully illuminate. But the reviewer also complains it is too bright once lit! That would be a problem for some, but for my application it would be a plus as the GE's are also dimmer than I would like. I think it makes sense since the package says 14W (~60W equivalent), and specs say 465 lumens. GE's says 11W and 400 lumens. It's hard to tell, but it looks like the bulb is about 3/8" shorter than the GE's (which are borderline too long for track spots.)

Enclosing the CFL spirals with globes/reflector glass seems to be a problem, period.

 

None of the GE's I've ever seen turn on that quickly unless they've been flipped on for some time before the test. The two in my den take 1 sec ("one-thousand -one") and 1.5 sec respectively to light when cold. The enclosure types are even worse as they come up at very low intensity as well. I've got approximately 40 GE CFL's in four different types (plus a set of dimmables that I tested and returned for refund), none of them behave like that unless they've been on for awhile right before the test. I can recreate your result by leaving them on for a few minutes, then shutting them off, then testing.

But the model number you have for the GE is one I don't have and that could make a difference. I've never had a 40W equivalent GE plain CFL. I do have the 13's (~60W) and 26's (100W). Seems I have few of the 13's left, so they must have suffered a higher failure rate--some probably due to mechanical damage in low ceiling fans.

If one counts the 60's I moved about this weekend in another city, and those I did two years ago for another relative (all that were available locally) I've tested about 50 GE CFL's in at least five homes over 3 states without ever seeing cold start instant-on from the GE's. Those aren't odds I would advise anyone to bet against.

 

Because it looks like junk in a multi-light fixture and is wholly unnecessary. Yes, it is primarily aesthetics. I don't see it as a good reason to forego CFL's (although some do) and it is something to avoid if possible.

The GE's are the worst of the lot in this category. Half a second is short for a GE, I've got a number that take up to 2 seconds to turn on, by which point folks are often flipping the switch on and off trying to figure out why the light doesn't work. :doh: I've not had much to complain about with respect to color temps or reliability. (Although I really could make good use of something midway between the soft white and the bright white color temps if I had my wish.)

Full illumination time is an even bigger problem with the enclosed CFL's (vs. the simple spirals above.) Most take a minute or longer to reach full intensity. I wonder why this is so? Is it something about vapor deposition upon cooling inside the enclosure vs. bare spirals? User reviews complain about this illumination issue extensively. In many cases these just appear to be enclosed CFL spirals, so why can't they behave like them? Why do they on average start up with much of the tube unlit? The enclosure type bulbs also have a really high failure rate from what I can tell in reviews. I've even had some ("Bright Effects") that started near full intensity for the first few days/week before they began to do low intensity starts. This is an area that needs some attention.

The low percentage illumination on start up has factored into my reversion to incandescents in a few ceiling cans. They are in dark areas where I need full light within a seconds. (Other factors are that the heat produced is useful in winter in some places, and the GE dimmer bulbs I tried in another were expensive dismal failures.)