Top Gun wrote:tunnelcat wrote:Thirdly, they take forever to warm up and produce their full light output.
The rest of your points aside, this one is flat-out false, at least in my experience. Both our outside lights and the few CFLs at my grandparents' house come on almost instantly; at the highest, there's maybe a half-second delay, which is pretty much inconsequential. I also find the statement about flipping them off and on too frequently to be very suspect; if there is an issue, I'd imagine it would be if you were working the light switch like a rave party, not using it in normal operation.
Not the ones I have. They take about a thirty seconds to reach a reasonable light output, then take about 5 minutes to reach full output, depending on room temp. I know you can buy ones that claim they take a shorter amount of time to become fully bright, but so far, every one I've bought takes a little time to reach full brightness. Where the problem really shows up is in a colder room, like a garage in winter, or a basement. They take quite a long time to get to full brightness in that case. They definitely don't like to operate in the cold, just like florescent lights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp
Wiki wrote:Starting time
Incandescents reach full brightness a fraction of a second after being switched on, although some models take several seconds to reach their rated illuminance. As of 2009, CFLs turn on within a second, but many still take time to warm up to full brightness.[39] The light color may be slightly different immediately after being turned on.[40] Some CFLs are marketed as "instant on" and have no noticeable warm-up period,[41] but others can take up to a minute to reach full brightness,[42] or longer in very cold temperatures. Some that use a mercury amalgam can take up to three minutes to reach full output.[41] This and the shorter life of CFLs when turned on and off for short periods may make CFLs less suitable for applications such as motion-activated lighting.
Top Gun wrote:tunnelcat wrote:I'll gladly get rid of my incandescent bulbs if they get a better alternative. Right now, LED's are too expensive and have heat and longevity issues when run at the higher power required to put out useful amounts of light. I've noticed that the city of Corvallis installed all sorts of LED traffic lights. Well, just about all the green lights have burned out rows of LED's, so the city didn't get much bang for our buck.
There shouldn't be
any heat issues with LEDs...their main selling point is that they run extremely efficiently. An array of LEDs takes very little power to put out some very intense light. The price is admittedly high right now, but that'll definitely come down substantially over time. Also, traffic lights have been using LED arrays for a while now; I don't know what was up with your city's particular batch of them, but it's hardly representative.
Yeah, I've got some lower output LED bulbs that don't get hot, but the light output is marginal at best. I tried some under cabinet LED strips and they only got warm, not objectionably hot, but the light output was dismal for reading. If you want a LOT of light from one source, the components to drive all that power DO get HOT. They even have cooling fins to dissipate heat, at least with the big reflector LED Phillips bulbs I've seen at Home Depot. Go to your local store display of operating high output LED bulbs and you'll see they are indeed hot.
As for my city's traffic lights, they must have gotten a really bad batch of
green ones, because only that color has the failing arrays.
I don't have anything against LED's. When they get the price down, are more available in more shapes and have the light output to match incandescent bulbs, I'll switch instantly. I was really hoping for OLED technology to get going too.