Incandescent phase out - dimmable CFLs?

[digiblur]

I agree, but I tend to like "daylight" temperature CFLs. The bright ones kinda give me a headache, and make me depressed. Kinda like sitting in some cubicle

For those of us without DISH, UCSB has posted streaming video of the entire conference here: Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency | Institute for Energy Efficiency

I intend to watch over the next week or so.

I know what you are talking about... last time I was at Home Depot I noticed they had three "flavors" of one brand of bulb. I bought the highest of the color range, feels like I'm in a mental institution in a straight jacket strapped to my bed. Swapped them out for the middle color real quick.

 

[bhelms]

...Once again, that Dish Remote feature comes in Real Handy.

I'd love to try it out! All I need is HS internet at home...time to enter the 20th century, I guess (...let alone the 21st...!) Lack of same also precludes me from streaming anything.

I saw the show was on Tue. evening while watching via my 211 w/EHD and had to find a later time to record it since I was watching something else on the single sat. tuner. Too lazy to walk to the other room and set-up my 622! So I didn't end up watching it until last evening. DVRs rock...at any level of deployment!

I'll be interested in your and jayn_j's comments...

 

[bhelms]

I hate the "warm" CFLs. Makes the room look like an old house where the owners have been smoking 4 packs a day. Give me the bright white CFLs anyday. That's the one thing I loved about moving away from incandescent, was that dingy looking brown light.

I want a mix. For much of my "background" lighting I perfer lower, warmer light. But for task lighting I want the most intense possible and I find the cooler temps. work best. That said, I generally hate the harshness/glare of office fluorescents and will opt for localized task lighting whenever possible. (Not much chance in my current, Dilbertesque "cube from hell" environment!) It will be interesting to see how LEDs evolve. Those like yourself who prefer the cooler temps. will be early adopters. Sounds like the warmer alternatives have a way to go yet.

The program also touched on dimmability, which of course is a cinch for LED alternatives. (How did I not mention that in my post above as a major advantage of LEDs vs. CFLs?) Since there are typically many LEDs in a fixture, discrete step dimming is simply achieved by turning-on fewer of the lamps. (I have a $10 LED flashlight that does that!) For continuous variability, pulsing is an option. One presentation mentioned that we will see LED commercial and traffic light variants with prox./motion sensing. Imagine parking garage lighting that drops to a very low level until someone enters the area. Also possible for street lighting to substantially reduce energy consumption and "light pollution". I can't see why that wouldn't also be practical in the home - bulbs that provide night-light levels until someone enters the area. I'd use several of those!

 

[jayn_j]

The program also touched on dimmability, which of course is a cinch for LED alternatives. (How did I not mention that in my post above as a major advantage of LEDs vs. CFLs?) Since there are typically many LEDs in a fixture, discrete step dimming is simply achieved by turning-on fewer of the lamps. (I have a $10 LED flashlight that does that!) For continuous variability, pulsing is an option. One presentation mentioned that we will see LED commercial and traffic light variants with prox./motion sensing. Imagine parking garage lighting that drops to a very low level until someone enters the area. Also possible for street lighting to substantially reduce energy consumption and "light pollution". I can't see why that wouldn't also be practical in the home - bulbs that provide night-light levels until someone enters the area. I'd use several of those!

Well, your flashlight is probably doing the dimming mechanically. I took apart one that my kids broke and found that the switch was actually a ratchet that actuated a cam that closed individual contacts. That's not practical for household dimming.

Still, it isn't rocket science. If I were designing this, I would rectify and filter the incoming AC to get a stable DC level. I would feed that into a 5 bit ADC (analog to digital converter). I would connect 16 LEDs to the MSB of the ADC output, 8 to the next and down to 1 in the LSB. That would give 32 distinct lighting levels. Of course, it isn't quite that simple, as you would need to scale down the input so you could provide a stable regulated reference, and you would need to feed the ADC output into driver circuitry to handle the current. This will become practical when someone bothers to do an integration of the circuit as building it out of discrete components would cost too much.

The traffic lights exist now. Look up and pay attention. About 50% of the traffic lights in my area have been replaced.

 

[bhelms]

Of course the flashlight is mechanical, akin to a 3-way lamp fixture. But where 3-way CFLs are less than fully effective the LEDs should "shine" over a wide light range. You present one means of multi-step control that could work with a typical, existing wall switch/dimmer feeding a ceiling light in a 120 vac circuit. Life-cycle cost would be reasonable with economies of scale. A cheaper alternative might be to utilize LEDs with different threshold voltages (I sensed those are in development, tho' that was not explicitly stated) then voltage convert/filter/regulate at the lamp to suit. So the ~0-120vac input from the dimmer would translate to, say 3-10vdc in the bulb, and additional "banks" would turn on as their individual thresholds are reached.

One of the points the program made is that we're revisiting a situation Edison faced over 100 years ago when electric lamps were made to look like the gas versions they replaced. Our current "infrastructure" is optimized for the incandescent world. Certainly LED variants can be made as screw-in replacements, but that is far from optimal. Emerging applications will feature lower voltage operation and optimized fixturing to maximize efficiency and reduce cost. But that is certainly not drop-in equivalent to what we have today.

Sorry I wasn't more clear on this part: I've seen drop-in replacement LED traffic lights in use around here for about 3 years, now increasingly alongside LED pedestrian controls. I suppose most areas are making the change. The energy savings is only 1 advantage; less frequent lamp replacements is expected to be an equal cost-down motivation. In the mid-term we'll convert all this to low voltage systems with local energy storage and solar recharging to take the whole system off the grid. The prox. system mentioned in the program could also be used to reduce or turn-off the lights altogether when traffic is non-existent, like for late nights in light traffic areas (not specifically described in the presentation but a natural extension of what they discussed).

But it was smart LED street lighting that was specifically mentioned in the presentation that I was referring to, apparently already in trial in Japan.

To be sure we're still very early in the deployment curve. As demand increases and the technology expands to allow wider applicability and lower-cost manufacturing LEDs will overtake fluorescent technologies that appear to already be at their peak. (Variants of CFLs have already been around for 30 years!) Demand for both types will increase rapidly as incandescents are withdrawn but the superiority of LED technology will surplant CFLs in most applications very soon...!

 

[jayn_j]

But it was smart LED street lighting that was specifically mentioned in the presentation that I was referring to, apparently already in trial in Japan.

That one surprises me a bit. They need a lot of watts to do street lighting, and the watts/sq in isn't there yet. In addition, street lighting isn't competing with incandescent or even CFL. These days it is either mercury vapor, or the more efficient sodium discharge. The sodium lamps put out a lot of lumens per watt, although they are high voltage and do require some pretty sophisticated circuitry.

To be sure we're still very early in the deployment curve. As demand increases and the technology expands to allow wider applicability and lower-cost manufacturing LEDs will overtake fluorescent technologies that appear to already be at their peak. (Variants of CFLs have already been around for 30 years!) Demand for both types will increase rapidly as incandescents are withdrawn but the superiority of LED technology will surplant CFLs in most applications very soon...!

I wonder if it will be the efficiencies that will cause the change or the realization that there is a hazardous waste problem (mercury) with CFLs. Unfortunately, there is also a less publicized waste problem with LEDs as well, in that if the case is cracked, there can be arsenic leeching from the LED.

 

[bhelms]

To be sure use of LEDs in street lighting is not yet optimal, but with the output of LPS at around 200 lm/watt at best (160 w/ HPS, much lower with Hg-vapor), they're getting close. Apparently one LED advantage in the street light application would be a more narrowly-focused beam and reduced "light pollution", as I mentioned. The ability to vary the output vs. demand is another. w/in2 is another matter, not sure how they'll solve that one unless the higher efficiency closes the gap substantially. Narrow focus is part of the answer.

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The best CFLs are only around 72 lm/w, so efficiency is certainly a major driver. One important point in the presentation is that we need to learn to measure efficiencies in a practical application. Both technologies demonstrate greatly reduced efficiencies in many typical fixtures designed for incandescents. The presentation also discussed a newer means of measuring the color renditions, but I already forgot those details...!

I wasn't aware of the arsenic issue; it was not mentioned in the presentation. Is the arsenic a free agent once released as an LED is fractured or exposed to the elements in a landfill? I remember an environmental concern we ran into some years back with ceramic capacitors many of which contain barium, one of the 8 "bad" metals on the EPA's list. But in fact that barium is bound in a titanate that will not leach under the EPA's testing protocols. (Now the silver sometimes used in electroding is another matter!)

 

[jayn_j]

I went and researched a bit further and found that there are arsenic free alternative technologies available, and these are being used (aluminum - iridium - phosphorus)

I could not find any articles on environmental hazards from disposal of LEDs. Sorry, I goofed here.

 

[bhelms]

That chemistry was mentioned along with several others. I was surprised they mentioned YAG. (I know YAG as one solid-state laser technology, but I thought all the output was in the IR range, used for things like resistor trimming.) Still a lot of research going on there! Interesting that standard wafer fab techniques can produce most of the structures including "flip chips" that are emerging (can't remember why) so a good bit of manufacturing capacity is apparently already in place or is relatively simple to develop...

 

[navychop]

I saw the show was on Tue. evening while watching via my 211 w/EHD and had to find a later time to record it since I was watching something else on the single sat. tuner. Too lazy to walk to the other room and set-up my 622! So I didn't end up watching it until last evening. DVRs rock...at any level of deployment!

I'll be interested in your and jayn_j's comments...

I wish it was in HD- that would have made the slides easier to read. Complain, complain.

"An area of opportunity for development." - Loved it! Much better than "room for improvement" or "not quite there yet" or "this part really doesn't work yet." Surprised to hear him say something about being disappointed in green (not blue). And I'll bet the questions could have been the best part. The last guy, in the entertainment industry, surprised me with how useful and cost effective those things are today.

I loved it. And my wife listened quietly until the end, when I said how much I enjoyed that presentation. Then she said "it was a bit too technical for me." I thought they dumbed it down quite a bit. At least, it was at a low enough level that I could follow it. Anyway, the future looks bright, and in the near term. Still gonna use up my CFLs, though. And I doubt we'll ever see LED lights at $1 @. I wonder what the effect of dust buildup over time will be on those heat sinks.

Anyone know enough about caps to know if they can increase that 3,000 hours to 30,000 or more? I'd really love to install LED countertop lighting when we redo our kitchen.

Again, thank you for tipping me off about the program.

 

[spacebug42]

I had tried using a CFL on a dimmer circuit and it didn't dim very much. The CFL I used was one of those that are not supposed to be used on a dimmer switch. I will buy a twin pack of dimmable CFLs to try on the dimmer circuit. I did make an interesting discovery though. When I put the CFL on the full on-off switch, the CFL bulb flashed on and off every second while the switch was in the off position. Funny that you mentioned about the lighted switch because I am using lighted switches to make it easier to find in the dark. When I put the CFL on the dimmer circuit, the CFL did not flash when in the off position. The dimmer switch is also lighted. I'm very curious to know what's going on here. Is there some sort of resistance in the dimmer switch that counteracts the flashing problem? By the way, I am using 3-way switches to turn on the two sets of recessed "pot" lights. I have two seperate switches and dimmers (1 3-way dimmer and 1 3-way switch for each) to light up all of my living room. The reason for having a seperate set of lights is to be able to dim the lights when watching on the projection screen, but still provide enough "courtesy" light for a person to see where they are walking.

 

[jayn_j]

Anyone know enough about caps to know if they can increase that 3,000 hours to 30,000 or more? I'd really love to install LED countertop lighting when we redo our kitchen.

Of course they can, When I worked for Agilent, we used to spec our instruments for a service life of 10-20 years. Mil-spec is similar. All components on the commercial aircraft I just finished working on speced a service life of 8000 flights or 12,000 hours MTBF (might be somewhat off - working from memory). The question really is; Can they get a capacitor that has a service life in excess of 3000 hours and still be able to sell it for less than a nickel?

 

[bhelms]

jayn_j hit the issue between the eyes. It's like we say in the motorcycle world: Fast, Cheap, Reliable - pick 2. (You can't have all 3.)

But as I mentioned in the first post on this topic, I think the 3K hr. limit is understated. To be sure there have been plenty of misapplications of 'lytics in recent years, confounded by cheap knock-offs (counterfeits) that flooded the market. This was prolific in PCs for a couple of years. (Didn't we already have this conversation elsewhere, or maybe I'm remembering another forum ??) My own company is still mitigating an OEM power supply recall in which a certain AL 'lytic is failing after about 2 years in service (>16K hrs. in a 24/7/365 application). But I think we're past that now ??

I spent 20+ years in the ceramic cap. manufacturing world and learned quite a few things about competing technologies. For SMPS, which is what we have in both LED and CFL drivers, the AL 'lytics are still the caps of choice primarily due to low cost. This expanding market may continue to force alternate technologies or economies of scale that will either make AL 'lytics more reliable, or push other varieties like tantalums or possibly even ceramics in as replacements. The issue in SMPS is maintaining a relatively low, but finite and stable Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) value. In cheap AL 'lytics ESR degrades (increases) over time to the point where the cap and possibly the unit it's in literaly burns-up. Local overload protection usually kicks-in to prevent a catastrophe but at that point the unit is worthless.

I haven't taken any LED units apart yet to see what makes them tick. I took a couple of CFL bases apart and in each case the semiconductors were the problem, not the caps. Heat is a killer of all components...

 

[navychop]

Just thought I'd "share the joy."

In posts 28 & 30, I posted that I'd try buying a certain dimmer switch that promised to work with any dimmable CFL. I did. Here's the email I just rec'd:

Hello,

We have discontinued the CFL wall dimmer switch as a part of our
offering due to proper use concerns. Your credit card was never
charged and we need to cancel the order. I apologize for this
inconvenience. We may offer it again when we are confident of it's
proper use with CFL's.

They took their sweet time getting back to me. I was about to contact them. Kinda gotta wonder what the problem was. And they have, in fact, removed the product from their web site.

Well, I'll use my current "dimmable" CFLs on the old fashioned dimmer switch until they burn out. Maybe by then there will be dimmable LEDs. Looks like there just really isn't going to be a successful dimmable CFL, that puppy will be the mini-disc of the lighting world.

<sigh>

 

[long_time_DNC]

I just hoard incandescent bulbs of several wattages...

 

[dfergie]

I just hoard incandescent bulbs of several wattages...

I need to do that even though I have swapped to cfl's ...

 

[radio]

Even though its an old thread revived....

I never had issues running "dimmable CFL's" on the X10 dimmer systems! However, I DO have issues with these cheap CFL's of today. When they burn out, they literally BURN. One in my office building, a 13 watt standard base unit started blinking this week, and literally within a few minutes, it smelled like burnt wiring and was very hot when it failed. Not sure how far it would have gone if we weren't in the building.

SO glad the government wants to regulate this. I doubt we'll see it actually come to pass....(the mandating of no more standard bulbs) It's kind of like the toilet we just replaced. It was an original 1953 FIVE OR MORE gallon flusher. Only replaced for wanting a taller one for staff. Why in the hell do we need to have our toilet gallons regulated????

I'm thinking black market incandescent bulbs and 5 gallon toilets is the "business of the future!" (and darn it, I'm willing to do it if there's money in it!)

 

[Tyralak]

I'm thinking black market incandescent bulbs and 5 gallon toilets is the "business of the future!" (and darn it, I'm willing to do it if there's money in it!)

Huh huh. You said "business" huh huh.

 

[navychop]

....... When they burn out, they literally BURN. One in my office building, a 13 watt standard base unit started blinking this week, and literally within a few minutes, it smelled like burnt wiring and was very hot when it failed. Not sure how far it would have gone if we weren't in the building.....

I've had a similar experience. I think I'll coast on the CFLs I've got, while LEDs come down in price. Maybe make it to OLED lighting.

.......SO glad the government wants to regulate this. I doubt we'll see it actually come to pass....(the mandating of no more standard bulbs) ......

It already has. 100W are now no longer allowed. Shelf stock only, no new build. Unless you can find a "rough service" 100W.

BTW, a few years ago, upon returning from Canada from RVing, Customs inspected our camper trailer, to make sure we weren't bringing back any illegal Canadian toilets.

Some low flush toilets work fine, so long as you don't buy the cheap ones under $100. But I know one thing from the new building put up by the company where I work. Pressure toilets DO NOT WORK! They will leak and good luck finding a plumber that can and will fix them. We'll eventually replace them with normal gravity flow types.

 

[dfergie]

I'm a plumbers son and resisted the low flush, but within the last year replaced both in my house with low flush and no problems (bought at Sutherlands normal price slightly over $200)