OT Low Energy Light Bulb

I use LED GU10 bulbs and I'm very pleased with them so far. I don't
know how long they last yet though.

The standard quoted life for LEDs is 100,000 hours, although the output does
drop off prior to that, and overdriving an LED shortens its life, as you'd
expect.

SteveT

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:18:50 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Dickie mint wrote:
What's going to happen to those who use halogens for home
lighting?


Replace with LED equivalents?

I was suprised to find a wide range of LED lamps!

And all rubbish for home use. If you like tungsten but dislike the
light
from CFLs you'll positively hate LEDs. And I'm not sure this will ever
be
sorted.

I use LED GU10 bulbs and I'm very pleased with them so far. I don't
know how long they last yet though.

YMMV of course.

M.



Only thing is you can't use (most of) them on dimmers - don't know why -
and they aren't really white or anything like a tungsten bulb 'white'.

Why is it that the sheds insist on selling only 50W GU10's in bulk
packages at good prices but insist on selling 35W or 20W in pairs at
grossly inflated prices?


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:30:42 -0000, "Chas Gill"
wrote:


"Roderick Stewart" wrote in message
. ..
In article , Chas Gill wrote:
I stand to be corrected, but I think your Toyota dealer was talking out
of
his proverbial. I have a 27 month old Prius and - unless the spec. has
changed for more recent models - the HEAT is produced by the engine
(although he COOL is produced by an electric compressor). The engine
will,
in fact, run on a cold day just to keep the car interior warm (when it's
not
running for other reasons - to keep the car in motion). However, unlike a
conventional car, once the cabin IS warm the engine switches off (a bit
like
a domestic heating system).

Well, I guess one of us got it wrong. It's quite possible I didn't recall
this
detail correctly because there were a lot of things to ask about and I
wasn't
taking notes. The important thing is the petrol engine doesn't run when
it's
not required to do something, which must be a huge advantage.

It's certainly possible to produce a car heater that is independent of the
engine. Volkswagen made one that burnt petrol to produce heat directly
rather
than through the engine, but if you were to use electricity it would have
to be
generated by the engine, which runs on petrol, so whatever method you use,
the
heat all comes from the petrol anyway. Toyota must have decided it was
simplest
to use traditional methods, and it would hardly be necessary to worry
about
extra wear and tear on the engine because it's only running part-time
compared
with a normal car.

Rod.

Yep - the point being that, under normal usage, the engine has to run anyway
some of the time so you might as well use the heat generated to keep the
passengers warm rather than chuck it away. And this "running part time"
business can feel really weird until you get used to it. It took me at
least a month to convince myself that the car hadn't stalled at traffic
lights, etc., which had me reaching for the non-existent key to restart it.
And the look on pedestrian's faces when it creeps about in complete silence
in car parks has to be seen to be believed. It's amazing just how much we
depend on our ears to tell us a car is about!

Nice car - you should get one... :-)

Cheers

Chas

I wanted one, but even used they are still out of my price range. I
might seriously consider one when my Peugeot needs replacing in about
5 years. The only thing I was worried about with the Prius is
replacing the batteries when the're worn out. I do 40,000 miles a
year which would speed up the wear & tear a bit.

Marky P.


Marky P.

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:27:54 -0000, "Max Demian"
wrote:

"Marky P" wrote in message
.. .

My brother pulls his own teeth out if they hurt. He won't go to the
dentist.

What does he do, tie them to a doorknob?

No. Bit of kitchen roll and his finger & thumb. A quick wiggle and
it's out.

Marky P.

On 17/03/2008 19:44, SteveT wrote:

Ah, thank you! This is a recent development.

fairly ... I have couple of the ones with internal dimmer, hnd to
operate from a pull-cord, they can be a little noisy (buzzing) on full
brightness.

Normal CFLs definitely
aren't dimmable by normal dimmers, which I'm sure we can agree on.

Certainly, surprisingly I've never tried it to just see how much they
hate it!

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:47:08 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote:

Some may be as you described, others need no dimmer they operate from a
normal switch, still others use an existing external dimmer.

http://www.varilight.co.uk/Pages/page%20digiflux.htm

Despite my scepticism about the overall 'green-ness' of CFLs, I have
fitted a lot around the house. However, at the usual emporiums, I've
looked at the labelling of many CFLs, but never seen any indication
of their ability to be dimmed. How many people are actually using them
with dimmers, not knowing that they shouldn't? I must try it myself.

They just don't work properly in various different ways, won't dim,
make noises, go out at half brightness, go out and keep on
unsuccessively trying to re-ignite USW, USW, USW.

If you want dimmable CFLs you need to go to a specialist lighting shop
or a specialist electrical / electronics supplier. That's not the one
where you are tripping over model helicopters, mini remote control
dodgem cars and disco / bubble generators all over the floor.

DG

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 02:26:22 +0000, John Rumm
wrote:

Roderick Stewart wrote:

I totally agree with everything you've said so far. The light is only
one or two lines in the spectrum, instead of broad band, so no wonder
colours in the room look weird.

How does it look white then? Which "one or two lines" in the spectrum
would do that?

In much the same was as a CRT TV can only produce three primary colours
and yet you perceive a much wider colour gamut including "white". You
just need to provide illumination in the right places in the band to
give an impression of white.

You might have noticed that three dimensions gives a much improved
perception (of space) than two.


For example, daylight spectra:

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.c...s/Daylight.gif

a typical tungsten bulb's:

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.c...cadescent2.gif

(not too much difference - a bit attenuated at the blue end)

And a typical compact fluorescent lamp:

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.c...ifs/CFL27K.gif


Loads of other examples he

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.c....html#1halidep

When I posted those URL's Ioannis followed up and detached my
testicles by the chewing method* for plagiarising his spectra.
Although I have to say the URLs looked like web pages to me (still do)
and it wasn't I that divorced them from the context he originally
posted them in.

I Wonder who it was ?

*Without the benefit of modern aneasthesia.

DG

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:32:06 +0000, Marky P
wrote:



There's a dentist here in St. Neots taking on NHS patients. I never
changed dentists when I moved here from Bedford (12 miles away) but
perhaps I should make the move whilst it's still possible.


Better be quick otherwise you might find there will be a queue of
Tykes spodding on laptops on uk.tech.digital-tv as far as the eye can
see.

DG

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:32:06 +0000, Marky P
wrote:

On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:10:18 -0000, "Max Demian"
wrote:

"Marky P" wrote in message
. ..

A friend of mine told me to get all my fillings changed for white ones
as the silver ones are dangerous and I will die :-(

The process of removing the amalgam ones releases a lot of mercury all at
once, rather than an insignificant leaching over time.

I have one filling that's always tasted slightly metallic. Dunno why.


That's usually a "dissimilar metals" thing. Maybe it's got a metal pin
or screw inside it holding it in.

DG

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:08:59 +0000, Wilf
wrote:


I agree. My experience shows me that, for an equivalent light output,
the CFL power needs to be about 1/4 of the original standard bulb, not
1/5. I replaced fittings with three 60W clear candle bulbs for 12W CFLs
and they were significantly less bright. I upgraded to three 15W CFLs
and I find these are about equivalent to (or perhaps even just a little
brighter) than the original candle bulbs.

Our lounge is 23 feet long with a pendant fitting at each end and only
one window at the north end. A common enough set up in the '70s when
our eyes were better than they are now.

A great many light fittings still take a single lamp, but you'd be
actually struggling to get enough light with 2x CFLs.

What happens this time next year when the light output is down 48% ?

DG