Light bulb ban set to take effect

I find that light bulbs never seem to last long anyway. Never fails, a bulb blows and you can't find a replacement and have to use one from another light source. Then you forget and try to switch the one on that has no bulb in it. So you take another from somewhere else and it goes on and on until you remember to buy some more when you are out.

reply to post by beezzer


I actually knew about this some time back and bought a few cases. I hate those new bulbs...everyone's house will be like walking into a Wal-mart! ('cept mine)

reply to post by FurvusRexCaeli


Sarcasm. Seriously, look it up.

fenson76
reply to post by beezzer

 

Just trying to understand but you are in favor of continuing to produce a light bulb with 10% efficiency?

I think the general consensus as being in favor for the freedom to produce (and buy) said inefficient light bulbs. Sure LEDs are super, WAY better than those CFL things. The technology for LED has more upside longer term than either incandescent or florescent.

I think most people can agree that over time the cost savings are on the newer technology side, and most people are about saving some money. Most people, however, aren't a fan of being told how to live their lives, and what they are and aren't allowed to buy (especially if it was perfectly legal and reasonable in the past). The freedom of choice is a big deal. If new technology is proven more effective, it will sell itself, and there will be no need for mandates.

The cost is still higher than some can/want to afford though. I bought a new house 3 years ago, and it came with the recessed PARS throughout. I'd love to replace them with the LED versions, but they are 2-3x the price of replacement bulbs! Yikes! EACH!

reply to post by JackSparrow17


Ya know, I remember a switch in technology some 40 - 50 years ago. The switch was from vacuum tubes to solid state electronics; not unlike this light bulb thing. Except that the vacuum tube was not "outlawed". Over a short the superior solid state electronics completely replaced the vacuum tube, even that big one that can reproduce images.

The exact same thing would happen here, if it were given the chance.

And then again what a world; some parts are be held back, and others "forced" to progress...

The world isn't being forced to progress. Cottage industries and national companies have been closed down and transferred to third world and China, where they can take advantage of horrendous human rights and animal rights and make unbelievable profits.

We don't have free enterprise or market system but monopolies and the reigns have been handed over to China to get around human rights and environmental protections and decent wages.

I made a thread about the inhumane treatment of animals in China, who was handed the angora rabbit production and makes of the faux fur, and the UK used to have this as a cottage industry with much more humane practices and brushing hair not ripping it out of the rabbits. The faux fur often uses racoon dogs who are skinned alive. These things need to be stopped.

How?

Re-emergence of home cottage industries and businesses, strong local economies, people buying from each other, not China.

Some could be joint efforts, with shares, we have alot of out of work people.

Tossing, overturning archaic psuedo laws that actually prohibit using cleaner technology, in the case of the edison carbon flilament light bulb.

But lights can also run off rechargeable battery packs if needed....Until people get on top of what is happening with governments insanity, that is.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
Instead Of Free Market Prosperity, We Get This...

Governments not even wishing for the return of the free market cottage industries in their own nations.

China is the one predominantly producing the energy saving, toxic mercury lights, and even much of the LED's although they're not toxic, just more expensive, but longer lasting.

We need to do something creative such as start home cottage industries and refuse to buy from the others.

_BoneZ_
There's no reason in this day and age for incandescent light bulbs to exist anymore.

I can think of two reasons in this day and age...
1. America is *allegedly* a nation built on personal freedoms.
2. Some Americans want to use incandescent bulbs and there are clearly manufacturers who want to manufacture them.

It is so silly to ban lightbulbs when LED bulb development is hitting efficiency at several times of CFL's, LED bulb pricing is coming down as well, you can get a 40watt OUTPUT for as little as 3 or 4 bucks and that bulb will last you tens of thousands of hours WITHOUT the mercury that CFL's contain.

I know some cities around where I live where they MANDATE you use CFL's in bathrooms when you remodel or rebuild a house. Just complete idiocy.

Gotta love the nanny state.

reply to post by eLPresidente


I work in the semiconductor industry, and I can definitely verify that LED tech is vastly superior to CFLs. The benefit of LED lighting is that the circuitry does give off decent heat the larger the LED. Stage wash lights, for example give off enough heat that they have to be fan cooled for peak performance. Instead of retrofitting streetlamps with CFLs, The "industrial" LED can generate enough heat in the winter (if properly heat-sinked) to keep the lights free of ice. Also, LEDs aren't "powered" by a gas like a CFL, so the cold has minimal effect on the performance. That and they would cost the taxpayers less in the long run.

reply to post by beezzer


here on the site below... will be Bulbs you can buy, Real incandescent bulbs, perfectly legal.

www.foxnews.com...


www.foxnews.com...

The man who saved the lightbulb


By Jeremy A. Kaplan/
Published December 16, 2013

A modern day Edison has a bright idea: a way to keep the incandescent bulb burning brightly, despite a government law set to go into effect New Year’s Day that effectively outlaws the most commonly used lightbulbs.

Most bulbs, that is. Not those made by lightbulb savior Larry Birnbaum.

“When the government decided to ban incandescent lightbulbs, they left a loophole in the law. An opening,” Birnbaum told FoxNews.com. “What that was was rough service.”


A “rough service” bulb is, in Birnbaum’s words, a bulb that can take a beating, one meant for industrial purposes -- imagine a lightbulb on a subway car, built to survive the jostling and vibrations of the daily commute. But despite their intended use, they work just like normal bulbs: Consumers can buy them and screw them into any ordinary lamp socket.

Newcandescents are available at a retail store in South Hackensack and in a variety of supermarket chains, including King Kullen, Gristedes, Pioneer and more. They’re also online: Bright Lights Inc., a retailer that sells Newcandescent bulbs, lists a two pack for $2.88, or $1.44 apiece, CEO Paul Veen told FoxNews.com. His company caters to the south, distributing bulbs across Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and more.

industrial strength bulbs made to new gov specs and incandescent!

freestone

reply to post by beezzer


We had this in the UK a few years ago, it was enforced by, of course, the EU.

eLPresidente
It is so silly to ban lightbulbs when LED bulb development is hitting efficiency at several times of CFL's, LED bulb pricing is coming down as well, you can get a 40watt OUTPUT for as little as 3 or 4 bucks and that bulb will last you tens of thousands of hours WITHOUT the mercury that CFL's contain.

I know some cities around where I live where they MANDATE you use CFL's in bathrooms when you remodel or rebuild a house. Just complete idiocy.

Gotta love the nanny state.

I'm sorry, I forgot to state the actual point of my post for those that do not understand capitalism.

Free markets solve problems, the free market works so well that it even creates solutions to barriers and roadblocks put up by government incompetence. Imagine if government did not get involved.

Why ban incandescent lightbulbs when the market is full of solutions? Hell, why force people to install INFERIOR products when people will naturally gravitate towards products that give them the best bang for their buck?

I've personally used CFL's, back when they were the standard alternative solution to incandescent and I did not know about the mercury poisoning, most CFL's do not last as long as marketed.

reply to post by JackSparrow17


You need to look at long term cost including the energy consumption, not just the up-front per unit price of a quality LED replacement for a filament lamp. In my earlier example a LED lamp works out at about 80% or more overall saving per annum for lighting and, in fact, you'd still be ahead even if you had to replace all the LEDs every year and that's what will sell them above all other factors. Even if the LEDs were $50 each you'd still be better off and mass production has them now at a tiny fraction of that.

I do pity those who fell for the 'modern' dichroic downlight craze (the 12V 50W ones in particular) because they effectively as much as tripled their lighting energy consumption and now have no cheap or simple solution to get the costs down again. Sure you can get 12V LED lamps that plug straight into the recessed sockets and only take 3 or 4 watts but the 50W SMPS power supplies will not start up without near full 50W load on them which I believe is a designed-in safety factor.

Pilgrum
You need to look at long term cost including the energy consumption, not just the up-front per unit price of a quality LED replacement for a filament lamp. In my earlier example a LED lamp works out at about 80% or more overall saving per annum for lighting and, in fact, you'd still be ahead even if you had to replace all the LEDs every year and that's what will sell them above all other factors. Even if the LEDs were $50 each you'd still be better off and mass production has them now at a tiny fraction of that.

I have PAR30 (I think, I'll need to revisit that) fixtures throughout the house. There are about 12 sockets. The cheapest standard bulb is $8.97, for a total cost of $107.64 before tax. Now, they make 2 replacement options in LED: bulb or full housing. The full housing option is surprisingly cheaper, so let's use that. At $35 (for a decent brand) that comes up to $420. And that's just a middle of the road brand, others are $59... Big difference. So define "tiny fraction" of $50. If I had the extra cash, I would replace every one. But I don't.

Pilgrum
I do pity those who fell for the 'modern' dichroic downlight craze (the 12V 50W ones in particular) because they effectively as much as tripled their lighting energy consumption and now have no cheap or simple solution to get the costs down again. Sure you can get 12V LED lamps that plug straight into the recessed sockets and only take 3 or 4 watts but the 50W SMPS power supplies will not start up without near full 50W load on them which I believe is a designed-in safety factor.

Feel pity for me all you want; I didn't design the home, and it was a great price. My lights aren't dichroic, either. Just standard recessed down-lighting. ( I had to look up the term dichroic.) Also, my home is "energy star" rated, and designed to handle (supposedly) whatever style replacement bulb safely. There was something I about the newer homes built in the last few years that was supposed to accommodate different options safely. I was trying to find that but meh.

What it comes down to, and what I trying to get across before, is that most average folk don't have the $400+ lying around for this sort of thing. In the late nineties people would have been able to do this sort of thing on a whim, but times are kinda tough right now. That and I chose to spend that amount to play football this year so...

reply to post by JackSparrow17


Sorry to hear you've acquired this problem through no fault of your own.

I do know many who installed such lighting when it was the 'in' thing to do (against my advice at the time too) - a fashion fad would be the best way to describe it and now they have no easy way out. I'd be correcting the problem by replacing the lampholders and the lamps with common standard types because I'm licensed to do such work but not everyone is in that situation. I didn't fall for the fad in the first place being something of an anti-fashion type.

The store shelves are still well stocked here with incandescent lamps for these fittings so perhaps it's a sign that the problem is a recognized one.

The life expectancy of LEDs is excellent but they tend to be only talking about the actual LED itself which can last 100000 hours or more. The electronics in the lamp base are not so long-lived though and might only last less than 20000 hours, the lifetime being inversely proportional to operating temperature so even LEDs (in recessed or enclosed fittings) may very well not last as long as the label claims. Manufacturers are being forced to make honest claims these days and the Philips LEDs I have here quote a lifetime of 'up to' 15000 hours provided they're not used in enclosed fixtures IE they need good ventilation or they'll suffer an early demise.

I don't agree with the way they did this at all but the CFLs aren't that bad (aside from the mercury issue). I don't like having to take them to a recycling station though. Really. Who wants to make a special trip to throw away your used light bulbs? Hopefully the LED bulbs will get a lot cheaper. I honestly think a lot of idiots are probably throwing CFLs in the trash because they simply don't care. A truly horrible thought.

Pilgrum


The life expectancy of LEDs is excellent but they tend to be only talking about the actual LED itself which can last 100000 hours or more. The electronics in the lamp base are not so long-lived though and might only last less than 20000 hours, the lifetime being inversely proportional to operating temperature so even LEDs (in recessed or enclosed fittings) may very well not last as long as the label claims. Manufacturers are being forced to make honest claims these days and the Philips LEDs I have here quote a lifetime of 'up to' 15000 hours provided they're not used in enclosed fixtures IE they need good ventilation or they'll suffer an early demise.

I had a feeling heat would be a problem for LEDs as well. I have one floor lamp that's open at the top. CFLs last ages in that lamp. Most of the fixtures in my house are those cheapo enclosed fixtures with a glass dome. CFLs last a while in those depending on how often they're turned on and off but they definitely don't like the added heat. They expire much sooner, especially when you combine the added heat with frequent on and off.

I suspect the LEDs use similar electronic "ballasts" (or whatever they're called). So heat and frequent on and off will probably kill them quick too. As I understand it, that's the part that usually fails in a CFL.

On the other hand, I also have a feeling that the biggest part of the problem is cheap electrical components. Things like capacitors. They're probably using the cheapest ones they can get away with using. My guess is they need to work on making such components stand up to heat better. When you think about it, most products they use these components in are pretty well ventilated so they never really needed to improve them that much.

I will be going out this week to the hardware and discount stores and stocking up. I don't like the fluorescents and LED lights. Most of my lamps have the 3 way bulbs and I need to stock up.