Electrical help please.

Uncle Timbo

Uncle Timbo

Joined
Nov 23, 2005
Messages
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If you have a light fixture rated for 60 watts and you put a 60 watt CFL that uses the electric of a 18 watt bulb, can you put a higher watt CFL...like a 75 watt in that same fixture?
 
Yes. The 18 watt rating is the electricity it uses. The 60 watt figure on the packaging is just saying it gives off as much light as a 60 watt incandescent bulb.
 
Just don't use a CFL on a dimmer circuit.

By the way these CFL's make great Xmas gifts for the grandparents or parents that have everything else. Additionally they won't have to change out the bulbs, or get you to, every 6 months or so.
 
The rating in a fixture designed for standard bulbs is based on heat to prevent fire. CFLs give off only a small fraction of the heat of a standard bulb, so it is fine to substitute a higher "equivlenlant rated" CFL.

CFLs should not be dimmed.

Also CFLs will not work right on circuits that have some types of dimmers, timers, motion sensors, and similar things.
 
Gollnick said:
The rating in a fixture designed for standard bulbs is based on heat to prevent fire. CFLs give off only a small fraction of the heat of a standard bulb, so it is fine to substitute a higher "equivlenlant rated" CFL.

CFLs should not be dimmed.

Also CFLs will not work right on circuits that have some types of dimmers, timers, motion sensors, and similar things.
Click to expand...


CFL's will work fine in timers and motion lights. Although to get full effect in a motion light, the time should be set to a longer amount, like 5-7 minutes. Timers have no effect on cfls. It's just like turning on a light switch.
 
Electrical Engineering is one of Gollnick's superpowers, and though I learned a bit of 'most everything in SuperDuperWhuper School I'm not sure just what he's driving at. Maybe some of those circuits don't give enough starting current to start a CFL?
 
I'm an electrician, and I've installed plenty of CFL's on timers and motion lights. Never a problem.

But to be fair, he did say some kinds of timers and motion sensors. Although I've never run into one of them not working in the field.
 
Just keep in mind that CFLs don't start off at full brightness, and I've read that their life is significantly reduced if they are turned on repeatedly for short intervals, as opposed to being turned on and left on.

I have the Phillips Marathon bulbs... seem to give a warmish light similar to an incandescent bulb.
 
I've also found that a CFL wasn't a good choice for the lamp on the night stand where my C. Crane radio also sits. It seems to create a lot of RF interference that incandescent bulbs do not.
 
Some types of timers and motion sensors and such send a "trickle current" through the circuit constantly even when "off." This is how they power themselves to keep time or watch for motion etc. An ordinary lightbulb will pass this current through its filiment with no problem and such a small current will cause no light. But, CFLs won't pass the "trickle current."

I have a timer on my outside lights. It wouldn't work when I changed all the light bulbs to CFLs. So, I changed one bulb back to an ordinary bulb and now everything works fine.

Wind-up mechanical timers a fine.

Electrical times and motion sensors and such which connect only into the hot side of the circuit will be the problems. If your timer or sensor itself also connects to the neutral leg, then it should work. The problem is that for many years, the neutral leg was often not physically run through the switch box. If your house is wired this way, then you have to use timers and sensors which use the trickle current technique. Because they wanted their products to just work for every customer, manufactures designed their products with the trickle current technique.

Because of CFLs, more timers and motion sensors and such are now being offered that brag of being compatible with CFLs.


Radio interference from CFLs can also be an issue. A friend of mine told of how his son's garage door opener suddenly stopped working. It would work fine with the wall button and would sometimes work if either transmitter was brought very close. The batteries in the transmitters were replaced with no improvement. The culprit turned out to be the replacement of a nearby light with a CFL which was emitting radio noise that was interferring with the garage door opener's receiver.
 
Many thanks to everyone. I now have some 75 watt CFLs that put out more light than the regular 60 watts. The light is also whiter! This is the forum of knowledge!
 
I put a 150 Watt fluorescent light in a 60 Watt night stand fixture. No fires or excessive heat so far after 2 months. :)

A dull orangish 60 Watt CFL just wasn't working for me. Now I can read and discern colors in my bedroom with only that 150 Watt light on.

The Phillips Marathon bulbs are excellant choices IMHO. Their pure white color and warmth work very well for reading and color accuracy. Many CFL bulbs will distort colors because their temperature are wrong so, keep that in mind if you are shopping for cheap unknown CFL bulbs made in China. An extra dollar or two for a top quality bulb may be worth it to you.
 
I put 60W CFLs in two lamps that had three way switches for 60W, 100W, 150W incandescents. The CFL bulbs only work on the middle setting of the switch. Why is that? Never had a problem, but my dad always said that my mind wonders.:)









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Wirebender said:
I put 60W CFLs in two lamps that had three way switches for 60W, 100W, 150W incandescents. The CFL bulbs only work on the middle setting of the switch. Why is that? Never had a problem, but my dad always said that my mind wonders.:)
Click to expand...

The "old-fashioned" three-way bulb has two filiments in it, one is 60W and the other is 100W. If you use only the 60W, then you'll get 60W. Likewise, if you use only the 100W, you'll get 100W. And if you use them both, you get 160W. If you look at the base of that bulb, there are three contacts, the threaded outside, the metal tip, and then a ring that goes around between the two. The threaded outside is connected to one side of both filiments. The center contact is the other end of the 100W filiment and the ring is the other end of the 60W filiment.

A fixture set up for three-way bulbs has three contacts, the threaded outer part, one right in the middle, and another inbetween. When you turn it to the first click, it powers only the ring contact. The second click powers center contact only, and the third click powers both.

The base of a CFL has only two contacts, the threaded outter contact and the center contact.

So, when you put a CFL into a three-way base, you will not get any light on the first click because the base of the CFL has no ring contact, but should get light on the second and third clicks since both of these power the center contact. You'll get the same amount on each. However, you may not get light on the third because when you go from the second to the third click on the switch, power to the CFL will be interrupted momentarily and that glitch will cause the arc inside the CFL to go out but will not be long enough to trigger the CFL's restarter circuit to restrike the arc.

To start a florescent light, you have to apply a brief, high-voltage pulse to it. Once the arc is established, the voltage necessary to sustain it drops dramatically. You may remember when florescent lights first came out they had to be started manually. You pressed a button in and held it for a second or so before releasing it. Some had a special switch that you moved all the way to one side and held for a second or so before releasing to return to its center position to run. In either case, you were using a capacitor (called the "starter") and an inductor (called the ballast) to create a brief, high-voltage pulse that struck the arc inside the florescent tube. Then, science invented the automatic starter.

One problem was that the starters went bad from time-to-time and had to be replaced occationally. Another other problem was that the way the circuit worked, current flowed through the ballast all the time. It had to because you can't interrupt power to the arc for even a split second or it goes out. So, the ballasts got hot. Anytime you're generating heat from electricity and you're not a space heater, that's inefficiency. Another problem was that the heat also aged the ballasts which failed from time-to-time. And a problem for many years is that the ballasts were filled with oil to help insulate and cool them. That oil often contained PCBs and, once science figured out that PCBs aren't nice stuff to have around, the ballasts became hasmat stuff. Keep in mind that the heat or manufacturing defects sometimes caused the ballasts to leak. A lot of florescent lights are installed in overhead ceiling fixtures, so this resulted in hot, PCB-laden oil dripping down on people's heads.

The solution was the electronic starter/ballast found in just about all florescent lights these days. This is what's inside of that box that's at the base of a CFL. It's job is to make a high-voltage spike when you first turn the light on to strike the arc and then to keep the arc going after that with a lower voltage. The glitch, the fraction-of-a-second interruption of power, that occures when a three-way fixture goes from powering only the center contact to powering both the center and the ring will interrupt power to the arc resulting in it going out, but it may not reliably trigger the starter circuit to restrike the arc.
 
Handle CFL bulbs with care. I've read they release mercury if broken. They work great, though.
 
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