Electrical help please.

[Badge54]

The packaging on mine warned not to put into light fixtures with a closed globe.

I have trouble with a CFL on my front porch. It comes on at dark. Seems to come on faint and flicker, sometimes flash on and off then finnaly lights up.

Badge54

 

[Gollnick]

The packaging on mine warned not to put into light fixtures with a closed globe.

I have trouble with a CFL on my front porch. It comes on at dark. Seems to come on faint and flicker, sometimes flash on and off then finnaly lights up.

Badge54

Central Ohio... I'll bet it's cold there. Florescent lights have trouble starting in the cold. The voltage required to start and maintain the arc goes up.

Some florescent lights made for outdoor use incorporate a heater element inside the bulb that keeps the bulb minimally warm. But, that burns energy constantly. So, when energy saving is the goal, the heater can't be used. The florsecent lights for outdoor signs often have heaters in them, but their goal is not necessarily energy efficiency but to provide a long, continuous column of light.

Light sensors, so-called Dawn-to-Dusk lights, can also suffer a problem similar to the three-way switch. At the moment when it's just getting dark enough to turn on, they can vacillate a little bit. With an incandescent bulb, this might have resulted in a bit of flickering for a minute or two, but that was not a functional problem, so no effort was made prevent or "correct" it. In a florescent light, though, this can disrupt the arc without triggering the restart circuit.

 

[Wirebender]

Thanks for the answer on page 1, Gollnick!