One thing to be said for incandescent light bulbs ...

[unixronin]

... is that I've never seen one do this.

Update:  I just talked to Sylvania.  In addition to replacing this lamp and the one other failed CFL we have (a 40W unit that flickers), they want to see this one for a failure analysis.  I rather expected they would, and I'm glad they didn't disappoint me.

Comments

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

BzztPop!

[otherbill.livejournal.com]

Goodness, what happened?

(Despite the energy savings, <Wife> will not let us convert our household to CFLs, citing concerns about their mercury content.)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

All I can tell you is, "It failed", and when I took it out to check it, I found this. Looks like an internal component overheated and subsequently caught fire, exploded, or both. I can't tell any more than that without tearing it apart. I'm guessing Sylvania is going to want to look at this lamp.


The mercury content of CFLs is really no worse than any other fluorescent light. For us, it's not just the energy savings, it's that with current generations of CFLs the light quality is SOOOO much better than incandescents. Incandescent bulbs - particularly US-market ones - have always looked dim and yellowish to me, and they look even more so now that I've gotten used to the "bright white" or daylight bulbs that we use wherever we can. Human eyesight is evolved for daylight, not for 2600K incandescent tungsten.

[tomatoe333.livejournal.com]

Do you have specific brand/types of CFL's that you use? The original CFL's that I bought a bunch of years ago produced TERRIBLE light. I've relegated them to hallway use for the moment.

I also need to do a little research and see if they have CFL's that will reliably fire in a cold (0 degrees fahrenheit) environment. I remember that being a big problem w/ the old ones.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

We've been buying Sylvania (their "bright white" and daylight bulbs only) and Bright Effects.

Relevant to your cold-environment question, we have CFLs in the outside floodlights at the front of the house, and use them mostly in winter (as it's then dark when people are leaving and returning to the house in the mornings and evenings). They do fire in winter conditions, but they need several minutes (instead of 30 seconds or so) to warm up to full output.

[lizzibabe.livejournal.com]

Okay, I am officially Frightened. How'd that happen?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

See above. Some internal component overheated and failed, and that's really all I can say right now.

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

Good on Sylvania for both replacing the damaged items AND wanting to see the failed bulb for analysis.

We like the spectrum of the CFLs too.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

That's pretty impressive! I've never seen a fluorescent light of any kind fail like that!

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

There was a fair bit of press about this sort of failure down here back in August. Fire Service had a memo up on our internal website advising to be on the lookout for fires started by these things... Near as I can tell though, it sounds like it may be specific to the EcoBulb brand rather than CFLs in general-the above example not withstanding (heya! How's things hot stuff? :D ).

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4656117a6000.html
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/politics/18804/minister-denies-light-bulb-safety-issues

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

That is very impressive. :)

I've seen incandescents do it. I've seen them detonated and the lamp damaged. This can be line noise, spikes, surges, lightning, etc.

It is entirely possible the market has driven any line irregularity protection out of CCFL devices but the bare minimum. Those really need a surge device and a snubber. Older ones had that and a voltage regulator. New ones that I've looked at had nothing though it was an no-name brand.

Incandescents can withstand moderate surge abuse because it's just a glowing piece of wire. It however is not immune to all of it.

There was a company that produce a button you could drop into a lamp socket that worked to suppress some surges. It only had a MOV and capacitor IIRC.

[msa.livejournal.com]

The inductors they use seem to be inadequate and cook out over time.

Had this happen with the ballasts of a couple of GE CFLs.

I'm waiting for good LED replacements. I don't quite trust CFLs at this point, and they produce a lot of RFI.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'd far sooner be using LEDs myself, but the last time I looked, the cost was still prohibitive for anything more than flashlights. I haven't observed any RFI problems with CFLs, but I have found it rather annoying that they don't work well with remote switches. (I'm assuming the remote switches don't emit a clean sine-wave and the CFL ballast doesn't deal well with the output waveform. The result tends to be a strong 60Hz buzz and flicker.)