UK BOINC Team Forum

BBC Article

Light bulbs: Not such a bright idea

and also

Ban The Bulb

UBT - Halifax--lad wrote:BBC Article

Light bulbs: Not such a bright idea

and also

Ban The Bulb

By pure coincidence, I was watching "Mythbusters" on Discovery only the other night...

The myth they wanted to prove or bust was:

Is switching a light off (when you leave the room) better/worse than leaving it on (in terms of power saving vs. shorter working life caused by the stress of being switched back on again.

They checked all types of bulbs, including halogen, filament, fluorescent, etc.

In all cases, the case was proved that switching it off (when you leave a room and switching it back on when you return) saves power...

And likewise, they found that the most wasteful on start up, was fluorescent as their "start up" power consumption was enormous....but still worth while switching them off, when you leave.

Re: Ban the bulb.
The trouble is that a good quality filament bulb does give off a better "light" than these compact fluorescent types - even the low evergy types.

Note: Why do compact fluorescents save power? Coz, unlike strip fluorescents, they don't have huge ballast units soaking up all that power. And did you know that you can save energy by removing the ballast unit entirely - it's only there coz otherwise, you get free light.....coz it's the ballast that consumes the power, not the tube !! But apparrently, removing the ballast is illegal.  So, I didn't tell you about it, did I.

regards

Tim

I saw that program as well. Couldn't believe how wrong a myth could be!

Ballast is another name for the 'starter' isn't it?

If it is, then I didn't realise that you got what you say you get by doing the 'thing' that you infer!

Pity I don't have any anymore or I'd try to prove you wrong!  :D  :D

... or is that a myth as well?

UBT - Mikeejones wrote:I saw that program as well. Couldn't believe how wrong a myth could be!

But we are talking about the US of A, where "excess" is the norm....some of their myths are so stupid....but if the general IQ of Americans is low, then what should we expect from a US based program...?

UBT - Mikeejones wrote:Ballast is another name for the 'starter' isn't it?

If it is, then I didn't realise that you got what you say you get by doing the 'thing' that you infer!

Pity I don't have any anymore or I'd try to prove you wrong!  :D  :D

... or is that a myth as well?

There are two parts to a fluorescent. The starter, which is the small white "cylinder" in the side of most strip lights. And a  bl**dy big inductor (which is the ballast) which consumes all the power....

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp

regards

Tim