For my 666th post (in 5 years?)...a little secret about those curly lights...

[Boxerfan]

Plants just love 'em...I mean big green mighty plants. And I highly reccomend "Daylight" bright effects 100W bulbs sold at Lowes. Uses way less electricity than standard grow lamps & are very easy to string up a dozen or so for good coverage. I have fibromyalgia & this helps keep my medicine costs down.


They can bitch & moan about the loss of standard bulbs. I like these new bulbs a lot!

[northoftheborder]

1. Are you talking about those fluorescent replacement size bulbs?

[Boxerfan]

4. Here's a pic..

[Boxerfan]

5. I'm legal & don't worry about the 'copters...But yes-not near the heat of HPS

Or other such lamps. And they diffuse for excellent coverage like natural light. I just get a extension chord & socket adaptors to make a string of four per chord. Then hang the in a grid pattern. No signifigant heat spot to be grounds for a search. Just normal indoor lighting righT??.

[whoneedstickets]

2. Do they keep temps down? So that infrared helicopters can't sky-spot?

Now that would be a trick. I bet if they did the War on Drugs would rapidly claim that compact fluorescent bulbs are security threat.

[Jack Sprat]

3. Only one of the strange haters of florescency

could explain why the old standard bulbs were so lovable, although you nor I could probably understand it.

[diane in sf]

11. I do graphic design and my eyes are getting old, I can't see as well with them so I use

them in areas where color isn't critical. I used the sealed round bulbs--the coily things look breakable to me. I use incandescent full spectrum lights where I read and do close work--much easier to see what I'm doing.

[catabryna]

6. K&R

just for the #666 :evilgrin:

[lunatica]

7. My car's license plate number is ?VVH666

Very, Very Hot 666.

I call it the Devilmobile.

[lpbk2713]

8. You might want to edit some of that out.

The Freeper types are always looking for ways to make our lives uncomfortable.

[lunatica]

9. Thanks. I did, but I doubt any freepers would bother

[tblue37]

10. I won't buy the fluorescents any more. One exploded

and caught fire over the mirror in my bathroom. Fortunately, I was right there to put out the fire, clean up the broken glass and dispose of the bulb remnants before my cats were harmed by them and before the fire became more than a flame shooting out of the remainder of the bulb left in the socket. But it scared me half to death.

What if I had not been there but had accidentally left the light on when rushing to class or to an appointment? I try not not to leave lights on, but sometimes I do forget one. If the explosion and fire had happeend when I wasn't home, by the time I finally got home, the apartment probably would have been burned down and my cats would be dead.

Also, it was just luck that I was right there in the bathroom when it happened. I am severely hearing impaired. If I had been in another room, I would not even have heard the explosion. Probably the fire would have been out of control before I even became aware of it!

After that little incident, I am now afraid to use fluorescent bulbs at all.

[upi402]

15. I've seen magnetic ballasts do that, never lamps or electronic ballasts

Electrical confuses me daily, however. I wonder if the fixture had a starter?

Glad you were there and didn't panic.

Ballasts before 1979 had PCB's by the way.

[tblue37]

16. See, all those words,

"ballasts" "starters," etc.--I don't know anything about such things. I know what "ballast" means in normal usage, but not what it means in terms of the make-up of fluorescent light bulbs.

I just go into the store and buy light bulbs. I used to go in and buy light bulbs labled "fluorescent," because they were supposed to be greener, but now I am afraid to, and I don't have enough electrical knowledge to know whether one kind is safer than the other--nor do I think a consumer should be expected to.

The bulbs we buy in the store simply should not explode and catch fire, and there should not be ones that do and ones that don't, with consumers being expected to know which is which and why. That is the purpose of regulating products for effectiveness and safety. We cannot all be expected to know technical details about all kinds of products and to use such oceanic knowledge to keep ourselves from being killed by unsafe products.

[Cresent City Kid]

17. I had the same thing happen

The glass cover for the bulbs didn't fit over the bulbs and they were exposed to the moisture from the shower. I have a window that lets enough light in to shower with the lights off to prevent this from happening again. The bulbs or the fixtures should be designed to avoid having them exposed.

[upi402]

18. The NEC requires moisture proof or wet location fixtures

in any location where water or moisture may be present. I'd say violations probably have little to do with lamps.

And I've seen incandescent lamps (regular ones) explode internally or mildly externally. Never with fluorescent lamps - just the ballast inside the fixture.
If CFL's (or any lamps)are burning up please record the part number and any details and notify the Consumer Product Safety Commission;

http://www.cpsc.gov/about/contact.html

[upi402]

19. Please report all details to CPSC link here;

If CFL's (or any lamps)are burning up please record the part number and any details and notify the Consumer Product Safety Commission;

http://www.cpsc.gov/about/contact.html

[JohnnyRingo]

12. I love them too

I've owned an empty house since my dad died, and I used to replace the porch light every two weeks. I switched to a CFL bulb and it burned for three months until scappers stole all the the wiring.

How many ________s does it take to change a CFL bulb?
Our great grandchildren will never hear that joke because they'll ask why they're putting a new light bulb in.

On edit, this from the UL:
http://www.ul.com/global/eng/pages/corporate/newsroom/storyideas/compactfluorescentlamps/mythsuncovered/

It's said they contain as much mercury that will fit in this period > .

[JoeyT]

13. Yep, and you can change the light depending on what you want the plants to do.

The cool whites are best for making a plant grow, the warm whites are best for making them flower.

You may be getting huge green mighty plants because you're using cool whites, which have a lot more blue spectrum than red, so the plant grows like hell without wasting a ton of its energy on flowers or fruit. If you want to force budding, switch out to the warm whites, and gradually start shortening the time you keep them lit up.

Disclaimer: I didn't learn any of this with weed. I learned it experimenting with vegetables in a windowless room.

Edited to add: The best bulbs I've ever seen for lack of heat and making a plant grow absurd amounts of foliage are LED grow lights. They're considerably more expensive than plain old fluorescent lights, though you'd probably make it up with electricity saved in the long run.

[rufus dog]

14. thanks for the tip

And that was some good shit you set me up with last week.

:evilgrin:

[upi402]

20. Please report all details of any lamp burning up to CPSC... save lives!

If CFL's (or any lamps)are burning up please record the part number and any details and notify the Consumer Product Safety Commission;

http://www.cpsc.gov/about/contact.html


I've never seen it but it sounds like an issue.

[kittykitty]

22. Someone posted an identical story as #10, the exploding bulbs were MADE IN CHINA--only buy GE or

Phillips, maybe Sylvania. Look at the glass base of the bulb just above the screw in part, and check for the words MADE IN CHINA

[Boojatta]

21. You have been a member since day 6 of month 6 of some year.

(The year isn't very interesting because there's no 6 in it.)