In my real-world experience, CFLs last forever. Seriously, I have lights I moved from my old house over 16 years ago that are still running...and I had them for several years at my previous house.
I'm happy for you, but in my real-world experience they don't. I'm old enough to remember household lighting before LEDs and CFLs had the same problem where some of them start flickering or burning out. Some of the failure modes are particularly annoying for CFLs because in additional to flickering the color could change dramatically.
CFLs also have well-known problems that LEDs do not: environmental issues and disposal costs due to containing a small amount of mercury, inability to emit at low color temperatures, poor CRI, etc.
I also personally dislike the latency they have when turning on, but that's more of a me thing.
Yeah, the mercury is a definite downside. I haven't bought any CFLs since I bought these - and that's been roughly 20 years ago! And they are in what are considered the worst areas, too! Meanwhile, several LEDs have come and gone while the CFLs keep trucking along!
Eh what?. You can make a Dubai Lamp just adding suitable capacitor to the line.
Hey Grok. What is suitable capacitor to add to 3W 240V 50Hz Led Lamp to make it long-lasting Dubai Lamp?
<long explanation with formulas and other shit removed>
180-220 nF (400V)
> You can make a Dubai Lamp just adding suitable capacitor to the line.
Make a low-power Dubai-style lamp from any LED lamp by adding a single capacitor? Surely you must be jesting. Where in the circuit do you propose to add this capacitor to reduce power? How would this differ for a capacitive dropper circuit versus a switching regulator? How practical is this given that most LED bulbs cannot be disassembled non-destructively?
Perhaps you are thinking of replacing the current-limiting capacitor in a capacitive dropper lamp with a smaller value:
> This is the bit we want to change. At the moment it's a 330 nano Farad capacitor rated at 400V to allow for the peak voltage of our UK 230V supply. I'm going to change it for a 100nF capacitor that will effectively pass less than a third of the current.
I'd like to point out that this only works in lamps with this design and where the components are accessible for desoldering.
You have to do this to a new bulb before it stresses the components, but doing so will void the manufacturer's warranty. Also:
> This project involves modifying a mains powered product that was probably built badly in the first place. As such it carries the risk of shock, fire and explosive underpant soiling even when done properly.
This kind of design, with an accessible capacitor in a regular PCB, was relatively common in cheap LED lamps 5-10 years ago but things have changed a lot since then.
Most modern lamps require destructive disassembly to access these components and have aluminum PCBs that act as heatsinks, making desoldering impractical.
However you can sometimes do things like removing one of the current sensing resistors with diagonal cutters to reduce the power:
But the biggest problem with this kind of component-level hack to make a Dubai-style low-power lamp is you now have a light that is significantly dimmer than you started with!
I alluded to this when I said the Dubai lamp series tops out at 3 W / 600 lumens when I want a lamp in the 800-880 lumen range.
And the 600 lumen Dubai lamp already uses 12 LED filaments, so you'd need something like 16 filaments in a single bulb to approach that 800 lumen range.
Where do you propose to find such a lamp?
I know you're joking, but I'd like to point out that manufacturers don't need to collude to make crummy lamps. It's in every manufacturer's interest to reduce costs, and since consumers can't tell which lamps will last longer they can't reward manufacturers that do better on this metric.
In my real-world experience, CFLs last forever. Seriously, I have lights I moved from my old house over 16 years ago that are still running...and I had them for several years at my previous house.
> In my real-world experience, CFLs last forever.
I'm happy for you, but in my real-world experience they don't. I'm old enough to remember household lighting before LEDs and CFLs had the same problem where some of them start flickering or burning out. Some of the failure modes are particularly annoying for CFLs because in additional to flickering the color could change dramatically.
CFLs also have well-known problems that LEDs do not: environmental issues and disposal costs due to containing a small amount of mercury, inability to emit at low color temperatures, poor CRI, etc. I also personally dislike the latency they have when turning on, but that's more of a me thing.
Yeah, the mercury is a definite downside. I haven't bought any CFLs since I bought these - and that's been roughly 20 years ago! And they are in what are considered the worst areas, too! Meanwhile, several LEDs have come and gone while the CFLs keep trucking along!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25808959
Yes, I'm aware of Dubai lamps; they run the LEDs at lower power for greater longevity. However there are a number of issues with them for my use-case:
1. They run at 230 VAC and 50 Hz, i.e. Dubai power standards instead of US power standards.
2. The brightest bulb is the 3 W model, which emits 600 lumen. I'm looking for something in the 800-880 lumen range.
3. They are famously not available for purchase in the US or other countries other than Dubai.
https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li...
Eh what?. You can make a Dubai Lamp just adding suitable capacitor to the line.
> You can make a Dubai Lamp just adding suitable capacitor to the line.
Make a low-power Dubai-style lamp from any LED lamp by adding a single capacitor? Surely you must be jesting. Where in the circuit do you propose to add this capacitor to reduce power? How would this differ for a capacitive dropper circuit versus a switching regulator? How practical is this given that most LED bulbs cannot be disassembled non-destructively?
Perhaps you are thinking of replacing the current-limiting capacitor in a capacitive dropper lamp with a smaller value:
> This is the bit we want to change. At the moment it's a 330 nano Farad capacitor rated at 400V to allow for the peak voltage of our UK 230V supply. I'm going to change it for a 100nF capacitor that will effectively pass less than a third of the current.
https://www.bigclive.com/ledlmp.htm
I'd like to point out that this only works in lamps with this design and where the components are accessible for desoldering. You have to do this to a new bulb before it stresses the components, but doing so will void the manufacturer's warranty. Also:
> This project involves modifying a mains powered product that was probably built badly in the first place. As such it carries the risk of shock, fire and explosive underpant soiling even when done properly.
This kind of design, with an accessible capacitor in a regular PCB, was relatively common in cheap LED lamps 5-10 years ago but things have changed a lot since then. Most modern lamps require destructive disassembly to access these components and have aluminum PCBs that act as heatsinks, making desoldering impractical. However you can sometimes do things like removing one of the current sensing resistors with diagonal cutters to reduce the power:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HTa2jVi_rc
But the biggest problem with this kind of component-level hack to make a Dubai-style low-power lamp is you now have a light that is significantly dimmer than you started with! I alluded to this when I said the Dubai lamp series tops out at 3 W / 600 lumens when I want a lamp in the 800-880 lumen range. And the 600 lumen Dubai lamp already uses 12 LED filaments, so you'd need something like 16 filaments in a single bulb to approach that 800 lumen range. Where do you propose to find such a lamp?
Uh oh, you're hot on the heels of the 21st century Phoebus cartel.
I know you're joking, but I'd like to point out that manufacturers don't need to collude to make crummy lamps. It's in every manufacturer's interest to reduce costs, and since consumers can't tell which lamps will last longer they can't reward manufacturers that do better on this metric.