Tesco 11W CFL, cost around 50p when bought (when gov't was subsidising them a few years ago... now they are about £4 each.)
This CFL started making a buzzing sound whilst in use and to my ears this was very annoying and sounded like a failing CFL. Replaced it with a Philips bulb, but I'm not confident that will last long either from what I've seen.
It is rated for 10 years but it has serious discolouration around the bulb base so my guess is it had a couple of months left (it is about 2 years and is used 8-10 hours per day.) So, 10 years is a complete lie, no way this bulb could make it.
Some interesting points:
- No fuse. Not even a fusible resistor! The closest to a fuse is the input inductor, which is the only EMI filtering this bulb has; that might have a fusing current, but I'm skeptical it would meet CE.
- No thermal fuse, so failure mode will be fun with flames.
- X cap is a poly cap, not a genuine flame-proof X cap, and it is before the inductor, so there is no fusing to protect it. More firey fun!
- It uses a 2.8uF cap. No, that's not a typo - not 2.7uF. The manufacturer obviously was too cheap to use 3.3uF. At least they use a 400V cap - I've seen a few bulbs using 350V caps, which sounds "okay" until you work out that the maximum voltage in the UK allowed is 253V which gives 357V rectified, which is exceeding the cap ratings. I've seen 251V from the socket here. Cap is an Aishu, I've seen this brand in some cheap TVs.
- Royer oscillator transistors are TO-92 13002's. They should be at the very least TO-253 13005's, or even better TO-220 13007's.
- Transformer is discoloured from heat.
- The coating of the bulb has worn out on one specific place, I'm not sure why.
- A lot of the components were pushed over when I first opened it up.
- One of the green caps has discoloured considerably.
No idea how this passed CE - if it did at all! Maybe CE was faked.
I don't like these bulbs because they toast their ballasts and they do not last the 10 years claimed.
This CFL started making a buzzing sound whilst in use and to my ears this was very annoying and sounded like a failing CFL. Replaced it with a Philips bulb, but I'm not confident that will last long either from what I've seen.
It is rated for 10 years but it has serious discolouration around the bulb base so my guess is it had a couple of months left (it is about 2 years and is used 8-10 hours per day.) So, 10 years is a complete lie, no way this bulb could make it.
Some interesting points:
- No fuse. Not even a fusible resistor! The closest to a fuse is the input inductor, which is the only EMI filtering this bulb has; that might have a fusing current, but I'm skeptical it would meet CE.
- No thermal fuse, so failure mode will be fun with flames.
- X cap is a poly cap, not a genuine flame-proof X cap, and it is before the inductor, so there is no fusing to protect it. More firey fun!
- It uses a 2.8uF cap. No, that's not a typo - not 2.7uF. The manufacturer obviously was too cheap to use 3.3uF. At least they use a 400V cap - I've seen a few bulbs using 350V caps, which sounds "okay" until you work out that the maximum voltage in the UK allowed is 253V which gives 357V rectified, which is exceeding the cap ratings. I've seen 251V from the socket here. Cap is an Aishu, I've seen this brand in some cheap TVs.
- Royer oscillator transistors are TO-92 13002's. They should be at the very least TO-253 13005's, or even better TO-220 13007's.
- Transformer is discoloured from heat.
- The coating of the bulb has worn out on one specific place, I'm not sure why.
- A lot of the components were pushed over when I first opened it up.
- One of the green caps has discoloured considerably.
No idea how this passed CE - if it did at all! Maybe CE was faked.
I don't like these bulbs because they toast their ballasts and they do not last the 10 years claimed.
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