Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

[electro_pa]

June 2011, I bought some Philips 'Ambience Global' 18Watt CFLs, the fancy, large round glass style that architectural designers love.
Was most disappointed to have two fail two months later, with a loud bang and smell.
Changed them for Sylvania's quickly.
I pulled the inverter apart to find the chinese maker used a "JH" branded, 4.7/400V electro which has vented and shorted. Took out the rectifier bridge (1N4007 diodes) & fusible surge limiter resistor.
That "JH" brand logo does not appear in the 'Asian cap makers Index.
http://capacitor.web.fc2.com/
It must be a late-comer.
Another crummy asian electro to watch out for!

[japlytic]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

I'm still calling for energy saving lamps to have a warranty relevant to their lifetime claim (as some countries require), ideally not requiring proof of purchase.
Also, I am going to broaden my YouTube campaign regarding the use of substandard CFLs costing you money to cover all energy saving lamps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29uZdeq92U (the shock recall)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7mhWU_K7TQ (substandard CFLs can cost you money)

[lti]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

My parents bought a 4-pack of CFLs from King Soopers for $10. One smoked when it failed, another had turned brown around the top of the base, and only one bulb still works. I had a light fixture with some of the first CFLs ever made, and one bulb stopped working earlier this year. The other bulb still works. It is hard to tell what you will get today, even with a name brand CFL.

I wonder how long the "halogen replacement" bulbs will last in their garage.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

You are correct in that you can't be sure even with name brand CFLs that you won't find bad caps inside, but the cheap bulbs fail to fulfill their most basic task - providing light. I call them "blind light", because they do light, but i be damned if their light is any useful. I use cheap "skylight" bulbs for non-critical lighting, they do okay, but they aren't very bright.

Over at my grandparents' place there was one with a failed power circuit, i mated the bulb with the base of another one (it wasn't even the same type) and albeit it runs quite hot it's been going for 1.5 years already. I still use good ol' incandescents for room lighting, i keep CFLs for the hallway and such. My workbench however is lighted by two lamps pulled from a 15" LCD.

[mockingbird]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

At least CFLs can give a better color temperature than incandescents... But I agree that the outlawing of incandescents was socialist... And as usual, the dogmas of this ideology only serves once again to make corrupt corporations more wealthy by forcing us to buy their substandard bulbs... (Just like we must buy bottled watter if we wish to ingest fluoride free water).

I have one modular transformer I use with those removeable CFL tubes... The thing must be 15 years old and it still works... The tubes are inconveniently long, but I'm sure the CFL manufacturers could design something like this with those spiral bulbs...

Oh wait, that wouldn't be as profitable for them.

[momaka]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

I call them "blind light", because they do light, but i be damned if their light is any useful.

The one CFL we have installed in the stairs is like that for about 5 minutes or so until it warms up. After that, it's fine. It's name brand, though, maybe that's why. Has been running for a good 2 or 3 years too.

Personally, I prefer incandescent lamps too - the light IMO is much more soothing for the eyes than CFLs. Halogens are also okay with me. The only CFLs I like are the linear ones. I have a desk lamp like that for my workbench. The CFL itself is some Chinese no-name, but it has a huge ballast - no wonder they don't make them like that anymore. That thing probably has a good 0.5 Kg of copper.

[Evil Lurker]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

The thing is with CFL's and any fluorescent light bulbs is the quality of light is directly determined by the quality of the phosphors used in the bulb. Me personally I like a 3500k-5000k bulb with a color rendering index of 90+. And unfortunately to get that higher quality of light more expensive blends of phosphors must be used.

Anyhoos, the biggest problems with CFLs are the fact that the damn things literally cook themselves to death. I autopsied some 2 year old bulbs and the lead wires had literally heated themselves to the point where they were blackened and had visible cracks in the insulation.

No wonder the damn things die so easy...

[mockingbird]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

Yes, they get very hot, but there hasn't been one disposable CFL bulb that I've opened that hasn't had substandard capacitors... They *could* last longer if there were better caps in there...

Reason I say your right is because aquariums are now using something similar to CFL... (Well aquariums also use power CFLs). It's calles T5HO and they do get very very hot... Some of the fixtures have fans in them...

It depends where... Ideally, you want to mix the daylight bulbs with the kitchen and bath bulbs to get a satisfactory result...

In a freshwater aquarium, 8000K is ideal, but unfortunately nonexistent... We're forced to use 6500K because it's most commonly available... The best bulbs are made in Germany unfortunately and go for $20-$30 a bulb.

[b700029]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

They're made as cheaply as possible, so components that will just work (barely) are used.

http://www.execulink.com/~impact/fluorescent_lights.htm
Interesting site with some really scary pictures of failed CFLs.

[lti]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...ent-bulbs.html

They're supposed to fail like that!

The cheap CFLs that I was talking about above were Greenlite brand. They were the smallest CFLs I have seen. Other 60W replacement CFLs are larger in both size and wattage.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

I haven't had one smoke yet (perhaps the EU has more stringent regulations?) but i did have several that had globes attached to them from the factory, where the glue holding the globe failed and the globe fell to the floor. Luckily the globes were plastic...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

The one CFL we have installed in the stairs is like that for about 5 minutes or so until it warms up. After that, it's fine.

Is the brand TCP? The TCPs I purchased in late 2010 are like that.

[momaka]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

Is the brand TCP? The TCPs I purchased in late 2010 are like that.

Note sure exactly. Will let you know when it burns out and I take it down, which actually might be soon. Who knows.

[Agent24]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

I don't like CFLs much at all - in fact I don't like fluorescent light in general, but CFLs are cheap and nasty in my book.

I bought some, thinking it would be a good idea, 1 Philips (first one) and then later a 6-pack of "Ecobulbs"

So far, the Philips died first (surprised me) - turned it OFF one day, it emitted a very bright light, and then it never worked again.

One of the Ecobulbs stopped working with blackening around the base of the tube (filament burnt?)

Both of those died much faster than an incandescent.

Autopsy showed the Philips had a cheaper-looking drive circuit than the Ecobulb, but neither of them appeared to have suffered damage. It seems the tube failed in both cases.


The rest are still going but one seems to have lost some of the phosphor coating near the base. You get an interesting blue patch there, which I expect is lovely UV coming through. I put that one on a porch light so I wouldn't have to look at it too much.

When they fail, I will buy incandescent again.


As for being "Green" I am skeptical on that. Since an incandescent is made up of only a few things (glass, tungsten filament, metal base and inert gas) my guess is that it has a lower carbon footprint for manufacturing.

Compare that to a CFL, which has transistors, transformer, capacitors, resistors, tube, mercury vapor, phosphor, plastic, glass etc, then manufacture of them probably creates more carbon.

Then the fact you are 'supposed' to recycle them due to the mercury content, the recycling process eats up carbon too.

So the carbon saved from the lower energy usage is probably offset quite well by the more complex manufacture process!


So at the end of the day, you might save $15 a year on electricity, after paying a higher price for a light that might not even last as long as an incandescent and which is much more likely to catch fire, it's madness!

[japlytic]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

As planned in my previous message, here is my broadened campaign which now covers all energy saving lamps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYGbrmrs3ak

I'm still calling for the Energy Saving Lamp Quality Act (a good name I thought up).

[lti]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

Along with CFL lights failing prematurely and catastrophically, cheap LED-based bulbs are dim and don't last long. It seems like they fail so quickly because the LEDs are receiving a higher voltage than they are rated for to make them brighter. These lights use 5mm white LEDs, and any flashlight or battery-powered light that also uses 5mm LEDs is much brighter.

[momaka]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

Along with CFL lights failing prematurely and catastrophically, cheap LED-based bulbs are dim and don't last long. It seems like they fail so quickly because the LEDs are receiving a higher voltage than they are rated for to make them brighter. These lights use 5mm white LEDs, and any flashlight or battery-powered light that also uses 5mm LEDs is much brighter.

Last year, the university I go to started replacing some of the old Sodium vapor lamps along sidewalks with LED ones. To be honest, though, I don't like the LED ones that much. If you look on the ground, you can barely see anything and the light seems somewhat weak. Yet if you move your eyes up just a bit, you start to get blinded by the light where the lamp is. And if you dare to look straight into the lamp, you're guaranteed to be blinded for a few minutes afterwards.
For street lighting, I find the yellow-orange color of Sodium vapor lamps much more soothing than anything else. And if I'm not mistaken, they last pretty long, too.

[Agent24]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

There are some LED lamps that light a walkway behind the train station here, they seem to work OK but they run them off their own solar power I think - and they don't turn them on for very long - and they don't turn them on at all on weekends!

I don't know why they even bothered to put them there, if they don't do anything most of the time.

I also like the look of sodium vapor street lamps but they seem to be replacing them (as the old ones fail) with some other type which are more white. No idea what type they are but they work well for lighting the road, and are certainly not LED.

[joshnz]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

The types of street lamps seen around here are CFL getting replaced with LPS or HPS.
They also have some that are like LPS/HPS but produce a blueish white light.
A local car park installed LED lamps they seem to do a good job but one has stopped working already been about 3 months.

[kc8adu]

Re: Philips 18W CFL's with bad 'JH' caps.

i opened up a few huge 5000k plant grow cfl's that died young in my neighbors setup.
wish i had kept the caps.they were shoue foiy or something similar.these things were around $35 ea!.i wound up with a ton of rubycon 33@250v at a hamfest.i paraleled 3 in each section of the doubler and was just able to get it back together.they all work now.
i doubt they are going to make it long term though.run too hot.