Do fluro bulbs work okay on a dimmer switch?

[Mcblurter]

Hi all
This may be a very stupid question but I would still like an answer!
Am changing the lighting around during our reno and will use fluro bulbs, but also want to be able to dim them. So do they work okay on a dimmer switch?
Cheers
McBlurter

What did the 0 say to the 8? Nice belt!

[Mcblurter]

Sorry everyone, I just scrolled down and someone has aksed the same question. Will speak to electrician when he comes to discuss options.
Cheers
Mcblurter

[Cliff Rogers]

No such thing as a stupid question IF it saves a stupid mistake.

In general, no, regular fluros don't work properley on a dimmer.

[doug1]

"In general, no, regular fluros don't work properley on a dimmer."

A further explanation is that if you have the acess yo add wireing and filament transformers it is possible to dim flouros but it needs to be done from the start as it needs differnt wiring and fittings
Doug

[rrich]

Typically an incadesent dimmer works by blocking part of the sine wave of the alternating current. The more of the sine wave that is blocked, the dimmer the light bulb. The incasesent bulb works by heating a filiment until it glows thereby giving off light.

A flourescent dimer works by blocking complete sine waves. The dimmer may remove one out of 5 or 6 sine waves, making the bulb give off less light. To make the bulb glow dimmer, more sine waves are blocked. (Perhaps every other sine wave is blocked or even four out of six, etc.) A flourescent works by the sine wave travelling through the tube, exciting the inside coating of the bulb. When the coating of the bulb is excited it glows.

The dimmers that I've seen used on flourescent bulbs do not work very well especially with multi bulb fixtures. The problem is that each bulb is slightly different and one bulb may not fire at all thus disrupting the total current flow in the fixture and causing the other bulb(s) to not work either.

[Mcblurter]

Gees I'm learning far too much info!!!!
Thanks rrich for that easy to understand detail. I think I will just go for individual switches and just turn lights off rather than dim. Maybe have one light dimable in the room and have a normal bulb.
Thanks everyone, another "Wish I had of known that before I did this" scenario averted!!
Cheers
Mcblurter

[peter_sm]

And to think there is talk of eliminating incandescent bulbs???

We use them in rooms that have longer time of use, like study, lounge, entry, kitchen, dining.
For hallway, toilet, laundry, bathroom, bedroom, standard bulbs are used as we really do not have them on very long.

[ozwinner]

For hallway, toilet, laundry, bathroom, bedroom, standard bulbs are used as we really do not have them on very long.

Same here, I think that by the time it takes to get a flouro going I will have done in the room.

Al :?

[chrisp]

And to think there is talk of eliminating incandescent bulbs???

We use them in rooms that have longer time of use, like study, lounge, entry, kitchen, dining.
For hallway, toilet, laundry, bathroom, bedroom, standard bulbs are used as we really do not have them on very long.

Talk? It is more than talk - see http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/energy/cfls/index.html

As to using CFLs in in rooms where the lights are not on for long, an energy saving is an energy saving (and a GHG savings as well).

For those who do not know, CFL use only 20% of the energy of an equivalent incandescent bulb (i.e 80% energy saving), and also save 80% on GHG production.

CFLs save you money and save the environment some GHG.

My advice is to use them everywhere you can, including the toilet.

[peter_sm]

But we only have $11.60 left each week after paying all bills etc., and I have to have a driveway built sometime before 2027. They are still too expensive for me to reap the benefits from a globe that takes 20 seconds to 'warm up' Seriously they get brighter after that time, so either I need newer more expensive ones, or I do without for now?

[chrisp]

a globe that takes 20 seconds to 'warm up' Seriously they get brighter after that time, so either I need newer more expensive ones, or I do without for now?

Peter,

Yep, they all take awhile to get going, but some are better than others. I buy the one brand and type and there is still a fair bit of variation in the bulbs.

At my house I worked out that about half our electricity use was due to lighting. By replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs our electricity bill nearly halved. I agree CFLs are a lot more expensive to buy. It would be good if the government would give them away for free. It would make a significant impact on Australia's GHG production, and may reduce the need for new power stations.

[Mcblurter]

I use the long life bulbs everywhere I can, or at worst very low wattage bulbs (ie kids night lights).
I like conserving as much energy etc as possible, but at times in can do your head in, especially when you start talking about embodied energy!!! Aluminium, wood, transport emissions, recyclability etc etc Then you can get even more serious and look at boycotting certain companies and products that are large greenhouse gas producers etc etc Of course you need to know this info first before you can act. I am happy doing my bit, trying to reduce where I can, even if it is just replacing one bulb, or not flushing the toilet for now, or later putting up some solar panels, and rainwater tank.
Cheers
Rooster

A kids joke
Knock Knock
Who's there
The interuppting cow
The interupti.......
Mooooooooooooo

[Fox3]

We keep trying to get into CFLs and we have probably had to throw out at least USD$100+ of the damn things over the past few years.

All sorts of different ones from the cheapies to the expensive brand names, doesn't seem to matter, for us it has been a crap shoot with more of the cheapies surviving than the expensive ones. Interestingly some of the cheapies we got are still running 3+ years later but none of the brand name expensive ones.

We decided to try LED bulbs, not too bad, but they seem to go west with frightening regularity too. Weird, only thing I can think of is that the ones we got were using factory reject LEDs?!?!?.

For what we have had go bad, we could have purchased enough regular bulbs to last us a lifetime and paid directly for a 4 month electric bill and have a bit of change left over.

If I still lived in Atlanta or Chicago I might suspect crappy power, but the only thing that can be said good about Seattle is that the power here is excellent compared to other places I have been.

Sure wish, at least in our case, that the walk was as good as the talk.

[Mcblurter]

Sorry to hear your tale of woe.
I first bought some really expensive long life globes, but now just the cheapies and have had no problems. In fact it's a problem as if they ever do stuff up I have to remeber where I have put all my spare globes.
Maybe instead of paying for all those bulbs you could plant a few tress, become carbon neutral!!!!

[rrich]

We keep trying to get into CFLs and we have probably had to throw out at least USD$100+ of the damn things over the past few years.


You're lucky! I can't even throw the bad ones out. I have to drive (No, foot traffic is NOT allowed.) to the recycling center. There I have to fill out a form with name, address and drivers licence number. My I/D is checked to be sure that I'm not putting anything false on the form. Then the attendent takes my keys to unlock the boot (Or in my case the shell on the back of the truck.) to retieve the articles to be recycled. (Remember NO foot traffic allowed.)

All this for four F*&^%$# 7 watt flourescent bulbs and eight AA alkaline batteries. The F*&^%$# fuel that I wasted put 10 times more GHG into the atmosphere than I saved by recycling. If I collect these bulbs and batteries to make the trip worth the fuel spent, I'm collecting hazardous waste and creating a public health issue along with possible legal problems.

And this Wednesday, the city's trash service delivered three HUGE 96 gallon (Almost 400L) for trash, recycables and green waste. And sawdust goes into the trash can. I don't want to get started so, lets let it lie.

Welcome to the People's Republic of Huntington Beach.

[Fox3]

You're lucky! I can't even throw the bad ones out. I have to drive (No, foot traffic is NOT allowed.) to the recycling center. There I have to fill out a form with name, address and drivers licence number. My I/D is checked to be sure that I'm not putting anything false on the form. Then the attendent takes my keys to unlock the boot (Or in my case the shell on the back of the truck.) to retieve the articles to be recycled. (Remember NO foot traffic allowed.)

All this for four F*&^%$# 7 watt flourescent bulbs and eight AA alkaline batteries. The F*&^%$# fuel that I wasted put 10 times more GHG into the atmosphere than I saved by recycling. If I collect these bulbs and batteries to make the trip worth the fuel spent, I'm collecting hazardous waste and creating a public health issue along with possible legal problems.

And this Wednesday, the city's trash service delivered three HUGE 96 gallon (Almost 400L) for trash, recycables and green waste. And sawdust goes into the trash can. I don't want to get started so, lets let it lie.

Welcome to the People's Republic of Huntington Beach.

Understand, the Socialist Soviet of Seattle in only slightly better (for the moment). A while they passed a recycling law and I am finding all sorts of stuff along the back roads now (need old batteries?). Most everyone it seems went along with it when it wasn't the LAW but surprisingly here there seem to be some rebels.

They can't cut the local govs perks or hire enough cops to keep your car from being trashed regularly but it looks like they are going to be able to afford garbage cops who will go through your trash and (presumably) fine you / haul you off to jail for no-nos. Not that anyone has been trained in what goes where (outside of the obvious) and the dumpsters are unsecured so you have no control over what gets in them.

If you can stand it, draw a money flow diagram and see how much the local govs make off your garbage and free labor. I'm all for recycling but not supporting corrupt govs in the process.

I looked into this a fair number of years ago and there were two places at the time - one in Japan and one in Ohio where they just picked up the garbage, the fully automated plant sorted it and used the real garbage to run the plant - tell me there isn't a scam going on with all this.

Yeah, lets leave this alone before I start foaming at the mouth :C.

[ozwinner]

Wow guys..:o

You have some tough rules so it seems, I thought we had it bad.

Our governments always seem to follow onto what you lot do so it wont be long before it happens here.

As for burning it, I cant see why they cant burn most of it to make electricity.
There is a tip/dump down the road that has been closed for a while, the suck the methane from out of it to make electricity. :2tsup:

Al :)

[rrich]

Al,
It's worse than that!

Some idiot in the legislature is trying to ban the sale of incadescent light bulbs and all of those CFL bulbs have a warning that says not to use them in dimmer circuits due to a fire hazard.

So, do you think that if I used a CFL on a dimmer circuit and the house burned to the ground I could sue the state of California? :?

[ozwinner]

Al,
It's worse than that!

Some idiot in the legislature is trying to ban the sale of incadescent light bulbs

Its already been done here, as of next year you wont be able to buy them.

Al :)

[Bloss]

Not quite as bad as all that - the announcement by the Government was to 'phase-out' incandescent lights by 2010 - ie: over the next three years. Given the way technology is going this will be easily achievable - and no bad thing.

General rule is that compact fluoro lamps do not work with regular dimmers(and neither do regular fluoros without specially wiring and dimmers). But right now you can buy (from Bunnings and some more specialised places) compact fluoros that will work with dimmers (a little dearer than regular compact fluoros).

LED technology is moving apace too so dimmable low energy lamps with good output will be available and cheap by 2010. There are some other new light producing technologies that will be around shortly after that too.

So - use compact fluoros wherever and whenever you can (even in places that you switch on and switch off often such as toilets - the new lamps are fine and still save energy (and money - more and more as electricity costs go up). If you need dimmable then use the lowest wattage you can - dimming reduces the amount of energy used, but not by a great amount.

Remember the energy used is around 1/5 that of an equivalent output incandescent bulb (eg: and 18-20W compact fluoro = 100W regular bulb - and lasts about 5-8 times longer too) and the warm up times now are trivial.

Good for the environment and good for your wallet.

A tip - makes sure ceiling fans are wired independently to light circuits as those old style motors send some strange waves across the wires - interfering with and commonly damaging a range of electronic controls and circuits such as compact fluoros, sensor switches and ordinary light dimmers.

[Iain]

Same here, I think that by the time it takes to get a flouro going I will have done in the room.

Al :?

Plain or Self Raising????

[ozwinner]

Plain or Self Raising????

Mate....everything I own is self raising, I have no control.:-

Al :q