I found one of these in Home Depot yesterday.

[randomness]

One of my current obsessions is finding compact fluorescent bulbs to replace incandescent bulbs. Unlike most sane people--but like certain of my friends--I prefer to use the energy efficiency of the CFL to provide more light with the same amount of energy rather than generate the same amount of light with less energy.

This 68W behemoth from TCP, Inc. , rated at 4200 lumens, claims to provide the same amount of light as a 300W incandescent, yet can be installed in any fixture which can safely accept a 75W incandescent.



Energy Federation Incorporated and Conservation Mart both want $24.50 for it, but Home Depot had them for $14.50. Lighting Supply Co. has them for $24, in both 2700K and 5100K versions. (The other vendors are all selling the 2700K version.)

One big detail is that the bulb itself is rather large: it's nearly 10 inches long and about 4 inches in diameter, so it won't physically fit in a lot of fixtures. Still, although I didn't pick one up yesterday (I wanted to do some comparison shopping first), I want one. I'm sure I can find someplace to put it.

Comments

[cme]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Oh boy oh boy.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

coool.

my main gripe with the CF bulbs is that they don't work with normal dimmers. (are they dimmable at all? i haven't checked into it in a few years.)

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

There are some dimmable ones now, according to the signs in the lightbulbs aisle at Home Despot. But yes, there aren't many CF bulbs you can safely dim, and I presume dimmables are more expensive (I didn't check).

[karakara98.livejournal.com]

Here is a group of dimmable flourescent fixtures and bulbs that won a recent design competition for efficient lighting.

Full disclosure: I work for the organization that manages this competition.

[evilmagnus]

Those are awesome. I wish they were easier to find. The last time I wanted dimmable CFL I had to mail order them.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

My cool find recently was that Tags in Porter Sq. has colored compact fluorescents- red, green, purple, yellow. I didn't buy any that day, but I'm thinking about where I could use them. :)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the black light ones? I don't know if Tags has them but friends have used them for party illumination.

[ceo]

I'm a big fan of the CFLs that have a polycarbonate shell around the bulb so you don't release mercury vapor into the room when you drop one. Unfortunately, the ones I've found so far have an annoyingly long warmup period.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I managed to break one in the back seat of a rental car as I was taking the CFL to Whole Foods to dispose of it. I cleaned it up--exposing myself to mercury--but I'm as mad as a hatter already, so... :)

The rental agency didn't seem to care when I told them about it, and they never charged me for toxic waste cleanup. I imagine they've seen much worse.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Definitely. One thing I can say for Whole Paycheck (a.k.a. Whole Foods) is that the ones in my area have a CFL disposal program for customers, complete with self-sealing bags to enclose the used CFLs before you put them into their CFL recycle bin.

I've been taking full advantage of it ever since I found out about it.

I understand IKEA and Home Depot are doing this also.

Hippeh!

[ddreslough.livejournal.com]

(in Cartman voice)

We use CFLs in the summer, but I have to admit, with a kid and her rowdy friends sometimes flinging things, I live in fear of the mercury vapors. I don't use them in her room. In winter we do use incandescent bulbs because Clay's weird sleep problem seems to be less with them.

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

I use what is probably that exact bulb; I'm with you on the more light for the same energy. I put it in a deep photographic flood reflector and point it at the ceiling. It works very well. Make sure the reflector is deep enough and placed high enough that you don't have to look directly at the bulb. You want to look straight at it about as much as you want to look at a 300 watt incandescent.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I'm actually finding it less difficult to look at than a 300 watt incandescent as it's less of a point source. It is *certainly* bright. :)

We have a wall fixture that's a fake candle sconce that sticks out from the wall--part of the apartment--and it really lights up the room from there.

The problem with green tech (do CFCs qualify?)

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

Do CFCs use rare earth elements? Apparently the problem with a lot of 'green' tech is that they rely heavily on rare earth elements, which are almost all mined in China by criminal gangs in mines that pollute the environment horribly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/business/global/26rare.html

It doesn't do much good to clean up our local environment if by doing so we're trashing other parts of the globe.

Re: The problem with green tech (do CFCs qualify?)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like I said, I'm in this for the bright light rather than any energy savings.

I mean, I'm not looking to wreck the environment, but for me this is all about the lumens.

[chain saw with a magician (from livejournal.com)]

Amen. I still have a bunch of these:

http://www.1000bulbs.com/42-Watt-Compact-Fluorescents/

which I bought when I was trying to solve this same problem 5-6 years ago (those were the brightest I could find at the time). They've held up extremely well - I'm still on some of the original ones - except for mechanical damage, to which the larger CFs seem more vulnerable.

Some of my guests complained about the 6500k color temperature ones, but 5000 seems fairly unobjectionable.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I still have a couple of those around; they were the brightest ones I could find at the time, too.

Mechanical damage is definitely a consideration with these things.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

I so want to like compact fluorescents, but so far all of the ones I have largely suck the big kahuna. They either take forever to warm up to acceptable light levels, or have a funky spectral output that drives me batties.

There's just something so utterly satisfying about incandescent lights.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, one of the things I trade off is the immediate light level of an incandescent light versus the brighter light of a compact fluorescent.

One of the things I do is to put a combination of incandescent bulbs and CFs in a fixture that takes multiple bulbs. That mixes up the color and it also gives me some instant-on from the incandescents while the fluorescents warm up.

But I really do like a lot of light, and I find I'm not very sensitive to spectrum. Well, not as sensitive, anyway.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

The PITA I run into is that I haven't found any that fits within the volume of a standard incandescent bulb, and I have a number of lamps that don't allow much tolerance beyond that.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

There are some small ones around nowadays which will fit in remarkably small fixtures, but along with physical smallness I find they don't actually produce much light.

Then again, my light requirements are rather high. :)