CFL bulbs seem to die pretty quickly

[TecHNooB]

They start dimming and flickering, then die shortly. They also need time to get bright. Aren't these supposed to last a long time?

 

[Leros]

I had the same experience. I bought about $50 of GE brand CFL bulbs and half of them died within two weeks.

I also bought a cheap no-name CFL bulb which has been running 24/7 on my porch light for over a year now.

 

[Sluggo]

I have two in my garage that have been on 24/7 for about 3 years, and of course one in my hallway that lasted about 2 days.

Stupid lightbulbs.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Dont buy the cheap Asian brands.



Actually Ive had bad luck with them too (regardless of origin or price) and just went back to incandescent. Furthermore, they are horrible for good lighting. You cant see fine detail without eyestrain at night. They also tend to lend themselves to many shadows in areas you need lit - like fine detail!

 

[Dirigible]

They die quickly in my house and don't fit in a lot of the fixtures anyway.

No more cfl lights for me.

 

[DrPizza]

I've started saving the receipts & the boxes. "10 year guarantee" or whatever the hell it is... I'm going to start sending in the bad ones. I'll wait until I have about 10 bad ones, and send them all in at once. (Since the scam is that the shipping would cost more than a new bulb, people won't bother.)

 

[JEDI]

They start dimming and flickering, then die shortly. They also need time to get bright. Aren't these supposed to last a long time?

suppose to be 5yrs/8000 hours.

complete BS!

it's more cost efficient to buy a regular 60w light bulb. (4 for $1 @ walmart)

the 13w CFL cost $1 but only last twice as long. but costs 4x more than regular light bulbs

 

[lxskllr]

Some last, some don't. I don't think I've had any go the rated lifespan, but some don't do too badly. Others die very quick. I've pretty much limited the fixtures I put them in to ones I leave lit all the time. If it's a light that gets turned on and off, I use incandescents.

 

[TridenT]

Some die quickly, some don't.

It really depends on the lights. Still, they use less energy than incandescent lights and I don't feel the heat of them bearing down on me like I do with incandescents.

 

[mpo]

The cfl bulbs tend to be sensitive to the number of on/off cycles and warm-up periods. I have found that fixtures that go on and stay on for hour+ at a time (security lights, reading lights, living room), cfl last a long time.

Lights that get turned on and off quickly and frequently (halls, bathrooms, bedrooms), cfls burn out relatively quickly. I use incandescents in those applications.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Been using them for everything in the house, I think I've only had two die in the last 10+ years.

 

[kami333]

Had bad experience with Walmart ones. Bought a 12pack but they were all burnt out within a year.

Now I have the Conserv-Energy branded ones from Costco, haven't had one burn out in ~2years.

 

[dawp]

y'all must be doing something wrong. I haven't had one die on me yet. the only issue i had was a corroded socket in the garage. Used sandpaper to clean it and all was fine.

 

[Locut0s]

I think it comes down to brand, manufacturing irregularities and the actual socket and or power in your house.

Some brands just aren't very good.

I also think there's a fair amount of variation on the quality of these bulbs coming off the assembly line.

Then there's the possibility that certain sockets may be providing bad power to the bulbs, under or over volting them etc... And some people probably have bad power throughout their house.

 

[Locut0s]

Had bad experience with Walmart ones. Bought a 12pack but they were all burnt out within a year.

Now I have the Conserv-Energy branded ones from Costco, haven't had one burn out in ~2years.

LolMart, no surprise there.

 

[Jeff7]

I've also had bad experiences with generic CFLs, such as 40-50% of a batch of 12 dying after about 6 months. (Frequency of switching didn't appear to be a factor, and some of the failures were located within the same 4-bulb fixture.)


But, Litetronics' Neolite CFLs have been good to me thus far. (1000bulbs.com carries them, and perhaps they're found elsewhere too.)

 

[Daedalus685]

I won't sit by another minute while you bash the Canadian Football League.. let alone the week before the grey cup!


As for the bulbs. They should last far longer than a regular bulb but are a lot more fragile to torque and can be very poor quality at times. I have had very good luck with them though, some I've had with me in three different houses since university, lol. LEDs are the wave of the future anyway though.

 

[Imp]

The one I use as a backlight has been running for 2 years now, about 5+ hours a day on average.

Most other lights are doing just as well, but there were obviously some duds. The noe in the living room is about a year old and started flickering very early.

 

[Bateluer]

I've all CFL bulbs in my house now, that I brought with me from my apartment in 2009, that I brought with me from my previous apartment in 2006, that I brought with me from my previous apartment in 2005, that I brought with me when I moved out of the USAF dorm in 2003. Good luck?

 

[Jeff7]

I won't sit by another minute while you bash the Canadian Football League.. let alone the week before the grey cup!


As for the bulbs. They should last far longer than a regular bulb but are a lot more fragile to torque and can be very poor quality at times. I have had very good luck with them though, some I've had with me in three different houses since university, lol. LEDs are the wave of the future anyway though.

All we have to watch for then is inefficient power supplies and exaggerated light output claims.


(Some of the LED lighting fixtures and retrofit modules available now are about as efficient as a good quality incandescent bulb. Many are able to match fluorescent, and a few of the higher-end ones do in fact manage to outperform fluorescent.)

 

[Daedalus685]

All we have to watch for then is inefficient power supplies and exaggerated light output claims.


(Some of the LED lighting fixtures and retrofit modules available now are about as efficient as a good quality incandescent bulb. Many are able to match fluorescent, and a few of the higher-end ones do in fact manage to outperform fluorescent.)

Aye, I worked with the Philips lumileds a lot earlier in the year.

The light output to power input is absolutely unreal. We used them a bit above spec though, for industrial inspections where the radiation was enough that it didn't matter if they died after a few hours as they were never coming back anyway. Set a bit lower the things make great home lighting, the ones on the wire tapes are pretty amazing as well (and good lord small... 200Lumen out of a bit 1/3 the size of your pinky finger nail).

 

[Jeff7]

Aye, I worked with the Philips lumileds a lot earlier in the year.

The light output to power input is absolutely unreal. We used them a bit above spec though, for industrial inspections where the radiation was enough that it didn't matter if they died after a few hours as they were never coming back anyway. Set a bit lower the things make great home lighting, the ones on the wire tapes are pretty amazing as well (and good lord small... 200Lumen out of a bit 1/3 the size of your pinky finger nail).

Yes, the Luxeon Rebel. Those things are ridiculously bright, in a very tiny package. Nifty design, too - and Philips does provide some nice design support, namely packages for use in EAGLE, and all sorts of detail drawings and app notes.
I did some work with them with a routed circuitboard, some solder paste, a toaster oven, and a temperature probe - actually gave good results.


Though I'd love to see one of these crazy 40W LEDs in action. Based on the datasheet, the efficacy ranges from 88 lumens/watt (at 350mA current) to 64.6 lumens/watt (at 700mA) to 54.8 lumens/watt (at 1000 mA).
This doesn't take into account efficiency losses from the AC->DC conversion, plus a proper constant current driver.
Neolite 23W CFL: 72 lumens/watt.
And the Neolites have a better color rendering index.

But LED tech is surely progressing.

 

[RPD]

Ones that are used with dimmers, suck on the life span. Yes I get ones labeled specifically "with use for dimmers".

 

[BoomerD]

I've had mixed experiences with the CFLs. I bought four 10 packs at Costco nearly four years ago and over half are still burning. Most of the rest died within a couple of months of purchase, but some started blinking out after a couple of years. One died last night.
I bought some Westinghouse Daylight CFLs at Target last year, and even though I like the color spectrum better, and even though they have the same lumen rating, they're noticeably dimmer than the standard spectrum bulbs from Costco.

I picked up two 3-packs of LED candelabra bulbs at Costco about 2 years ago for the exterior lights on the garage. CFLs just didn't last in that application, (on a photocell) so, since these came with the Costco warranty, I decided to try them. IIRC, they were about $15/3 and use 3 watts. Not very bright, (supposed to be 15 watt equivalent) but they serve the purpose I wanted. So far, no problems with them. I DID find out they don't like to be dimmed...One of my exterior fixtures on the side of the garage had a built-in dimmer/photocell/motion sensor. At dusk, the light came on at half-wattage, then, if someone triggered the motion sensor, it came on at full wattage.
I tried one of the LED bulbs in there...I could see it physically smoking...so I quickly removed it. (It still works fine, but there's a black smear on the inside of the bulb housing) I removed the dimmer/photocell/motion sensor mechanism and replaced it with a standard button photocell and the bulb works just fine.

 

[sandorski]

Mine die sooner than expected, but they last a hell of a lot longer(3-4x) than my Incandescent bulbs. I think I'm going to get an LED bulb soon to try it out.