It's the end of the light bulb as we know it

Layback Bear said:

They outlawed mercury and now they a pushing bulbs with mercury in them.
I had a few of the goofy looking twisted bulbs last only about a year of part time use.
Now what do you do with them; they contain mercury.
If your $30.00 new style light bulb quiets working in a couple three years who do you go to for a free replacement. Who in the hell keeps a purchase record of a light bulb.
How does one test a bulb to see if it will last 40 years like advertised or estimate.
Most of my bulbs are the new kind and really not much of a problem except for reading. Can't seem to find one that gives proper light for reading.
The ones I have tried don't seem to like the cold. When I use them for outside porch use they don't make it through one winter. The old style bulbs would last for years and years. They cost about 25 cents @.
If you want to save money on lighting turn off the lights when not in need. Some houses I pass are lit up like the owner has stock in Ohio Edison.

Haven't been able to find any of these new style bulbs that weren't made in China.
A $30.00 light bulb should be made someplace other than China and be U/L tested. I like new and better but I don't like being hosed.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL_%28s...rganization%29

I have dirty power at my place so even incandescents would pop every few months. I can easily get two or three years from EcoBulb CFLs (the goofy looking twisted bulbs). Even though they are Chinese, they are better quality than U.S. made CFLs. I have use GE smaller sized CFLs in one of my fixtures to get them to fit. They don't last quite as long as EcoBulbs but they are still far more cost effective than incandescents.

There are a lot of crap brands of CFLs being sold but there are also a lot of good ones. Price doesn't seem to be a very good indication of how good a brand is.

I know there is Mercury in CFLs but there is no convenient place to safely dispose of them around where I live so into the trash they go when they finally die. People have been doing that for years with conventional fluorescents. Still, I would feel better using LEDs since they don't have mercury in them, throw off even less heat, and last far longer than the CFLs. I just need to find some that meet my needs and haven't had the energy to do much looking yet.

Forgot to mention, I agree that CFLs do not do well in cooler weather. Depending on cold it is, they either don't fire or they take a while before they reach full brightness. The eyeball height street lamps in the mobile home court I live in uses CFLs and I have yet to see them refuse to fire, even when the temperatures dip to the high twenties, but it can take half an hour or more for them to get to full brightness. Fortunately, I can count the number of times it dips to the high twenties every winter on one hand with most of my fingers still left.

When I turn on my outside porch lights, I want them to come on right NOW, no matter how cold it is, so I use 100W halogens on a dimmer circuit. While one could say halogens are a form of incandescent, they are more efficient and last longer.

boohbah said:

lighten up guys,
i would suspect before long there will be recycle bins for bulbs in the supermarket or food halls like they do for batteries.

Other than the batteries in my cell phone and my notebook (still in use) and the 9v backup batteries in my smoke detectors (zinc/carbons that last for years because the smoke detectors run on 110V), I haven't thrown out a battery in at least five years. The rest of my battery operated electronics use AA and AAA batteries. I feed them with Sanyo Eneloops, a low loss NiMH rechargeable. They will hold a decent charge for over a year when not in use so I recharge them once a year, whether they need it or not, and whenever I run some down from use. Some of them are over five years old and still going strong. I've yet to have one fail.

boohbah said:

its the end of the battery as we know it

Yeah, carbon/zincs, lead/acid, and NiCads are a dying breed. The original NiMHs are being overtaken by the low loss NiMHs (often called prechargeables because they are able to hold a charge until they are sold). Even lithium-ions don't come close to the charge retention and service life of low loss NiMHs.