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Topic: Incandescent light bulbs rule.

Bill Enos
Film God

Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 11-30-2007 10:14 AM

We used "Gro Lux" aquarium fluorescents in the concession case for a while, then switched to cool whites with a gel wrapped around. The gels last thru about 3 lamp changes before they are faded to clear.

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Jeremy Weigel
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1062
From: Edmond, OK, USA
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 11-30-2007 01:15 PM

I use "Warm White" lamps in the lobby, hallways, restrooms, and offices. "Cool Whites" are used in the auditorium clean up lighting. "Daylight" lamps are used in all the signage lighting. I'm not sure why, but the "daylight" bulbs provide better color rendering of the posters and auditorium mylars even though the light coming off appears to be on the blue end of the spectrum.

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Chad Souder
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 962
From: Waterloo, IA, USA
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 11-30-2007 01:42 PM

I just noticed our local Wal-Mart has lighting in their freezers hooked up to motion sensors that go dark when nobody is in the aisle.

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Jeremy Weigel
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1062
From: Edmond, OK, USA
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 11-30-2007 02:56 PM

quote: Chad Souder
I just noticed our local Wal-Mart has lighting in their freezers hooked up to motion sensors that go dark when nobody is in the aisle.

They've done that to the ones around here along with their neiborhood markets. Its kind of annoying when you're trying to look for something ahead a few cases down and you can't see everything in the case cause its not lit yet.

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Jack Ondracek
Film God

Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002

posted 11-30-2007 05:09 PM

quote:
I have a couple of fluorescent bulbs that turn on immediately when the switch is flipped,

Yah... most of mine do, to, Joe!

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Brad Allen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 688
From: Evansville, IN, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 11-30-2007 08:18 PM

The skinny florescent tube bulbs are the new T8 bulbs, with matching T8 electronic ballast's. Considerable less energy used, they come on instantly, and work down to 20 degrees and have a nice color rendition to them. The old magnetic ballast's are being phased out

I buy GE's spiral turd bulbs for home and the lobby at the theatre, and the color is soft white, almost identical to a soft white incandescent. Only ones I've had "color" problems with has been some cheap no namer's I picked up accidently in a rush.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-01-2007 01:32 AM

The only thing I don't like about the new "slimline" fluorescent lamps is most have a "warmer" (more yellow) color -around 4200K. That's on par with a 4500K "Cool White" lamp. When you have to use those things in a skinny sign cabinet the color of graphics on the back-lighted face can be thrown out of balance. Sometimes LEDs or even 6500 Snow White neon can be a better solution in tight spaces. You'll get a better quality result, but the solution will cost more.

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Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 12-01-2007 02:12 AM

For those questioning the environmental impact of CFL's, there is more than enough information easily avaiable via a web search showing the potential impact of converting to CFL's on energy use. Here's just one snippet:
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

quote:
If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

I'd say that's significant.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-01-2007 08:57 AM

At the cost of how much phosphorus, mercury, arsenic and other toxic ingredients used to make them?

At the cost of how much MORE energy, resources and manufaturing capacity needed to produce them which COULD have been used to produce something else?

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-01-2007 09:41 AM

Agreed. We can only make any meaningful comparison as to how 'green' a new technology is compared with an existing one if we know the following:

How much more or less energy is used and/or toxic by-products created manufacturing the new one relative to the old one?

How much more or less energy is used and/or toxic by-products created during a typical service life of the new one relative to the old?

Just saying that a hybrid car uses 30% less petrol is meaningless if the extra energy needed to make one is equivalent to the petrol needed to drive a conventional equivalent 50k miles. Sure, the 'curly turd' bulbs only burn 10 watts or so once you've got it in your home, but if it takes several kilowatts more to manufacture it than a 60w incandescent, is there a net saving of energy?

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Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 12-01-2007 09:56 AM

Well the mercrury question is easy. Most electricity in the US comes from coal fired power plants. Coal power plants create mercury as a byproduct (which is why 44 or the 50 US states have advisories against eating more than a certain number of fish caught in lakes and streams since the mercury in the environment settles in their tissues). The amount of coal it takes to power an incandescent bulb compared to a CFL creates far more mercury than is contained in the CFL. The average CFL contains less mercury than a watch battery.
Link.

As fas as how green CFL's on a manufacturing comparison with incandescents that not an easy google search. However, since the manufacturing of CFL's is not being subsidised (at least in the US) the question of a straight up 'resource efficency' comparison is fairly simple-whichever costs less to manufacture/use is the more efficent solution. I think its pretty clear CFL's win in both categories.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-01-2007 12:12 PM

quote: Leo Enticknap
Just saying that a hybrid car uses 30% less petrol is meaningless if the extra energy needed to make one is equivalent to the petrol needed to drive a conventional equivalent 50k miles.

This is why I think E85 Ethanol is a really stupid idea. It takes nearly 1 gallon of fossil fuel to create 1 gallon of E85 Ethanol. If there's no gain, why bother? Ethanol isn't going to be worth a damn until it can get much greater efficiencies more on par with other alcohol-based fuels. In Brazil, 1 gallon of fossil fuel will create 8 gallons of sugar cane-based alcohol fuel. Claims are being made that switch grass, corn stalks and other "cellulose fibers" will eventually yield 8 or more gallons of Ethanol per every 1 gallon of fossil fuel used. I don't know. I think it's going to be years before we see any real development on that. For the time being, this big push on Ethanol is just amounting to a huge subsidy for corn farmers.

Back to the light bulbs thing, they all use up a good amount of power at some point. LEDs are supposed to be very efficient in terms of energy use. At least that's what most people seem to think. When we sell a business a good sized full color RGB LED variable message center display they're kind of thrown when they end up having to run multiple 20 amp circuits to power the thing.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 12-01-2007 12:24 PM

I don't recall any incandescent bulb I've ever used emitting any gas, so how would changing my bulb to the new hippie bulbs save greenhouse gas or whatever?

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Bruce McGee
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1776
From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular.
Registered: Aug 1999

posted 12-01-2007 03:38 PM

I was talking to a girl one night at a party, and she mentioned that she had a 'green house.' I thought, AHHA! Something to talk about! And I mentioned that I grew up in a country house and that my dad had a greenhouse... The plant kind.

I got a withering look from the girl. "I mean an energy efficient house." Yeah right, I thought. Her house is as old as mine is, (1924) and has only had its windows replaced, as I know the previous owner, who did nothing that he didnt have to do...

There is only one incandescent lamp left in our 7-plex besides the dimmable lights in the auditoriums. That light is directly over the ushers stand at the ramp going up to the theatres. We use the Sylvania/Phillips lamps. They seem to last longer.

I, too, hate the turd lamps. I have a few in my house. I'm still not terribly impressed with them.

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 12-01-2007 08:55 PM

I think they are great when used in a proper place; driveway, basement, night light, garage. Perhaps not in rooms that have a "decorate" requirement. Seem to be OK as indirect light, though. Louis

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