What to do with pigtail CFL's?

[Martin Draco]

This might help with question about CFL bulbs:
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf

 

[rich8483]

i use those things in my shop for drop lights and tool mounted lights.
since they do not have a traditional filament, they are far less sensative to vibrations from the tools they are mounted to and when used for a drop light, they put off far less heat than a traditional bulb.
i then can have the light closer to my face without sweating or burning myself and i can set the light on a rubber,plastic surface or even carpet if im working inside the car.

i have discovered though, at least with the cheaper ones that i buy, the conversion where it says "this bulb is equivalent to a such and such bulb" is a bit optimistic.

also, as far as life length, im not getting any 4 years out of them but maybe a couple weeks, compared to a filament bulb where i was shaking out the filament several times a week.

 

[rambone]

People let doctors inject mercury straight into their blood. Seeing people defend the health effects of that, makes it a little silly to me when they are concerned about breaking light bulbs.

 

[rich8483]

who here remembers playing with mercury in science class as a kid?

im not dead yet.

 

[Calvin]

I'll probably just continue to snort up the broken ones.

It's rare that anyone makes me laugh on this forum. That did. Thank you.

who here remembers playing with mercury in science class as a kid?
im not dead yet.

I remember playing with that stuff in Science class. I am very much alive , but I frequently do really stupid s**t looking back immediately afterwards to wonder why in the h*ll I thought that would work. I blame the mercury.

 

[Timjoebillybob]

who here remembers playing with mercury in science class as a kid?

im not dead yet.

Science class? Nope. On the kitchen counter I used to love when a thermometer broke because I could play with it. And my grandpa had a bottle of it on the shelf in the kitchen he would let me mess around with once in a while. And since I'm not a chicago voter I think I'm still alive

 

[IndyBeerman]

I only have 3 candescent bulbs left in the house, and those are in a light hanging in the foyer that's on maybe 1 or twice a month.

I started switching over to CFL's about 10 years ago for lights in the house, and never looked back. It's nice to see a 40% or more drop on your electric bill on non heating/cooling months because of the less power used.

Now I do still have 2 lights outside that are not CFL's, but that's because of the shear wattage needed. But the other 8 outside lights (6 which are on from dusk to dawn) are all CFL's and I've only had to change 3 over the last 4 years.

Just within the last month have I bought replacement 13/26/40 (60/100/200) watt cfl's that was on sale because I figure they're reaching the end of their life expectancy soon.

I recommend the Feit Electric brand, top notch in my books.

 

[38special]

I am not 100% confident, but I believe I read somewhere that they contain 1/100 the mercury of a standard thermometer - really not enough to fuss over. I'll have to look it up.

EDIT: Here we have it. snopes.com: CFL Mercury Light Bulbs