This video will be a little… different.
This is a wonderfully earnest device made by General Electric, and I use the word earnest
because it’s clearly a neat idea, but a far from perfect, and to be honest, weird
idea.
This is the GE Circlite energy saving lamp from 1991.
Many of this product’s details seem lost to history, probably because these weren’t
so popular.
I mean, this box shows you right here.
Started at 10.96, went on clearance for $7, annnnd ended up at Goodwill for $1.99 many years later.
Quick note--yes this isn’t what I said my next video was going to be, I’m working
on it--I promise!--but I wanted to show you this thing.
I had originally planned to showcase this in my last video and had it in the first draft
of the script, but it got lost in the basement of my parent’s house, and only recently
could I visit them and find it.
So, what is this?
Well, it’s a not-so-compact fluorescent lamp, or an NSCFL if you will.
It looks as though GE may have been making these since the sixties in various forms.
Really this is a magnetic ballast and starter plug concealed in this, and I hesitate to
call it such but, attractive adapter.
You can tell it’s a plain-ol magnetic ballast because it’s 1) Old, and 2) surprisingly
heavy.
It drives a 22 watt T9 circline tube, and it’s meant as an energy saving alternative
to incandescent lamps.
Really forward thinking, and the box has some compelling data on the back.
This unit appears to have never been put to use, as the lamp ends aren’t darkened at
all, and it’s in the original carton.
So, how does one use this thing?
Well, a large part I’m sure of why these never took off was the fact that installing
them in a lamp could be fairly annoying.
You’d need to remove the shade and harp, install the assembled lamp, though the instructions
say you should put the tube in after you’ve screwed the adapter in, which is nothing short
of asinine, and then the harp would go through the space between the tube and ballast, and
you’d put the shade back on.
Cool.
But it won’t work in a lamp like this, a ceiling fixture like that, or really in a
whole bunch of applications.
Not exactly universal.
Assembling it is somewhat terrifying because this clip is is rather tight, and I know fluorescent
tubes are stronger than they look, but it still seems like it’s gonna shatter in my
hands when clipping it in.
Then you put the little plug in and you’re ready to run it.
Because it uses a preheat starter, it starts erratically and differently each time you
turn it on!
So that’s fun.
And after it fires up, you’ll see the second reason these probably weren’t that popular.
The phosphor formulation in this tube is AWFUL.
Really, really bad.
White balance is, weird, with it producing a sickly purplish grey light--even though
the box assures us it has a warm, pleasing color.
Nope!
And white balance isn’t the biggest issue.
ANYTHING under it looks bizarre, with colors being reproduced very strangely.
But, this was pretty much standard fare for fluorescent lighting of the time.
Let’s do a quick comparison.
I tend to buy all of my household items from IKEA because I’m cheap and boring, so I
happen to have three identical lamps.
Let’s load em’ up with a standard 75 watt incandescent (what this promises to replace),
the ENERGY CHOICE miracle device in the middle, and a more modern 60 watt equivalent CFL.
Ready, go!
What a warm, pleasing color that middle one makes.
Well, let’s give it a better chance, then.
One of the real advantages this has over a modern CFL is that the ballast is separate
from the tube, so we can replace the tube with something a little less terrible.
Off to the hardware store.
Here in the US, we describe our fluorescent tubes by their diameter in eighths of an inch.
Not sure how the rest of the world does it, but true to American fashion, it’s a rather
bizarre numbering scheme.
The older T12 tube is 1 and a half inches in diameter, as it’s 12/8ths of an inch,
and the now more standard T8 is one inch in diameter.
But this thing is a T9.
Nine eighths of an inch.
Not sure why that’s a thing, but apparently it’s a standard size for circline tubes.
Whatever.
I’m truly sorry if this is standard convention for the rest of the world because it’s ridiculous.
So, now that I’ve got a not-terrible tube installed, how does it look?
MUCH better.
It’s a little cooler than I’d like at 3000K, but at least colors look at least somewhat
correct.
I think I’ll leave this thing in one of my lamps here, as it is plenty bright and
a neat novelty every time you switch it on.
One thing I can’t help but wonder is what will happen when the starter fails.
It doesn’t seem like you’re meant to replace it, and truthfully I don’t know if this
center bit even comes apart, but I imagine it will last for a very long time.
In fact the box suggests the adapter should last 20 years.
If for some reason it won’t start a tube anymore, I’ll hack this open and see if
it’s rocking a standard glow starter plug thing or what.
Though you can see the starter glow at the bottom of the adapter, so we know for sure
it at least has the guts of a standard neon starter plug inside.
One interesting note is that because the tube is far away from the center of the adapter,
in lamps that will accommodate it, it produces far more light downward than even an ordinary
incandescent.
This can be useful for lamps such as desk lamps, as it will illuminate the work surface
quite well.
Thanks for watching, and thank you especially to supporters on Patreon!
You can support this channel with a totally voluntary contribution to help keep these
videos coming.
And with that, I’ll see you next time.