1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,213 The compact fluorescent lamp is, essentially,   2 00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:04,704 no more. 3 00:00:04,704 --> 00:00:06,147 We’ve moved on. 4 00:00:06,147 --> 00:00:08,650 In our search for  more efficient sources of lighting, 5 00:00:08,650 --> 00:00:11,727 we’ve gone full-steam-ahead towards the glowing computer chips 6 00:00:11,727 --> 00:00:13,522 we call LEDs. 7 00:00:13,522 --> 00:00:16,213 I’m borrowing "glowing computer chips," by the way, 8 00:00:16,213 --> 00:00:18,751 from a vehemently anti-LED commenter 9 00:00:18,751 --> 00:00:21,473 who thought that was some sort of a derogatory quip, 10 00:00:21,473 --> 00:00:23,257 but honestly I think it’s awesome! 11 00:00:23,257 --> 00:00:24,650 Glowing computer chips? 12 00:00:24,650 --> 00:00:25,627 Yes, please! 13 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:28,102 Now, I’m not about to go and make a video about 14 00:00:28,102 --> 00:00:31,689 “The Slightly Antique Light Bulb that’s Better than Yours” 15 00:00:31,689 --> 00:00:35,024 because today we are in an objectively  better place. 16 00:00:35,024 --> 00:00:38,889 I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that the CFL was a superior light source 17 00:00:38,889 --> 00:00:42,292 to honestly any LED bulb you can find today. 18 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:46,507 Well, OK, perhaps better than the very dubiously-made 19 00:00:46,507 --> 00:00:49,555 LED bulbs that folks like Big Clive find on eBay, 20 00:00:49,555 --> 00:00:51,680 at least from shock hazards and 21 00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:54,171 prone-to-burning-your-house-down perspectives. 22 00:00:54,171 --> 00:00:59,618 But while these were flawed, problematic, and aesthetically… 23 00:00:59,618 --> 00:01:03,773 suboptimal, in hindsight I think they got an unfairly bad rap. 24 00:01:03,773 --> 00:01:06,240 And in this video, I’d like to explain why. 25 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,880 Let’s begin with why these were  a big deal technologically.   26 00:01:10,880 --> 00:01:13,830 The reason fluorescent lighting was a thing  in the first place 27 00:01:13,830 --> 00:01:18,371 is that the technology produces much more light per unit of electrical energy 28 00:01:18,371 --> 00:01:20,907 than is possible with incandescent bulbs. 29 00:01:20,907 --> 00:01:25,424 Fluorescent tubes also had a much longer life than  the typical incandescent lamp. 30 00:01:25,424 --> 00:01:29,098 The efficiency and long life made fluorescent lights more economical, 31 00:01:29,098 --> 00:01:32,122 so in applications like office buildings, store locations, 32 00:01:32,122 --> 00:01:36,185 and other places where a lot of light  was needed for a long period of time, 33 00:01:36,185 --> 00:01:38,624 fluorescent lighting made perfect sense. 34 00:01:38,624 --> 00:01:42,295 But for many years, the form factor was… 35 00:01:42,295 --> 00:01:43,760 rather commercial. 36 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:46,960 Long fluorescent tubes like these 37 00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:49,335 were the de facto standard for many decades. 38 00:01:49,335 --> 00:01:55,143 Sometimes we’d get a little clever and bend them into a  U-shape or maybe even a circle, 39 00:01:55,143 --> 00:01:56,417 but that was it. 40 00:01:56,417 --> 00:02:00,470 Now, these tubes are filled with a low pressure mixture  of various gases 41 00:02:00,470 --> 00:02:02,484 and a tiny bit of mercury. 42 00:02:02,484 --> 00:02:05,314 When an arc discharge is produced along their length, 43 00:02:05,314 --> 00:02:08,528 the mercury vapor emits a lot of ultraviolet light. 44 00:02:08,528 --> 00:02:11,942 A mixture of phosphors that coat the inside surface  of the glass 45 00:02:11,942 --> 00:02:16,648 then convert this largely invisible UV discharge into visible light that we can see, 46 00:02:16,648 --> 00:02:20,088 making the mercury discharge useful for our eyes. 47 00:02:20,088 --> 00:02:25,333 Additionally, the glass itself blocks nearly all of the harmful UV wavelengths. 48 00:02:25,333 --> 00:02:29,914 It takes special quartz glass to produce  UV-C germicidal lamps. 49 00:02:29,914 --> 00:02:35,233 Nevertheless many people wrongly assumed that ordinary  fluorescent lighting produced harmful UV. 50 00:02:35,760 --> 00:02:39,711 It didn’t, at least not in any remotely meaningful  amounts. 51 00:02:39,711 --> 00:02:42,995 This is a bit of a tangent, but the clearest evidence of this 52 00:02:42,995 --> 00:02:48,695 is that the plastic lenses of fluorescent ceiling fixtures generally didn’t yellow with time, 53 00:02:48,695 --> 00:02:54,274 which you’d expect them to and rather quickly if the tubes were producing ultraviolet light. 54 00:02:54,274 --> 00:02:57,042 UV is not kind to plastics. 55 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:02,217 Anyway, you also need a ballast and starter circuit to drive these tubes.   56 00:03:02,640 --> 00:03:05,256 First, an arc discharge has to be established - 57 00:03:05,256 --> 00:03:09,593 after all, this is a long tube and getting electricity through plasma 58 00:03:09,593 --> 00:03:13,039 from this end to that end takes a bit of effort. 59 00:03:13,039 --> 00:03:16,001 There are many different ways to do this which aren’t  important right now, 60 00:03:16,001 --> 00:03:18,673 but once it’s struck you have a new problem. 61 00:03:18,673 --> 00:03:24,103 Being a discharge lamp, you need a  current-limiting device or else it will explode. 62 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:29,840 OK, well maybe not explode, but discharge lamps  have negative electrical resistance 63 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:34,833 and without a current limiting ballast they would rapidly enter a  sort of runaway condition 64 00:03:34,833 --> 00:03:36,667 and cause problems. 65 00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:41,743 So, with any given fluorescent fixture, you’ll  have a ballast and starter of some sort 66 00:03:41,743 --> 00:03:44,220 driving some number of large tubes. 67 00:03:44,220 --> 00:03:47,635 As a result, fluorescent fixtures tended to be… 68 00:03:47,635 --> 00:03:48,383 large. 69 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:52,069 This is a basic shop light and as you can see it’s lar- 70 00:03:52,069 --> 00:03:52,856 long. 71 00:03:52,856 --> 00:03:54,781 Four feet to be precise. 72 00:03:54,781 --> 00:03:59,384 Shorter tubes were available, and eventually you also had  fun things like the circline tubes 73 00:03:59,384 --> 00:04:05,015 but in general fluorescent lighting was limited to overhead  applications where space wasn’t at a premium. 74 00:04:05,015 --> 00:04:06,694 So… shop lights. 75 00:04:06,694 --> 00:04:07,628 Troffer lights. 76 00:04:07,628 --> 00:04:09,137 Surface-mounted light strips. 77 00:04:09,137 --> 00:04:10,224 Et cetera. 78 00:04:10,224 --> 00:04:13,981 Applications that, for the most part, weren’t found in the home. 79 00:04:13,981 --> 00:04:17,337 And if they were, it wasn’t usually in a formal space. 80 00:04:17,840 --> 00:04:21,365 But wouldn’t it be great if we could have  the benefits of fluorescent light - 81 00:04:21,365 --> 00:04:23,936 that being longer life and lower energy use - 82 00:04:23,936 --> 00:04:25,510 in more places? 83 00:04:25,510 --> 00:04:26,930 Heck yes it would. 84 00:04:26,930 --> 00:04:29,162 But how to do that? 85 00:04:29,162 --> 00:04:33,607 Well, you could build this thing which I made a  video on quite a while ago, 86 00:04:33,607 --> 00:04:37,316 but that’s definitely not the most practical way to go about it. 87 00:04:37,316 --> 00:04:42,220 What we really needed was some sort of self-contained fluorescent lamp 88 00:04:42,220 --> 00:04:46,672 with an integrated ballast that is about the same size as an incandescent bulb, 89 00:04:46,672 --> 00:04:48,884 and with hopefully the same brightness. 90 00:04:48,884 --> 00:04:51,511 And so, these things were born. 91 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:56,108 This now iconic curly-q design was  the final landing spot 92 00:04:56,108 --> 00:04:58,348 after a bunch of different experiments. 93 00:04:58,348 --> 00:05:02,774 See, the ultimate limitation to how much light you can get out of a fluorescent tube 94 00:05:02,774 --> 00:05:04,856 is its surface area. 95 00:05:04,856 --> 00:05:07,036 With these long fellas 96 00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:09,065 that isn’t much of an issue, 97 00:05:09,065 --> 00:05:12,374 but if you want to get the same amount of light as an incandescent bulb 98 00:05:12,374 --> 00:05:15,604 in the same amount of space using a fluorescent tube, 99 00:05:15,604 --> 00:05:17,591 it takes some twisted thinking. 100 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:21,920 This 60 watt equivalent lamp has a tube which  begins here, 101 00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:23,768 travels in a helix to the top, 102 00:05:23,768 --> 00:05:26,800 then doubles back down the other side where it ends here. 103 00:05:27,520 --> 00:05:33,280 That allows it to occupy a volume smaller than  a cube 2 inches or 5 centimeters on each side   104 00:05:33,280 --> 00:05:37,840 while the tube itself is roughly 14  inches or 35 centimeters in length.   105 00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:42,578 This alone is a huge achievement in manufacturing  and design. 106 00:05:42,578 --> 00:05:44,824 This is glass, mind you. 107 00:05:44,824 --> 00:05:50,007 We needed a way to mass-produce hollow glass tubes formed  into this intricate shape, 108 00:05:50,007 --> 00:05:51,176 and we did it! 109 00:05:51,280 --> 00:05:53,668 But that wasn’t the only innovation, here. 110 00:05:53,668 --> 00:05:58,816 The tube is driven at a higher intensity than an ordinary tube like this one. 111 00:05:58,816 --> 00:06:02,564 That allows its phosphors to glow more much brightly. 112 00:06:02,564 --> 00:06:06,536 There seems to be an inverse relationship between the diameter of the glass 113 00:06:06,536 --> 00:06:08,913 and how intense the discharge is. 114 00:06:08,913 --> 00:06:12,230 You see this as we moved from the old T12 tubes down to 115 00:06:12,230 --> 00:06:14,913 T8 tubes and eventually T5 tubes. 116 00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:19,440 I’m not exactly sure why that is, hopefully  one of you will let us know down below.   117 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:22,237 But there’s also one more trick up its sleeve. 118 00:06:22,237 --> 00:06:24,187 Its electronic ballast. 119 00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:28,800 Fluorescent lamps operate on the same  AC power that everything else does.   120 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:33,680 Because the voltage crosses the zero  point 100 or 120 times per second,   121 00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:39,220 lamps run on traditional magnetic ballasts are  actually pulsing at that frequency. 122 00:06:39,220 --> 00:06:42,389 This periodic dark time limits their output, 123 00:06:42,389 --> 00:06:48,489 but electronic ballasts get around this by first converting the incoming AC power to DC 124 00:06:48,489 --> 00:06:52,160 and then driving the actual tube at very high frequency AC. 125 00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:58,400 The frequency is so high that the phosphors  don’t have time to decay between pulses,   126 00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:02,974 and the effect is the lamp is constantly lit and does not pulse. 127 00:07:02,974 --> 00:07:05,331 This not only boosts it output further, 128 00:07:05,331 --> 00:07:09,724 but also eliminated the potential for eyestrain issues that old-style fluorescent lights 129 00:07:09,724 --> 00:07:11,869 could cause in some individuals. 130 00:07:11,869 --> 00:07:14,320 I actually made a video about that quite a while ago now. 131 00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:17,503 So. These were pretty neat little things. 132 00:07:17,503 --> 00:07:20,587 I keep using the past tense but you can still buy them, 133 00:07:20,587 --> 00:07:23,560 they’re just very much out of fashion  at this point. 134 00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:24,960 But they were a big deal. 135 00:07:25,520 --> 00:07:28,882 Bringing the advantages of fluorescent  light to more places was, 136 00:07:28,882 --> 00:07:31,662 I would argue, a great thing. 137 00:07:31,662 --> 00:07:35,156 However, they weren’t received with unanimous praise. 138 00:07:35,156 --> 00:07:38,468 And deservedly so, we’ll discuss that shortly. 139 00:07:38,468 --> 00:07:42,000 At the same time, though, a lot of the hatred for these things just… 140 00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:44,126 didn’t make sense. 141 00:07:44,126 --> 00:07:46,298 At least, not holistically. 142 00:07:46,298 --> 00:07:48,370 The biggest problem with these things? 143 00:07:48,370 --> 00:07:49,830 They’re nuanced. 144 00:07:49,830 --> 00:07:53,398 And we know how easily the  general public engages with nuance. 145 00:07:54,080 --> 00:07:58,240 See, I have a pet theory that a large  percentage of the aversion to CFLs   146 00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:04,240 came from people who really just… didn’t  know that much about lighting in general.   147 00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:08,769 I would argue that the CFL was really the first  mainstream way 148 00:08:08,769 --> 00:08:12,934 to get non-incandescent color temperatures in the home. 149 00:08:12,934 --> 00:08:16,699 Sure, fluorescent tubes weren’t unheard of in the domestic environment. 150 00:08:16,699 --> 00:08:19,581 They found their place in garages and shop  spaces, 151 00:08:19,581 --> 00:08:25,189 sometimes kitchens had them and linear over-the-mirror sort of deals in bathrooms were kinda common. 152 00:08:25,189 --> 00:08:32,688 But prior to the CFL, those sorts of odd applications defined what “fluorescent” light was. 153 00:08:32,688 --> 00:08:38,720 Fluorescent light was that cooler, gray-blue light you saw at the  office or in the store or maybe the basement. 154 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:41,376 And see, here’s where my theory comes in, 155 00:08:41,376 --> 00:08:44,080 if that was how you imagined fluorescent light, 156 00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:47,178 maybe you weren't even aware of the CFLs 157 00:08:47,178 --> 00:08:52,430 like this that mimicked the light from an incandescent bulb fairly well. 158 00:08:52,430 --> 00:08:56,496 Yes, I know there is and can even see the difference, 159 00:08:56,496 --> 00:08:59,735 but I would put money on there being lots of  folks out there 160 00:08:59,735 --> 00:09:02,321 who wouldn’t know this was a fluorescent light source 161 00:09:02,321 --> 00:09:04,868 unless they could see the bulb itself. 162 00:09:04,868 --> 00:09:06,729 Their imagination is that 163 00:09:06,729 --> 00:09:13,360 *this* is fluorescent, and when the very idea of color  temperature is a new concept to a lot of people, 164 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:17,218 I’d bet there was a lot of confusion that led to  undeserved 165 00:09:17,218 --> 00:09:20,694 and sometimes misplaced hatred of these little fellas. 166 00:09:20,694 --> 00:09:25,486 No matter how hard store displays  worked to show how warm the light actually could be. 167 00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:29,884 Again, this isn’t meant to be a love letter to the CFL. 168 00:09:29,884 --> 00:09:32,891 They were bad in a fair number of ways. 169 00:09:32,891 --> 00:09:38,341 But even I, a really picky person when it  comes to quality of light and color temperature, 170 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:41,448 don’t have a problem with most CFLs. 171 00:09:41,448 --> 00:09:44,053 Some were better than others, yeah, but at their peak 172 00:09:44,053 --> 00:09:47,644 a nice 2700K CFL in a table lamp like this? 173 00:09:47,644 --> 00:09:48,987 No problem. 174 00:09:48,987 --> 00:09:54,391 About the worst thing I ever notice is a slightly pink, occasionally green cast to the light, 175 00:09:54,391 --> 00:09:58,433 but it’s really only noticeable when you have another light to compare it to - 176 00:09:58,433 --> 00:10:00,800 if an entire room is lit with the same CFLs, 177 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:05,360 my eyes would acclimate to it and I just  couldn’t see that color cast anymore. 178 00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:08,920 Of course, color rendering index isn’t fantastic. 179 00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:12,878 It’s really expensive to develop near-perfect phosphor formulations 180 00:10:12,878 --> 00:10:16,499 so nearly all lamps were good but not great. 181 00:10:16,499 --> 00:10:19,888 But I don’t think I’ve ever run across a warm white CFL 182 00:10:19,888 --> 00:10:24,292 that messed with colors to the point that I could notice without being hypercritical. 183 00:10:24,292 --> 00:10:30,120 I still have some CFLs kicking around without any intention to replace them until they fail. 184 00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:33,030 In many applications their limitations just don’t matter 185 00:10:33,030 --> 00:10:35,920 so I’m not about to bother upgrading them needlessly. 186 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:39,627 But, and this was in my opinion their  Achilles heel, 187 00:10:39,627 --> 00:10:43,947 the suitableness of CFLs was very situational. 188 00:10:43,947 --> 00:10:48,155 They wanted to be and were sold as general purpose light bulbs 189 00:10:48,155 --> 00:10:51,268 but couldn’t actually be used as such. 190 00:10:51,268 --> 00:10:54,902 Some fixtures were absolutely unfit for CFLs, 191 00:10:54,902 --> 00:10:58,235 despite the fact that CFLs could fit inside them. 192 00:10:58,235 --> 00:11:01,398 Similarly, some uses for them were impractical, 193 00:11:01,398 --> 00:11:03,603 and others would shorten their life considerably 194 00:11:03,603 --> 00:11:06,682 leading many folks to believe that they didn’t last as long 195 00:11:06,682 --> 00:11:10,311 as the incandescent lights they were supposed to outlive tenfold. 196 00:11:10,311 --> 00:11:12,660 And yeah, often they didn’t! 197 00:11:12,660 --> 00:11:16,482 But in most cases that wasn’t really their fault. 198 00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:19,331 Let’s start with those untimely deaths. 199 00:11:19,331 --> 00:11:22,930 Here’s a fixture that seems perfectly appropriate for CFLs. 200 00:11:22,930 --> 00:11:25,833 Plenty of clearance for the lamps, not a problem. 201 00:11:25,833 --> 00:11:28,142 Except yes a problem! 202 00:11:28,142 --> 00:11:30,519 This fixture is enclosed. 203 00:11:30,519 --> 00:11:35,440 CFLs didn’t get anywhere near as hot as  the incandescent bulbs they replaced, 204 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:37,344 but they still got hot. 205 00:11:37,344 --> 00:11:39,598 Trap one of ‘em, or worse multiple, 206 00:11:39,598 --> 00:11:42,880 inside a glass bowl with no airflow at all 207 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:45,741 and you’ve made a torture chamber for them. 208 00:11:45,741 --> 00:11:50,532 The electronic components in their integrated ballasts are only rated to a certain temperature, 209 00:11:50,532 --> 00:11:53,360 which can easily be exceeded in fixtures like these. 210 00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:58,544 And so, premature lamp failure was almost a  given in enclosed fixtures, 211 00:11:58,544 --> 00:12:04,800 and to be fair the packaging for these usually warned you that  they weren’t suitable in enclosed fixtures   212 00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:06,881 (but who reads the packaging?). 213 00:12:06,881 --> 00:12:10,279 This is actually still something of a problem with LED bulbs, 214 00:12:10,279 --> 00:12:16,175 but many of them on the market today have  electronics and temp sensors designed to limit their output and prevent overheating 215 00:12:16,175 --> 00:12:17,760 which allows them to be used without worry. 216 00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:22,160 But even simple orientation  could be a problem with CFLs.   217 00:12:22,160 --> 00:12:26,983 If a fixture had its socket at the top and thus the bulb was hanging, 218 00:12:26,983 --> 00:12:31,317 a CFL would find itself with its ballast above the tube. 219 00:12:31,317 --> 00:12:35,120 The tube is the part that gets hottest, and since warm air rises, 220 00:12:35,680 --> 00:12:38,384 well the ballast gets pretty hot. 221 00:12:38,384 --> 00:12:43,341 This wasn’t always a problem - there could be enough airflow depending on the fixture's design. 222 00:12:43,341 --> 00:12:45,571 But often enough it was. 223 00:12:45,571 --> 00:12:47,436 More premature failures. 224 00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:49,736 Another thing that would kill them quickly? 225 00:12:49,736 --> 00:12:51,805 Frequent short use. 226 00:12:51,805 --> 00:12:56,385 Now, this problem didn’t necessarily need to be a problem. 227 00:12:56,385 --> 00:12:59,398 But, because we humans are impatient fickle things, 228 00:12:59,398 --> 00:13:03,017 we didn’t like bulbs that behaved like this one. 229 00:13:03,017 --> 00:13:06,750 A delay between switch-on and light is certainly annoying, 230 00:13:06,750 --> 00:13:11,209 but this is much easier on the electrodes at  the ends of the tube. 231 00:13:11,209 --> 00:13:15,252 This programming allows thermionic emissions from the filaments at the ends 232 00:13:15,252 --> 00:13:16,749 to help strike the arc. 233 00:13:16,749 --> 00:13:18,463 It’s the easiest way to do that, 234 00:13:18,463 --> 00:13:21,122 and the most gentle on the electrodes. 235 00:13:21,122 --> 00:13:24,746 This particular bulb spent many years in a fixture on a timer 236 00:13:24,746 --> 00:13:28,740 and has undoubtedly racked up many  thousands of hours, 237 00:13:28,740 --> 00:13:30,193 yet it still functions. 238 00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:33,285 But to the average person this was just annoying 239 00:13:33,285 --> 00:13:35,760 so instant-start ballasts became the norm. 240 00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:40,877 These essentially just blast a high-voltage  charge right through the tube. 241 00:13:40,877 --> 00:13:43,597 And this does make for a delay-free start, 242 00:13:43,597 --> 00:13:46,988 but it comes at the expense of harming the electrodes. 243 00:13:46,988 --> 00:13:49,811 Each start wears them down a tiny bit, 244 00:13:49,811 --> 00:13:53,333 and while a long operating session may help  restore them, 245 00:13:53,333 --> 00:13:58,490 when used in places like a closet or bathroom where the light is only on for a few minutes at a time, 246 00:13:58,490 --> 00:14:01,384 that opportunity simply doesn't exist. 247 00:14:01,384 --> 00:14:04,544 The great irony here was that the instant start ballasts 248 00:14:04,544 --> 00:14:08,398 made them seem more practical for these short-use applications, 249 00:14:08,398 --> 00:14:11,280 but in actuality it made them much worse. 250 00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:15,760 The CFL was really best suited for general  living space illumination 251 00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:18,961 that would be left on for long periods of time. 252 00:14:18,961 --> 00:14:22,994 But of course, much of that came from ceiling light fixtures like these 253 00:14:22,994 --> 00:14:26,176 which would harm the bulbs but in a different way. 254 00:14:26,176 --> 00:14:29,189 Where they could really shine were in table and floor lamps, 255 00:14:29,189 --> 00:14:32,835 a lot of outdoor fixtures like  these carriage things would do OK also… 256 00:14:33,124 --> 00:14:38,240 Really, just any fixture where it wasn’t upside  down and had decent airflow would do alright. 257 00:14:38,960 --> 00:14:41,186 But what about recessed cans? 258 00:14:41,186 --> 00:14:43,985 Those are always hanging bulbs upside down. 259 00:14:43,985 --> 00:14:47,042 Well, this wasn’t the only style of CFL. 260 00:14:47,042 --> 00:14:52,774 In their heyday, we were brute-forcing  CFL tech into all sorts of weird and interesting places, 261 00:14:52,774 --> 00:14:55,435 like these imitation flood lamps 262 00:14:55,435 --> 00:14:58,542 (some were even made to look like actual PAR lamps) 263 00:14:58,542 --> 00:15:00,903 or, my particular favorite, 264 00:15:00,903 --> 00:15:04,417 these teeny tiny things that IKEA sold at one point 265 00:15:04,417 --> 00:15:08,590 (with an intermediate base to be just  that extra bit of annoying) 266 00:15:08,590 --> 00:15:12,491 Still, even in suitable applications where they wouldn’t  overheat and die, 267 00:15:12,491 --> 00:15:14,720 CFLs still had drawbacks. 268 00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:19,166 A big, unsolvable issue was that when you  first turned them on, 269 00:15:19,166 --> 00:15:22,036 they hadn’t yet gotten their Fulbright scholarship. 270 00:15:22,036 --> 00:15:24,753 Fluorescent lamps take time to warm up 271 00:15:24,753 --> 00:15:28,095 as not all the mercury is a vapor when they’re cold. 272 00:15:28,095 --> 00:15:31,781 For general purpose lamps like these at room temperatures, 273 00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:34,156 this wasn’t a huge deal. 274 00:15:34,156 --> 00:15:37,433 They’d be about half their normal brightness when cold, 275 00:15:37,433 --> 00:15:41,173 certainly not at their best but not unusable by any means either. 276 00:15:41,173 --> 00:15:45,334 And usually within just a minute or so, they’d be as bright as they’d get. 277 00:15:45,334 --> 00:15:50,274 But, for whatever reason, most of the specialty bulbs that came about over the years 278 00:15:50,274 --> 00:15:53,213 would start out with next-to-useless brightness. 279 00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:56,676 Just take a look at this little “flood” thing. 280 00:15:56,676 --> 00:15:59,925 This is at room temperature but hasn’t been started in a while. 281 00:15:59,925 --> 00:16:01,561 Turn it on 282 00:16:01,561 --> 00:16:03,534 and that’s barely anything. 283 00:16:03,534 --> 00:16:08,437 In fact you can see the pink tinge brought about by the bit of neon in there used as a starter gas. 284 00:16:08,437 --> 00:16:12,440 Sometimes this would be purple suggesting argon was the starter gas. 285 00:16:12,440 --> 00:16:17,302 Anyway, after a while it is nice and bright, but this is annoying. 286 00:16:17,302 --> 00:16:22,749 In my experience, nearly every non-standard CFL  behaved just like this 287 00:16:22,749 --> 00:16:25,911 be it flood. Globe. A19 mimics. 288 00:16:25,911 --> 00:16:27,697 These weird little things. 289 00:16:27,697 --> 00:16:31,377 Really anything that wasn’t the standard exposed curly q. 290 00:16:31,377 --> 00:16:36,557 I’m really curious about why cold starts seemed  to be much worse in these specialty bulbs, 291 00:16:36,557 --> 00:16:41,749 especially since these floods, for example, are  really just a standard lamp with a special shade. 292 00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:48,391 I have no idea why these should have darker starts  than these ordinary lamps yet they do. 293 00:16:48,391 --> 00:16:55,200 Only thing I can think of is that having the tube enclosed led to  higher operating temps thanks to a lack of airflow 294 00:16:55,200 --> 00:17:00,642 which required different vapor pressure characteristics  which ultimately meant weak, slow starts. 295 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:06,077 And then, regardless of type, using CFLs  outdoors was… 296 00:17:06,077 --> 00:17:07,440 interesting. 297 00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:14,487 In cold temperatures, they’d be *very* dim at startup and could take several minutes to reach full brightness. 298 00:17:14,487 --> 00:17:17,020 For something like a porch light that’ll be  on all night, 299 00:17:17,020 --> 00:17:20,851 well that’s not too much of a problem but when it gets *really* cold, 300 00:17:20,851 --> 00:17:24,234 well they start to lose brightness. 301 00:17:24,234 --> 00:17:27,763 They can’t actually reach their operating temperature when it's that cold, 302 00:17:27,763 --> 00:17:32,692 and on cold enough days they may not even be able to start at all. 303 00:17:32,692 --> 00:17:34,239 Not ideal. 304 00:17:34,239 --> 00:17:38,455 And, as you can imagine, their proneness to death by overheating 305 00:17:38,455 --> 00:17:42,720 meant that in hot climates they’d be even  more at risk depending on the situation. 306 00:17:43,360 --> 00:17:46,130 Oh, and of course there’s the elephant in  the room. 307 00:17:46,130 --> 00:17:47,419 Mercury. 308 00:17:47,419 --> 00:17:49,517 It’s not great stuff! 309 00:17:49,517 --> 00:17:53,027 Now, in some senses this problem was overblown. 310 00:17:53,027 --> 00:17:57,090 The amount of mercury that’s actually in these is miniscule, 311 00:17:57,090 --> 00:18:00,380 and it’s not like if you broke one  you’d need to exit the room in a panic 312 00:18:00,380 --> 00:18:04,492 and call a HAZMAT team else you’ll wake up the next day  with an extra toe. 313 00:18:04,492 --> 00:18:08,142 Accidental breakage was not a four-alarm fire kind of event. 314 00:18:08,142 --> 00:18:12,840 But at scale, disposing of these in landfills is not good. 315 00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:16,810 They should be recycled, and unfortunately efforts to do this 316 00:18:16,810 --> 00:18:20,160 (particularly in the US it seems) were pretty sloppy. 317 00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:24,565 Some stores kept receptacles for you to return  dead bulbs, 318 00:18:24,565 --> 00:18:26,889 IKEA was particularly good at this, 319 00:18:26,889 --> 00:18:31,200 but plenty of places left you in the dark on how  to deal with a bulb that left you in the dark. 320 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:35,244 You can never get 100% capture with anything, 321 00:18:35,244 --> 00:18:39,328 and while estimates for how many ended up being recycled are all over the place, 322 00:18:39,328 --> 00:18:42,140 in the best case it’s quite bleak. 323 00:18:42,140 --> 00:18:45,805 The majority of these were disposed of improperly. 324 00:18:45,805 --> 00:18:47,270 Yay. 325 00:18:47,270 --> 00:18:50,106 There are only two ways to fix that problem: 326 00:18:50,106 --> 00:18:53,536 make it easier or perhaps incentivize recycling them 327 00:18:53,536 --> 00:18:56,137 (shame on policymakers for not getting that together) 328 00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,380 or… eliminate them entirely. 329 00:18:59,380 --> 00:19:01,440 And luckily that’s pretty much where we’re at. 330 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:07,101 LED bulbs are still e-waste, to be clear, but they don’t  have mercury in them 331 00:19:07,101 --> 00:19:08,926 and that’s a huge plus. 332 00:19:09,120 --> 00:19:14,225 In general, the LED bulb fixed all the problems that CFLs had 333 00:19:14,225 --> 00:19:17,465 (except maybe for RF interference problems) 334 00:19:17,861 --> 00:19:20,911 One particular thing that LEDs brought us that 335 00:19:20,911 --> 00:19:25,382 really just never got figured out with CFLs was dimming. 336 00:19:25,382 --> 00:19:31,846 Sure, dimmable CFLs did exist but in my experience they always sucked. 337 00:19:31,846 --> 00:19:33,939 I don't know what was so hard about that - 338 00:19:33,939 --> 00:19:38,241 at my old job we had TONS of ceiling fixtures in the lobby that had 339 00:19:38,241 --> 00:19:41,040 fixed ballasts and replaceable lamps like these, 340 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:44,002 and they handled dimming just fine. 341 00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:49,200 I guess it was just too expensive to figure out  how to do that in lamp-integrated ballasts. 342 00:19:49,840 --> 00:19:52,528 Now, dimmable LEDs are everywhere, 343 00:19:52,528 --> 00:19:56,001 and they come in all sorts of great styles with various features. 344 00:19:56,001 --> 00:19:59,085 Some of them are even… smart. 345 00:19:59,085 --> 00:20:01,411 I think they know algebra. 346 00:20:01,411 --> 00:20:05,694 We’ve gotten good at designing LED lamps to dissipate the heat they generate well, 347 00:20:05,694 --> 00:20:08,997 and to keep themselves in check when that’s not possible. 348 00:20:08,997 --> 00:20:11,860 Color rendering these days  is generally much better, 349 00:20:11,860 --> 00:20:13,137 even in basic lamps, 350 00:20:13,137 --> 00:20:16,243 and can be truly excellent in premium products. 351 00:20:16,243 --> 00:20:19,200 We are definitely in a better place today. 352 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:20,642 But, these things? 353 00:20:20,915 --> 00:20:22,543 They didn’t suck. 354 00:20:22,543 --> 00:20:23,857 They were important. 355 00:20:23,857 --> 00:20:28,064 Miniaturizing fluorescent lights into these tiny things was a feat of its own, 356 00:20:28,064 --> 00:20:29,760 and I appreciate it greatly. 357 00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,046 CFLs also finally spurred development 358 00:20:33,046 --> 00:20:36,181 of warm white phosphor formulations that weren’t terrible. 359 00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:39,582 I mean, this circline tube is just horrid! 360 00:20:39,582 --> 00:20:43,256 That is not a warm and pleasant glow, GE. 361 00:20:43,256 --> 00:20:44,686 It’s sickly. 362 00:20:45,040 --> 00:20:48,423 These were just… misunderstood. 363 00:20:48,423 --> 00:20:52,450 I bet many of you can think back to a few of these that just kept on truckin' 364 00:20:52,450 --> 00:20:55,572 in fact maybe you’re like me and still have some going strong. 365 00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:58,985 When they were used in an appropriate application, 366 00:20:58,985 --> 00:21:00,834 they really weren’t half bad. 367 00:21:00,834 --> 00:21:06,163 If anything is to blame for their reputation, I think it’s that  their abilities were oversold. 368 00:21:06,163 --> 00:21:09,869 A lot of them died too young simply because of how they were used, 369 00:21:09,869 --> 00:21:12,399 and it’s not their user’s fault! 370 00:21:12,399 --> 00:21:14,781 Manufacturers just want to sell you light bulbs, 371 00:21:14,781 --> 00:21:17,751 so they’re not likely to help you figure out those details. 372 00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:20,772 And again, and I know I’ve said this like a  million times, 373 00:21:20,772 --> 00:21:22,720 it’s not like I miss these. 374 00:21:23,360 --> 00:21:27,111 Even in the best of cases, they would still lose output as  they age 375 00:21:27,111 --> 00:21:29,068 which often lead to color shifting. 376 00:21:29,068 --> 00:21:32,659 They still take time to warm up, particularly when they're cold. 377 00:21:32,659 --> 00:21:36,532 Dimmability is still rare and awful when it is there. 378 00:21:36,532 --> 00:21:40,171 But I don’t look back on these with pure hatred. 379 00:21:40,171 --> 00:21:44,400 In fact, I’m quite fond of what they managed to accomplish. 380 00:21:44,995 --> 00:21:47,549 The end. 381 00:21:48,391 --> 00:21:50,971 ♫ underappreciatedly smooth jazz ♫ 382 00:21:51,937 --> 00:21:56,507 I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that  the CFL was a superior ligh… 383 00:21:56,507 --> 00:21:57,494 darnit! 384 00:21:57,494 --> 00:21:59,703 I missed a pause. 385 00:21:59,703 --> 00:22:01,506 Goin’ REAL great! 386 00:22:01,506 --> 00:22:04,966 ...to produce UV-C germicidal lambs. Neverth - 387 00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:07,924 Lamps. Not lambs. 388 00:22:07,924 --> 00:22:10,362 Germicidal lambs? 389 00:22:10,362 --> 00:22:11,476 What are those? 390 00:22:11,476 --> 00:22:14,311 First, and arc discharge ha- [tube hits table and clanks] 391 00:22:18,127 --> 00:22:20,901 Don’t mind me, just thinking about how I’m gonna  put this down. 392 00:22:20,901 --> 00:22:21,538 Anywa… 393 00:22:21,538 --> 00:22:25,159 Anyway, you al…. [mumbling] nah I don’t wanna be too dismissive of myself. 394 00:22:25,159 --> 00:22:29,851 First, an arc discharge has to be established [tube clanks on table again] after… dang  [laughter] 395 00:22:29,851 --> 00:22:31,760 how many times will I record this line? 396 00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:39,200 From this end to that end takes a bit of  effort. There are many… [grumbling under breath] 397 00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,400 There are many different ways to do  this which aren’t important right now,   398 00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,042 but I missed a word so I have to restart. 399 00:22:45,042 --> 00:22:48,178 Anyway, you also need a ballast and starter [lamp clanks]... 400 00:22:48,178 --> 00:22:49,557 Anyway, you also need - 401 00:22:49,557 --> 00:22:54,798 Anyway, you also need a ballast and starter circuit to drive [lamp clanks]... 402 00:22:54,798 --> 00:22:57,054 this is REALLY annoying. 403 00:22:57,054 --> 00:23:01,012 With these long fellas, that wasn’t much of an issue [tube clanks repeatedly] but if you want to get... 404 00:23:01,012 --> 00:23:03,846 Stop making so much noise! 405 00:23:05,630 --> 00:23:08,792 Did you enjoy this light content? 406 00:23:08,792 --> 00:23:11,197 I know I did. 407 00:23:11,197 --> 00:23:14,988 It got my mind swirling with all sorts of twisted ideas. 408 00:23:14,988 --> 00:23:17,678 OK that sounds bad. 409 00:23:17,678 --> 00:23:20,866 Yikes.