I just did an accidantal experimnt. the room has a light unit with 6 bulbs. Each is 40 Watt. one broke, and I only have those new enirgy bulbs spares.
so I swopped one in. when i dim the dimmer swich it stays briite. the others five all fade right down normaly.
so do i use even less electricty if i put the dimmer right down. if i use all 6 low calory bulbs?
muniacal
If you are using it with a dimmer switch, you need to buy a compact fluorescent that is labeled as dimmable.
Do you use less energy with the dimmer down?
Isn’t the dimmer just a variable resistor which will totally waste all the energy that you’re trying to save?
I don’t know if this is true of all compact fluo bulbs, but when I installed them in my room with my dimmer, after a couple days the dimmer seemed to kill the compact fluo bulb. It was brand new and the same thing happened to two bulbs.
Also, as ntappin noted, a dimmer made for an incandescent bulb will probably very quickly kill a fluorescent bulb due to major differences in their operation.
Ah, okay. Thanks for the link!
I didn’t know flourescents could be dimmable. Do those really exist?
Otherwise, notice how the low-energy bulbs use only a fraction of what the regular ones use. In my house I’m replacing all the old-school ones as they die, with two main exceptions:
The spiral bulbs often don’t fit into the space of the original bulbs. Newer low-energy bulbs are now smaller, so there is less of this problem.
Bathroom vanity lights. I might make the switch someday, but I don’t think they’ll ever look as nice as the spherical vanity bulbs in there now.
Depends on the dimmer design. More advanced dimmers probably use thyristors to chop the waveform. A variable resistor one will probably feel warm to the touch when in dim mode.
As for will less energy be used in total? That is a nice simple experiment for all you high school physicists. Just take care with the mains voltages. And use the non dimmable design bulb. Investigate the light output too.
Nao
am i the only one who had problems reading that?
Don’t worry, thyristors aren’t even covered in A-level physics, you’ll only ever come across them if you read engineering, phyiscs or something along those lines at university.
Are variable output thyristors readily available? I would have thought most dimmers just use a potential divider circuit and thus the same energy is used regardless, just dumped across either R1 or the light bulb and R2.
no im not talking that i had no problems with that im talking grammar
Electronic dimmers are certainly available. Thyristors, triacs etc are PNPN type devices that are good for varying the power obtained from an AC source, as long as you do not need the waveform to remain neatly sinusoidal. Hence can be use for light dimmers, motor control etc.
Your other statement is incorrect though. Adding another resistor into the circuit in series with a filament bulb WILL reduce the total energy used.
Very simply: energy in watts= W=VI . Increase total R and you reduce I (I=V/R). Therefore VI decreases hence less energy (W) is used in total.
Nao
Agreed, I could have been more precise with the “As for…” sentence. In making the criticism though, perhaps you should also have taken more care. I see 7 errors in the quote above. There were two more in your original query.
Nao
Dimmable “flouresent” lamps do exist, but they are pretty expensive and need the right dimmer. Mainly they are used in architectual and decorative lighting schemes.
Yes, and I understand they are the preferred lighting scheme in many bakeries.
Jays