Energy saving light bulbs

I dispose of my Compact Fluorescent(CF) bulbs like it is hazardous waste. There is a hazardous wast disposal/recycling site in my city, Portland, and at my work there is a bin specifically for Fluorescent light tubes. See what you can find in your area.

Its better to play it safe on this one. Soon we will have LED bulbs that will practically last forever.

https://ledcalc.com/

this link will take you to a calculator for constructing LED lamp arrays. You can purchase LED and all the resistors, insulators etc from Goodwill Led Sales on Ebay. They are very helpful cheap and fast delivery. Their phone number is 01793 349349 in the UK at least.

I use LED’s from xmas lights which I salvage from the recycle centre. Ask on Freecycle for any busted sets. The LED’s will be fine. All you will need is a soldering iron which can be 12V, 240V or butane powered, some solder and cable. A battery (3volt) to identify anode from cathode in second hand LED’s and a bit of time.

I have a couple of car lamp LED’s from an ebay site. These are a bit directional and cold white but efficient and fairly cheap. If you are running from mains supply you will need transformers, which need to be DC LED dedicated, but these are readily available at any electrical wholesaler and not particularly expensive.

If you are constructing your own LED lighting, then the addition of some red and some green LEDs will give a better light, but warm white LEDs are available as are superbright.

All flourescent, including CFL should be disposed in hazardous waste through your local recycling centre as they do indeed contain mercury and other chemicals which will be bad if allowed to enter the water table. Mind you my head is full of mercury amalgam so I don’t think I need worry too much about a few CFLs.

I am working with a specialsit group at present on utilising new technology in lighting. There maybe some health concerns over compact fluorescents, especially with cheap units, the bends in the cheap lights when they are formed the internal covering is not as thick as the rest of the glass and they can leak UV in small doses, although these are small, over long periods they could be harmful. However, I have been working and adapting dc lights for the last 8 years, our latest bulkhead light now uses a 2 watt led @ either 12 or 24v. Whilst I hate promoting business’s on forums, if I can help in anyway please get back to me.

If you have access to computer power supplies, they will drive your LEDs. String 3 in series to each 12 volt circuit.

I have been looking for 2 years to locate any studies on the health effect of gas lamps, there were a tonne of examples of the effects (see below). I have no doubt if a serious private or govt study was made it would lead to banning them all and not just filament globes with the excuse that it is energy saving. I have a vested interest in solid state lighting, greater efficiency than LED and this all came about because we, like all, had experienced years of abuse under fluoros. There is not enough public ‘noise’ about mercury contamination, poor colour use in offices with fluoros, poor streetlighting with sodiums and enormous wasted old technology energy. Did you know that if these great CFL’s break in your office or home it is extremely dangerous!! Have you ever been around in an office or school when a fluoro breaks!! Ever been around when someone at school or in a supermarket suffers epilepsy fit and think about fluoros. Ever been around when some poor bugger suffers from migraines after reading under fluoros. Forget about that, if you think sitting in an indoor stadium is safe where they don’t use fluoros, check out http://www.uvlightburns.com I have emails from Kellie and at least she has made an effort to move legislation in her own state. Forget that too, have you heard about house fires started by downlights, factory fires started because the lamp in the overhead lights burst at 1,100degC dripping hot glass. Whilst there are billions of $ to be made from junky unhealthy lamps the facts will always be hidden from population until someone has the gumption and collaborate. These are some of the sites I visited https://www.usyd.edu.au/stuserv/disability/staff_learning.shtml

https://www.mdsupport.org.

https://www.voxpopnet.net/megaphone.html

https://www.benningtonenergy.org/faq.php

https://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?search=Michaele+Wynn-Jones+&sitesearch-radio=guardian&go-guardian=Search

https://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/research/mercury-bulbs.pdf

https://www.fda.gov/cdrh/radhealth/products/urburns.html

https://www.nema.org/gov/ehs/committees/lamps/upload/NEMA%20Recommendations.Jan.%202003.pdf

Even if energy-efficient LED lighting systems still have a few flaws, they are quickly becoming more and more popular and in the near future they will probably be a much better choice than traditional lightbulbs.

One of my clients bemoaned the fact he was unable to find 12V LED lighting only battery operated ones using 3 or 4 dry cells. And he didn’t want to buy a car adaptor costing $60 or more.

Good quality LED lights do have an internal regulator ccircuit to convert the raw 12V DC power so it really isn’t less efficient to use external adaptors instead of dropping resistors that just waste the power. Switch mode supplies typically run at better than 90% efficiency when fully loaded. How much does a dropping resistor waste by comparison. The answer being more! and it produces heat in the process. Not so good in warm climates.

I realized many of the cell phone power adaptors are really switch mode regulators and these often end up in the dumpster when people upgrade to a new cell phone.

What it means is you can take one of these junked car adaptors that charges the 4.5V cell phone battery packs and feed it from your RV raw 12 V and regulates it down to feed LED portable lamps intended for battery operation. It seems most manufacturers make adaptors with incompatible plug/socket connectors so the old never seems to fit the new.