My dining room has a light fixture controlled by a dimmer switch. The switch is just a round knob that I turn to make the light brighter or dimmer.

If I dim the light, am I saving any electricity, or am I just shunting the electricity that no longer goes to the light bulbs to a resistor and turning it into waste heat?

tanstaafl.

You save a bit. Newer electronic dimmers are more efficient.

So long as the dimmer was made in the past 20 years or so, it should have a solid state TRIAC inside, which very efficiently chops the AC waveform off mid-stride, twice each cycle.

It really does save electricity.

Cheers

Remember that an incandescent light gives you 50% light at 80% power, so while you are still saving, you're not saving as much as you might think.

You'd save more by switching to CFL lighting, but then (I think) they don't work so well with dimmer switches.

I've seen CFLs compatible with dimmers...

Yes there seem to be specific versions "compatible" with dimmers. They are significantly more expensive IIRC.

I bought one of the dimmable CFLs for $14 or so. I think it was GE made, anyways, it dims a little and then shuts off, and so has been moved to a non-dimming switch

edit
It may be that it would work better with a dimmer switch designed for CFL, but it didn't state that as a requirement, and I wasn't in the mood to replace switches.

Whenever I've had to put a CFL onto a dimmer, I had to get special CFLs and also configure the dimmer to limit the possible range. The dimmers were programmable networked ones tho.

There are also CFLs for use in 3 way lamp sockets.

Again, more expensive that otherwise.

Some interesting info on CFL vs Incandescent here.

(OT) Also some interesting articles about audio on other pages in that site.

The tool who wrote that page lost all credibility by the second paragraph. I don't care what he's trying to argue, pro or con, I'm not interested in going any further after reading just half of his introduction.

I seem to recall that the laws were being rather silly and defined a technology solution rather than an objective. (Damned users and their complete failure to know the difference between a requirement and a solution!!)

ie incandescent are illegal, CFL are not.

Rather than:
X watts must produce at least Y lumens

The latter allowing for efficiency improvements in incandescent technology from materials science and a gradual tightening of the target.

GE seem to have high efficiency incandescents - but they're not at retail yet and the market is shrinking so research is less likely despite the fact that incandescence has a lot of good technology features.

Even better would be an introduction of environmental offset. So components would have a penalty applied for containing things like, oooh, I don't know: mercury?

I look at CFLs and think about asbestos insulation. Orders of magnitude difference but conceptually similar ...

OK, I admit I don't like CFL - almost none of my light fittings will take them without looking ugly. The light itself is functional and not attractive. LED lighting is directional and expensive. I can't dim any of these things without spending a fortune and ripping into my walls.

I've bought 'dimmable' CFLs - they don't like the dimmer switch ("wrong kind f dimmer switch sir - sorry") and they drop by about 5%, any more and they flicker and go out.

FWIW, the large US home improvement (DIY to the Brits) retailer Home Depot announced ages ago that they are accepting CFLs for recycling at all of their stores.

That said, I totally agree with the notion of an efficiency requirement and not a technology requirement.

I don't know many details about the specifics of the Australian Law, but the Californian one seems to be the precursor to all of them. As far as I know, through discussions over the past two years with Californians in various lighting forums, their law doesn't mandate CFL specifically, but rather is based on efficiency. However they have a number of requirements for fixtures to be outfitted with particular sockets to prevent the use of older bulbs and a magic calculation to figure out how much legacy lighting you're allowed to have based on how much new, etc...

Knowing enough details, CFL makes sense for me right now. The bulbs are plug-in compatible with the standard (but out-dated) Edison socket and provide measurable savings. The caveats are practically non-existent for us. I've never thrown out a CFL into the regular trash and have only ever had 3 die on me - all from the same box bought at Costco about 3 years ago. Recycling/collection of the bulbs is being done at quite a number of retail locations now. Around here, Ikea was the first.

CFLs are available in various color temperatures which for most people is what will make/break their use. I don't care too much about dimmers - I've got two of them right now that I'll remove when I change the fixtures to CFL. They're the only two fixtures in the house that are running incandescent. Actually, I also have two 50w GU10 halogens in my range hood which will be replaced with LED in a couple of weeks. The range hood has yet to be mounted though, so I haven't even use those lights yet.

That is the killer for me. With the standard CFLs the colour temperature and/or range of frequencies make them appear much dimmer than their stated equivalent "normal" blub, whatever the number say.

I have some of the CFLs that are supposed to be closer to "normal" bulbs in colour. They certainly look much brighter than the standard CFL ones, for the same power consumption. The downside is that the light is just too harsh for every day usage. I have one in my office, because I'm already staring at a bright white screen it fits in well there. I also have a 28W one on the staircase, because we need the brightness there.

We don't have any CFL in our living room though, in there the normal ones would drive me mad with their perceived dimness and the bright ones would drive me mad with their harshness. Half our lights in the living room are on dimmers as well, which doesn't help...

The buzzing from CFLs isn't good either. We have them in bed side lights in our guest room and for the first 20 minutes that they are on (which being side lights they are rarely on for more than 20 minutes anyway) they have a noticable high frequency buzz. Very annoying when you are sat in bed reading...

I generally notice every little noise and it drives me nuts. I've never noticed any buzz from CFLs.

I get the impression that your CFLs are kinda bare. You might try putting some sort of shade around them to see if that helps the harshness. I'd just wrap a piece of wax paper around it for a few minutes to see if you think that improves things.

My solution to the real/perceived dimness of CFL, is to simply use the next higher wattage.

It's still way less electricity than an incandescent, though that's not super important here in the Great White North (excess bulb heat simply helps heat the house, though not quite as cheaply as direct gas/oil heat might do).

EDIT: In my work study here, I have two 3-bulb ceiling fixtures, each with 3 CFLs. I mixed the colour temperatures within each fixture, to get a better balance of brightness and colour from each threesome.

Cheers

The ones in the bedside lights are already in shades. The sound is right at the limits of my hearing, probably up beyond 15kHz and I can only hear it when I am less than 12 inches from them. If they were in ceiling fixtures I'd never hear them, it is just because you are laying within inches of them in bed that I hear them. Our shades/rooms size mean then can't be any closer away from you.

Also, I can't hear a buzz from all CFLs, only a relatively small subset, unfortunately I can hear it on all the bright ones I've tried. Eryl can't hear it, it is beyond her hearing range.

A good plan, but in places were we have single fixture (like the top of the stairs) I would that even the highest wattage I could find available (28W I think), in the standard colour temperature it still felt much darker than a 100W incandescent. Only by going to the whiter ones did it feel as bright.

I like your idea of mixing colour temperatures, might give that a go (but again in the couple of areas well really want the brightness there is only one fixture available).

I've found in all locations that letting the CFLs warm up (maybe up to 2 minutes) has produced a brighter environment than the incancesdents they've replaced. Probably at or near the rated comparison most manufacturers include on their packaging. The highest a wattage bulb/ballast I'm using is 23w.

The buzz is definitely a product of an inferior ballast. I've also found that certain fixtures may contribute to the issue though. That is to say, fixtures with anything in them other than straight electrical wire, such as a ceiling fan. Right now the only bulbs in the house that make any type of sound are those in our small (powder) bathroom. They came with the house, but I have some others here I've bought myself I should try eventually.

That might be down to equivalency expectations. In the UK 20W and sometimes 18W CFLs are sold as being the equivalent to 100W incandescents. Looking at www.energystar.gov it would appear that on the other side of the pond 100W equivalent means 23-30W.

I can't say I'm surprised to discover this...

As someone with a home recording studio, even the slightest amount of buzz from a fluorescent light is catastrophic. Even if you personally can't hear it, the mics can, especially after comp/limiting.

Additionally, all fluorescents I've ever seen cause significant RF buzz that works its way into amplification systems and is picked up by recording equipment.

I hope incandescent bulbs are still around for a long time, or we are going to be recording by torchlight.

An incandescent bulb is essentially just that, a torch.

I have a hard time believing that all studio equipment and fluorescent ballasts suffer these hum problems, though it may be a tough issue to overcome in a home-based setup.

I just did a really quick Google and found one page (from BC Hydro) that actually recommends old-style Magnetic ballasts for recording studios. The high frequency of the new electronic ballasts is what they claim causes the interference. CFLs are all electronic that I know of.

http://www.bchydro.com/powersmart/techno...t_ballasts.html

I have two TV studios full of various types of fluorescent fixtures and it doesn't affect us one bit. That also includes 70-odd meters of cabling from the studio floor to the audio control room which passes right through an LV switch room. Problems like this in the past have usually been down to dodgy wiring or cheap kit.

how close, geographically, is a given fluorecent light fixture to a high quality condenser microphone in this tv studio of yours?

Do they light the talent with fluorescent lights? I don't actually know what technology is used in tv studio lighting.

Depends on the show being done. But for the music stuff, probably a couple of meters for the backline but overheads on drum kits and like, less than a meter probably.



Yes, completely florescent. Admittedly quite expensive, but still florescent.

When Andy gave us a tour of the studio I could believe just how many lights they were and how bright they were. Very impressive stuff.

Yeah, I know studio lighting has to be bright. I just didn't know if fluorescents were used for spotlights and such.

Very interesting info. I guess that my experience with buzz from fluorescent fixtures has been due to cheap home gear and cheap home wiring. But for folks with home recording studios, you might not be able to get around that side of the equation.

Since US runs on a lower voltage (110V as opposed to 230V in UK) their 100 watt bulbs will consume more current (nearly an amp as opposed to half an amp) which means the filiament can be thicker and so run hotter for the same lifetime. A small increase in in temperature means a big increase in visible light output.

But of course, if you try and connect a 110 volt lamp to 230 volt mains, the lifetime drops to some small fraction of the thermal time constant of the filiament.