ways to reduce my weekly loss

jim hardy

yep - i's our nightlight for whole house, and lights a corner of kitchen in daytime.



I like that heatsink idea....
CFL's shouldn't really be installed pointing down because heat rises and soaks the electronics package.
I need to provide for heat on the ones in our bathroom - they point down in a decorative fixture. When an engineer marries an artist these thngs happen - i need an aesthetic heatsink. Maybe a caviar can instead of soda? Anyone know of canned champagne?

old jim

jose_007

precisely my point.CFL's are expensive and just better than incandescent in life

@mike_in_plano
by electronic section ,you mean the holder ?

jose_007

I talked about using fuse some time back.I was also wondering if a one time investment of uisng an mcb of lower current rating at the particular switchboard can be made ??

Also can anyone please confirm zener diode available of max rating ?

NascentOxygen

Zeners are manufactured up to 50w, I'd say you need about 3w. But, to allow fine adjustment, rather than two zeners of 8v in series, maybe use a lower value zener and add some ordinary diodes (600v) in series to take it up in steps of 0.7v? You would need to make these PARALLEL strings, once you start using ordinary rectifier diodes.

Now, if you have room why not make the entire string out of diodes and forget about buying any zeners? A dozen silicon power diodes in series will drop the voltage by about 8.5v. Use a pair of such strings in parallel to accommodate the reversing nature of AC. If you find the brightness dims too much with a dozen diodes in each string you can remove a few to give less voltage drop.

Note: if you use zener diodes exclusively, connect them in series and then connect this combo in series with the light globe. If you incorporate any ordinary diodes, then the situation changes and the two strings must be connected in parallel, and then connected in series with the light globe.

Borek

In my experience good incandescents should survive for many moths (if not years) - and I consider Philips a good brand. If they don't, there is something wrong - perhaps with voltage of the line? If so, CFLs live can be shortened as well, so switching to them is not necessarily a good solution.

In some parts of the world there is always a chance what you assume is Philips is not, even if they look genuine.

And to clarify, as most people apparently assume you want to save on the power - your high cost problem is related to the number of bulbs you need to replace, not to number of kWh?

jose_007

thanks everyone.

I will try to implement the above ideas to get best result and get back to you people