Let me continue on from Light in our life, Energy Saving Lamps, LED’s and incandescent light bulbs.
The filament type or incandescent light bulbs in the house in Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia, keep on blowing or failing. This is perhaps as they are cheap and low quality, and we have many bulbs in each light fitting. It is a constant battle to replace bulbs.
Each bulb is 40 Watts, so in the photograph below, there are 13 bulbs, equaling 520 Watts of power consumption. Lowering that by 80% by fitting Energy Saving Lamps would be quite a saving in energy consumption and money spent on electricity. OK, there is the initial outlay to purchase the Energy Saving Lamps.
In one room, three light fittings in BM house,
two ceiling each with 6 bulbs
one wall light with one bulb.
520 watts.
As an experiment I decided to replace one ceiling light unit of six bulbs with Energy Saving Lamps. Each Energy Saving Lamp being 9 Watts, equivalent to 40 Watts in the incandescent light bulb, that is the same amount of light.
Once fitting new lamps, the change in the light was amazing. Pure white light, daylight, compared to the old filament lights which gave a yellow tinge to the light.
Then I noticed that two of the Energy Saving Lamps appeared much dimmer than the other four. Looking into why, thinking I must have purchased different Wattage lamps, I found that there are two types of Energy Saving Lamps, “Daylight” and “Warmwhite”.
Now that is something I did not know existed, two types of lamp. Look at the lables next time.
As I tested the lamps by switching them on and of, why I do that I have no idea, there was a load bang, and the trip switch on the main power supply to the house triggered, and the lights went out.
Investigating I found that one lamp had failed.
Oh Poo Poo. Buy cheap and you get cheap.
In the longterm, is it wise to by cheap, as the product never lasts long?
As I removed the failed lamp it fell apart, revealing the electronics inside.
Wow, it amazed me how many components were there. No wonder the lamps cost so much.
The internal components of an Energy Saving Lamp
That made me think.
How much energy has there been expended to manufacture the circuit board, each individual component?
How much manpower with its’ associated power consumption was used to put the circuit board together?
I realised how little I knew about the workings of a Energy Saving Lamp.
And that got me thinking about other things to follow.
Um? I wonder if we go through life like that, only looking at the finished product, the outer skin, not knowing how it works, what makes it do what it does?