Per, On Monday 17 July 2006 08:20, Per Jessen wrote:
Damon Register wrote:
I wonder if that is from the same people who convinced some friends years ago that switching flourescent lights off and on made them use double the electricity so they should be turned off as little as possible.
I thought the key thing with fluorescent lights was that the turning on significantly reduces the overall life of the neon-tube, and they are therefore best left on instead of switched on/off. Maybe that's no longer correct, or maybe it never was?
There's no neon in a fluorescent lamp. They use mercury vapor to conduct the current that ultimately yields the UV output that the coating on the inside of the tube converts (via the phenomenon of fluorescence) into visible light. In the old days when fluorescent lights took a few seconds to "warm up," that delay was necessary because there was a heater that vaporized enough mercury to get the arc started. I don't know how fast-start fluorescents are different, but I don't think they have the heater. As to the contribution of a start cycle to the lifetime of a fluorescent lamp, I don't know. It could be another thing that is not longer true of contemporary fluorescent lamps.
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/Per Jessen, Zürich
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