New Light Bulbs Hurt Eyes

[THAIPHUKET]

I detest the new energy saving light bulbs, they hurt my eyes. The warm is much to yellow the cold is very cold.

For the living room I combined a 25W warm with a 25 W cold. Already much better, not perfect kind of wishywashy, not clear.

I dont believe the lumen numbers give, seems to be much less,

Any ideas??

[transam]

25W energy bulb is VERY bright. I have 9 or 11W, or multi 5w in fancy light fittings. .

[action]

a 25W energy saving bulb doesn't save any more energy than a normal 25W bulb.

[Crossy]

a 25W energy saving bulb doesn't save any more energy than a normal 25W bulb.

But it is a LOT brighter

If you're not believing the lumen outputs buy a cheap light meter and compare your old lamps with the new ones

[trogers]

25W energy bulb is VERY bright. I have 9 or 11W, or multi 5w in fancy light fittings. .

Unless you have ceilings with height 2.6m or more, using energy saving bulbs that are brighter than 15W becomes inefficient. The spread of illumination in most recessed downlights is within 35⁰ from the vertical, resulting in bright and dark spots when the downlights are placed 2 or more metres apart.

[THAIPHUKET]

No, I don't use down lights just for that reason, right now I got only 2 bare bulbs warm+ cold 25W sitting on white ceiling about 260 high.

It's not the same like 2 100W tungsten, at least in my perception.

I don't follow the comment about higher than 15W is useless, either the lumen numbers mean something or not.

And, of course the comment about lumen = lumen is correct, but question=

is your perception of a Ebulb equal in lumen of , say 100 W , the same brightness as with a 100W tungsten? For me the much more yellow content of an E bulb makes it in its perceived brightness much darker.

[trogers]

No, I don't use down lights just for that reason, right now I got only 2 bare bulbs warm+ cold 25W sitting on white ceiling about 260 high.

It's not the same like 2 100W tungsten, at least in my perception.

I don't follow the comment about higher than 15W is useless, either the lumen numbers mean something or not.

And, of course the comment about lumen = lumen is correct, but question=

is your perception of a Ebulb equal in lumen of , say 100 W , the same brightness as with a 100W tungsten? For me the much more yellow content of an E bulb makes it in its perceived brightness much darker.

Higher W energy saving bulbs will just light up a small area brighter due to the restricted spread of illumination of the light fitting, and will not light up a large area evenly.

As to the perceived brightness of an E bulb vs tungsten, much will depend on the colour of the reflective surfaces, ceiling, floor, walls, furniture, etc. Cool white will be perceived as brighter in reflective surfaces of warm tones (yellow, orange, red), and warm white will seem brighter in reflective surfaces of cool tones (greens and blues). This is due to the better contrast.

Tungsten bulbs give more natural colour rendering to both cool and warm surfaces.

[fremmel]

I'm with ThaiPhuket, I despise most of the energy saving bulbs available here. About 2 years ago I went on a quest to find a decently bright and true color compact fluorescent bulb. After testing 8 or 10 different CF bulbs the best I found was the 20w Sylvania Mini-Lynx spiral Coolwhite . It's still not as bright or as true a color as a tungsten bulb but it's passable. They are rated at 1260 lumens vs the 1280 for a Philips 100w Superlux tungsten but those lumens don't seem to be in the range that my eyes pick up because the tungsten bulbs register significantly brighter for me.

I've read that in farang land there are better bulbs available but at the time they didn't seem to be in Thailand. If that's changed I'd love to hear about a better bulb and where to get them.

[lopburi3]

Actually I find the circular wound bulbs to disperse lighting very well, even with narrow recessed holders as long as the tip is near the ceiling rather than deeply recessed. Mounts are all adjustable for that. In the land of florescent bulbs (and not needing warm lighting to contrast with the snow outside) most people opt for the cool white type which appears much brighter. I do prefer the warm over my computer however. Have one of each in bath and that seems to work well.

I do find the 23-24w lamps much brighter than 15-18w range.

[phaethon]

Wimps...

[THAIPHUKET]

Wimps...

An octopus lamp is perfect for my living room , certainly bright and allows for combination of bulbs.

Edited December 16, 2010 by THAIPHUKET

[THAIPHUKET]

Fremmel, glad you did the testing, observation 20w Sylvania Mini-Lynx spiral Coolwhite is helpful.<br>So there seems to be color difference within the Sylvana range, Mini versus Maxi???<br>Did you or anyone else try to combine warm and cool?<br>Energy consumption is of no relevance in this context.<br>

[trogers]

Wimps...

An octopus lamp is perfect for my living room , certainly bright and allows for combination of bulbs.

A 40+ sqm room with a single light source? And some complained the light bulb is hurting the eyes...

[THAIPHUKET]

Correction, not one bulb but 4x 25W bulbs for a 30qm room, should be bright enough, however not pleasing to the eye. Mixture warm with cool helped somewhat to mellow the yellow cast.

[trogers]

Correction, not one bulb but 4x 25W bulbs for a 30qm room, should be bright enough, however not pleasing to the eye. Mixture warm with cool helped somewhat to mellow the yellow cast.

That's what I meant - one light source, which can be with multiple low wattage bulbs, or a single high W bulb. The reason recessed light fixtures are popular is the bulb(s) is out of sight and thus avoid glares to the eyes. But to light a large room evenly, a few fixtures have to be used, spaced probably 2m apart.

[fremmel]

Yes, there is some color variation in the Sylvania line. I did my testing long enough ago that I don't remember the particulars now but I do remember that I tried to go with a brighter 25 W Sylvania bulb and they either didn't have it in the cool white or I didn't like how cool white looked at the wattage. It never occurred to me to go with multiple color bulbs but that wouldn't have worked with the way I wanted to do the lights anyway. My rooms range from 17 to 23 sqm and I used 4 recessed fixtures for the overhead lights. So if I'd used different colors I would have had puddles of different shades of light.

In two of the rooms that I don't use the overhead lights very often but I want bright, good color light when I do, I just use tungsten bulbs. I would have used tungsten through the entire house but they tend to burn out too quickly in the recessed fixtures.

I switched to wide beam halogen downlights in a couple of places, like in the showers and, with a dimmer, over the dinner table and they've worked well. Nice and bright with good color. I'm going to replace the CF bulbs in the kitchen with the halogens as well but I'll have to increase the number of fixtures to cover the same area. One thing I learned, the 220v halogens are much yellower than the 12v. I'd put in a couple of the 220v since they're cheaper and easier to wire but when I tested them they looked pretty bad so I switched them out and went entirely with the 12v.

[lopburi3]

I have had extremely bad results with any Sylvania (which is a sold brand name from the US being used for products from India) lights (and all off-brand and house brand) and use Phillips or Toshiba which have worked well.

[trogers]

I have had extremely bad results with any Sylvania (which is a sold brand name from the US being used for products from India) lights (and all off-brand and house brand) and use Phillips or Toshiba which have worked well.

A case of Made in China vs Made in India...

[THAIPHUKET]

this concoction overstates a bit what I tried to do http://goo.gl/LUkLV

Mixing warm& cool bare bulbs in a regular pattern of 4 outlets spread narrowly and evenly . No pots of different light colors.

I guess, will play around some more plus later come up with an idea how to improve the factory bare bulb style.

Not very becoming for a living room but light quality is more essential.

Thought of milky glass/plastic but that again sucks up too much light.

Indirect ceiling illumination does the same.

Problem, nowhere in Chiang Mai I have seen any simple modern lamp fixtures, poor , poorer , poorest design.

Bkk??

[fremmel]

I have had extremely bad results with any Sylvania (which is a sold brand name from the US being used for products from India) lights (and all off-brand and house brand) and use Phillips or Toshiba which have worked well.

I guess I must have lucked out with a good run. I installed 21 of the Sylvania bulbs when we moved in more than 2 years ago and I have yet to have to replace any. Some of the bulbs are turned on 2 or 3 times a day for a few hours per day total. I tried the Phillips and Toshiba and just couldn't live with the color.

[THAIPHUKET]

My latest test produced a close to tungsten light , mixing 2 warm 24W with 1 cool 24W ( may be it's 25 W, not sure),

pleasant to the eye, bright for reading.