Salvaging a CFL - Hidden Treasure

RE: Salvaging a CFL - Hidden Treasure

johnbeetem — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 20:04:13 GMT

I wonder about CFLs burning my house down. When an incandescent bulb failed, it just burned out -- sometimes with a pop, but well contained and no hazard. I've had CFLs generate horrible smells as they failed, making me think they could start a fire or expose me to toxic smoke.

I would hope they design CFLs to fail in a safe way. But then they manufacture them in China and who knows what components get changed to save a few pennies.

RE: Salvaging a CFL - Hidden Treasure

DAB — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 19:51:14 GMT

Hi John,

Great post.

I had not thought to look inside the CFL's, but you have opened new toys for me to explore.

One note of safety though, sometimes they use some bad metals to coat the glass with. So make sure you where a face mask so as not to inhale any of the dust.

The rubber gloves ae also useful as some of the metals can be absorbed by the skin.

DAB

RE: Salvaging a CFL - Hidden Treasure

artful_bodger — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 09:50:24 GMT

None of my failed CFLs (220V) have made anything like their advertised life. I've only ever bought branded ones. The most common failure I've had is one of the rectifier diodes, which also takes out the fuse, or if no fuse, a small value series resistor.

I keep the base from irreparable ones; it's so frustrating to only have screw in lamps in the house, then a bayonet one fails.

Are those transistors MJE13003 or https://www.fairchildsemi.com/datasheets/KS/KSE13003.pdf

There's a nice blog here of circuits and repair tips here http://www.pavouk.org/hw/lamp/en_index.html