CCFL Types

I was at Home Depot recently, and they have three varieties of n:vision CCFLs (which I think is their house brand):

- Daylight (Blue Box)

- Bright White (Red Box)

- Soft White (Green Box)

See the HD Lighting Website for more.

My question: which one is most like a halogen or incandescent bulb? Can anybody translate what their terms mean? I ended up getting 'Bright White' since it was in the middle, and it makes me feel like I'm in a hospital.

I was initial delighted by this product A friend told me that his equipment which read electromagnetic energy went off the scale around these devices. It seems this energy can make people short tempered.

If you want more info I can get it.

I asked my friend who is a Geomancer and he says that he has a machine that measures the EMF and that the field on some of the lights extends three feet. The not so obvious problem is for the people on the floor above the light, they are affected while walking over the field. Some types are worse than others, but he had no info on which ones.

The wave of the future is LED.

John Paul

John Paul - I'll admit that I'm curious about this - what other information do  you have?

Thanks!

I have the same question as Cope.  I don't like the look of fluorescent lighting.  Has anyone found an energy efficient bulb that looks more like incandescent lighting?

The n:vision website doesn't have temperature ratings on their site but it looks like their soft white is akin to warm white on the 1000bulbs color scale (i.e. a color temp of 2700k).  Bright white is somewhere between halogen white and cool white (hence the hospital feeling with a color temp rating of 3500k) and daylight is...well...daylight putting it around 5500k. 

According to this Popular Mechanics review, the n:vision soft white is a good choice.

Also, for another rating of n:vision and some other bulbs, check out this blog post from Shahine.com/omar

For some general rules on picking color temperature, check out the Picking Color Temperature For Your Light Bulbs wiki.

Thanks, stins!

That's exactly the info I was looking for.....

BTW, I just read the color temperature wiki and I'm confused by one point:

Why do Halogen bulbs (with a temp of 3K) and daylight bulbs (5.6K) both produce 'pure' white, with no red, blues, etc.? But cool white, which is in between, produces a bluish color...

Maybe that's more of a question for a physics forum, but I've always wondered.

Does anyone know of a mercury free CFL bulb? I had someone swear they bought one, but I can't get hold of them to find out which brand it was. I know there are companies reducing the amount from 5 to less than 2 miligrams...but I can't find any info on a zero mercury CFL bulb.

I can't find anything suggesting that mercury-free bulbs exist, but this is a great article from a very credible source abot the considerations around mercury in CFLs, etc. - Eric Corey Freed on the Greener Buildings Site.

It mentions the options of Xenon bulbs that don't use any mercury, but that are less efficient and therefore contribute to greater mercury emissions into the air by powering them. Also LEDs are a great option, but the technology still needs some time to improve and come down in price. We have a wiki about recycling CFLs and an article about CFLs and mercury would be great too if you find info.