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Does fluorescent light have to be ugly?

Minoosh

Penultimate Amazing
Minoosh
Joined
Jul 15, 2011
Messages
12,761
The first time I put a fluorescent bulb into a lamp I was appalled. It seemed to give everything a sickly gray glow. I waited to see if I would get used to it, but no. I also accidentally broke one and wasn't sure of cleanup protocols.

Then I noticed a halogen option appear and I find these much nicer than fluorescent.

What other options are out there and how do they square up environmentally? Also, what happens if you put a 3-way bulb into a lamp without a 3-way switch?
 
Depends on the color temperature of the lamp. I personally despise the "normal" florescent lamp color balance, and get the "daylight" balanced lamps that work around 5000 deg. Kelvin to 6000 deg. Kelvin. It's more a closer match to natural sunlight.

If you're used to the normal 2700K color temp of incandescent lamps, you might find daylight a bit too bright and blue.

YMMV

Beanbag
 
Beanbag said:
Depends on the color temperature of the lamp. I personally despise the "normal" florescent lamp color balance, and get the "daylight" balanced lamps that work around 5000 deg. Kelvin to 6000 deg. Kelvin. It's more a closer match to natural sunlight.
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I need new lamps? Or are there different fluorescent bulbs?

Gawdzilla, I will read the Home Depot link.

Does anyone else prefer halogen?
 
Minoosh said:
I need new lamps? Or are there different fluorescent bulbs?

Does anyone else prefer halogen?
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Keep the lamps, try different bulbs. Not all are created equally. Name brands are the way to go for the most complete spectrum; cheap ones probably skimp on some of the phosphors. Try different color temperature bulbs; I prefer daylight which has more blue. Home Depot should have a display of the three main fluorescent hues.

While you're there, try the Cree soft white LED globes. Earlier generation LEDs are likely to displease you, but the newest ones are cost effective with a good spectrum.

ETA: Halogen is good if you want a full spectrum weighted toward red but less so than standard incandescents. You might want/need them in product displays and photography for example. Otherwise, they are room heaters with a minor by-product of light.
 
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Normal fluorescent is ugly. It's essentially dichromatic, which you can see if you clench a spoon in your teeth and make it vibrate. There's a greenish and an orangish. Some more expensive ones have a bit better spectrum, because they have different phosphors.

Halogen is just a regular light bulb filled with a halogen instead of argon. This lets it burn hotter without the filament evaporating as fast. The evaporated bits bounce off the halogen and stick back on. It's full-spectrum.
 
If you're buying new bulbs, look at the LED type. They use less energy than the compact fluorescent types and come on at full intensity immediately: no 'warm up' time. I prefer the daylight ones myself which have a higher (bluer) colour temperature than the normal ones.

All the modern LED lamps I've seen give a better quality of light than compact fluorescents.
 
Minoosh said:
The first time I put a fluorescent bulb into a lamp I was appalled. It seemed to give everything a sickly gray glow. I waited to see if I would get used to it, but no.
Click to expand...

The light the produce depends on the phosphor mix used.

For around the house, I find that "Warm White" or 2700k compact fluros work well, and produce similar light to an ordinary incandescent.

In the bathroom, or in reading lamps, I use a "Cool White" or 5000k compact fluro, this produces a more purer white, like you normally expect from one of the long fluro tubes (although those too come in different types).

I haven't found much use for the "Daylight" or 6500k compact fluros. The ones I have I've put in the light fittings I don't often use, because I don't really like the blueish color they produce.

Normally, the more yellowish (warm-white) light looks better when the illumination is low, while a more balanced white (cool-white) looks better when the illumination is high.

I suppose the more blueish daylight color would look better with very bright light, or if you've got the curtains open and are using the light to supplement natural daylight.
 
epepke said:
Normal fluorescent is ugly. It's essentially dichromatic, which you can see if you clench a spoon in your teeth and make it vibrate. There's a greenish and an orangish.
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Huh, what the hell?

Turn on the fluro light in an otherwise dark room. Can you see red, green and blue under this light? If yes, it's at least trichromatic because it's producing all three primary colors.

If there were only greenish and orangish light being produced, you wouldn't be able to see the color blue under those lights, and the light itself would look yellow.

If you want to see how many colors a fluro light is producing you'd want to split the light with a prism, not do some weird spoon-vibrating act with your teeth.

In the absence of a prism, look at the reflection of the light-bulb in the shiny-side of a CD, and tilt the CD slightly away from the light. You'll see a second, fainter reflection, with the colors split apart.

Trying it now (with a CD, because I don't have a prism), the light above me is split into red, green, cyan and violet. I get the same result with the light in a reading lamp. Trying it with a cheap LED light, I just get the basic red, green and blue. Trying it with an incandescent light, I see a continuous gradiant through the color spectrum, like a rainbow.
 
Brian-M said:
Huh, what the hell?

Turn on the fluro light in an otherwise dark room. Can you see red, green and blue under this light? If yes, it's at least trichromatic because it's producing all three primary colors.
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No. You can see three colors on dichromatic Polaroid film, too. There's a lot of processing in the visual system.
 
epepke said:
No. You can see three colors on dichromatic Polaroid film, too. There's a lot of processing in the visual system.
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That's dichroic film, not dichromatic.
It's a completely different thing.
 
epepke said:
Normal fluorescent is ugly. It's essentially dichromatic, which you can see if you clench a spoon in your teeth and make it vibrate.
Click to expand...

Pray tell: how does one see the spectrum of a light source by clenching a spoon between one's teeth and making it wobble? Does it have to be a particular kind of spoon, or do metal (all kinds), plastic or wooden ones all work? I'm fascinated.
 
Just use the bottom side of a CD as a mirror to look at the spectrum of the lamps in a room illuminated only by the lamp in question. Tilt the CD around and you find it makes a good diffraction grating - better than most prisms.
 
ceptimus said:
Just use the bottom side of a CD as a mirror to look at the spectrum of the lamps in a room illuminated only by the lamp in question. Tilt the CD around and you find it makes a good diffraction grating - better than most prisms.
Click to expand...


Hmmm. Something about that advice seems familiar...
Brian-M said:
In the absence of a prism, look at the reflection of the light-bulb in the shiny-side of a CD, and tilt the CD slightly away from the light. You'll see a second, fainter reflection, with the colors split apart.
Click to expand...

:D
 
Brian-M said:
Trying it now (with a CD, because I don't have a prism), the light above me is split into red, green, cyan and violet. I get the same result with the light in a reading lamp. Trying it with a cheap LED light, I just get the basic red, green and blue. Trying it with an incandescent light, I see a continuous gradiant through the color spectrum, like a rainbow.
Click to expand...

Tried the CD trick on two lights and got some different results: a flashlight with the blue+phosphor type LEDs which shows a blue spot and a smear centered on yellow, and a CFL bulb (GE 15517) which shows 7 sharp color images across the rainbow.

Edit: That's probably the same as what you saw, though I was holding the CD so as to reflect the bulb nearly hidden by a shade, producing a narrow slit of light perpendicular to the rainbow direction allowing it to resolve 3 shades of red.
 
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