[Greenbuilding] CF failure farts: What is that smell ?

[Corwyn]

On Mar 23, 2007, at 15:07, Sacie Lambertson wrote:

>  At 07:10 AM 3/23/2007, Corwyn wrote:
>
>> I have always assumed that this was _actual_ watts, not equivalent. 
>>  That is, either the fixture was rated for a certain wattage draw, or
>>  for a certain amount of heat generated.  Either way a CFL drawing 26
>>  watts is not going to exceed that.
>
>  I would like to understand this better.  Equivalent does not describe 
> the amount of light emitted?   Please explicate.  Sacie

I am not exactly sure what you don't get, so I will just elaborate a 
little.   Let me know if I am not helping.

If you are designing a light fixture, what you care about is 1) not 
getting sued 2) passing the UL listing.  The concerns are as far as I 
can tell, overheating of the wiring, or overheating the fixture.  Not 
of concern, is whether the fixture is producing too much  light for the 
customer (they can always put in a lower wattage bulb).  So actual 
wattage of the bulb determines the heating of the wiring, and 
percentage of that wattage turned into heat determines the heating of 
the fixture.  A lower wattage CFL will of necessity draw less current, 
hence lower heating of the wiring.  Unless the fixture is absorbing 
more of the CFL light and turning it into heat than the incandescent 
(seems unlikely), the higher efficiency of the CFL means that a greater 
percentage (of the lower wattage) is being turned into light rather 
than heat, so that is a double win.

Yes, equivalent is _supposed_ to describe the amount of light emitted.  
(with of course some set of standard measures).

Thank You Kindly,

Corwyn