TIPS ON "ENERGY BULBS"
Your "energy bulb" giving you hassles and blowing out too early? Technically called Compact Fluorescent Lamps or CFLs, they used to live up to the claims of the manufacturers that they would:
1. Serve you long,
2. Save energy,
3. Produce more light and,
4. Dissipate less heat!
But while they seem to satisfy you in other areas, they pop so soon after purchase!
You may have to put any love for flippancy aside and read this article to the very end for once to gain from this writeup!
These bulbs consist of three main parts: the connector, the circuit board and the lamp.
In years past when the bulbs lasted so long, it was mainly because they came with better and durable circuit boards.
Having been inspired to take a deeper look into less durable boards which come with these bulbs these days, I observed that many are not fused. Many that are fused do not have such fuses clearly marked.
Now, fuses are more identifiable to laymen if slender wires in traditional glass or ceramic tubings are used. Fuses now come as low caliber resistors, transistors or even some diodes. The problem is since these boards...like other circuit boards shipped to us.... are not clearly labellled, you may have to assume that the low-ohm resistor attached proximally on the board just after the "entry" of the AC mains is the fuse!
But brands like Bigluz, MB and Eurolite are even much worse as the Uncontrolled Bridge Rectifier circuit is wired directly to the mains on board entry!
This rectifier bridge consists of four diodes lined up close and positioning the bridge this way early on the circuit predisposes such boards to fragility and early failure.
The fact that such failures come with sparks and explosions which may cause fire lends further credence to the huge danger posed by the said circuitry and CFL brands....
Obviously, the very idea of a rectifier bridge must have been bought forth after such prior diode failures with one or even two diodes.
A particular arrangement having two diodes in series called a DIAC or Diodes for Alternating Current must have been conceptualized to mitigate against exposing solitary diodes to the mains supply all in the name of rectification (converting AC to DC for use by other fragile board components!) Resistors also aid in dampening voltages thus exposing other components to just tolerable voltages.
It must be for reasons of preventing undue stress on hapless diodes that some board manufacturers place suitable stepdown transformers and resistors before singular diodes, double diodes in DIACs, or even diodes in quartets as in bridge rectifiers!
Note that analogue boards still use these systems in addition to newer bridges consisting of SCRs or MOSFETs or other JFETs.
Avoid Bigluz, MB and Eurolite brands of these bulbs...
You are warned!
Dr Tosin Akindele is a medical practitioner. He is currently writing his biography, The Tragedy Of Truth. He is a public affairs analyst.