What are people doing with old working incandescent bulbs they swap out for LED?
Tossing? Saving for ?? (Hoarding).
Tossing? Saving for ?? (Hoarding).
Incandescent bulbs
- Thread starter Donald
- Start date
I have it saved. Hmm, maybe I should throw most of it out and keep a few.
Noticed a curious thing at The Home Depot. CFL lights cost double that of LED. Why are people still buying CFL lights? And why are they still making it?!
Noticed a curious thing at The Home Depot. CFL lights cost double that of LED. Why are people still buying CFL lights? And why are they still making it?!
Swapped them out for CFL's twenty years ago. So my question would be what to do with CFL's when they're replaced with LED's. Have about six eight packs of LEDs purchased for twelve and a half cents a bulb at Costco through my local utility. Since I'm 75, no question that my kids will get plenty of them when they pull my rotting carcass out of my condo.
I used to save working incandescent bulbs as new lighting technology became common, and would also naturally reinstall them after a simple room repainting requiring wall / ceiling fixture removal.
However, despite treating them carefully, over 20 years I have had 3 used incandescent bulbs shatter near the base as I reinstalled them - they had not even seated yet!
What a mess of glass shards on a ‘finished’ project...
Stored unused bulbs from the same package were always OK.
Perhaps thermal cycling over time somehow weakened the glass so that even the small torque to screw it in overwhelmed the strength of the glass. After many years of reusing incandescent bulbs, with a very low failure rate, I also think that bulb manufacturing changed for the worse.
Of course, these are simply opinions.
Now I just discard used incandescent bulbs:
- Happy that I potentially avoided cut fingers.
- Happy that the latest generation of LED bulbs are superior in every way, in various soft-white selections, at a reasonable cost.
However, despite treating them carefully, over 20 years I have had 3 used incandescent bulbs shatter near the base as I reinstalled them - they had not even seated yet!
What a mess of glass shards on a ‘finished’ project...
Stored unused bulbs from the same package were always OK.
Perhaps thermal cycling over time somehow weakened the glass so that even the small torque to screw it in overwhelmed the strength of the glass. After many years of reusing incandescent bulbs, with a very low failure rate, I also think that bulb manufacturing changed for the worse.
Of course, these are simply opinions.
Now I just discard used incandescent bulbs:
- Happy that I potentially avoided cut fingers.
- Happy that the latest generation of LED bulbs are superior in every way, in various soft-white selections, at a reasonable cost.
I only replaced bulbs as they go bad, so no reason to have them around in the first place.
Bulbs I put a lot of hours on, I do swap out for LED bulbs but those seldom used, I wait for them to fail.
I keep the swapped out incan bulbs because they are better for harsh environments, at least better than standard (reasonably priced) LED bulbs. Examples of harsh environments include outdoors, uninsulated attic, or very high humidity areas like in a shower.
I keep the swapped out incan bulbs because they are better for harsh environments, at least better than standard (reasonably priced) LED bulbs. Examples of harsh environments include outdoors, uninsulated attic, or very high humidity areas like in a shower.
I have a few that I swapped out, including some GEs that were here from the last homeowner. I'm still wondering why 25W. I just have a place in the closet where all the used lighting goes except for the fluorescent tubes which I still need to be legally disposed. I might have one CFL left in the house working. Quite a few lasted more than the nominal 7 year life, but they might be noticeably lower output or could take quite a while to turn on.
I'm still trying to figure out the issue with one light in my house hooked up to an old switch. I put in a low output LED. I might need to try turning it on several times until it finally turns on. I'm thinking it's the wall switch.
I'm still trying to figure out the issue with one light in my house hooked up to an old switch. I put in a low output LED. I might need to try turning it on several times until it finally turns on. I'm thinking it's the wall switch.
The average LED bulb is horribly inferior at CRI, makes things look more grayish green, or more blue too if you go high color temperature. I suppose you get used to it, but if something has to be tinted a color, I'd far rather it be a golden color from an incan bulb.
Cut fingers, I suspect your sockets are severely oxidized and could use cleaning out or replaced. It is very rare that I have bulbs break, never installing them, rather the couple times over decades that i recall, it was removal after many years in a damp location and the aluminum screw threads of the socket looked more white than silver. In those cases if I can't clean the oxidation off I replace the socket or if I can, I still put a very light coat of dielectric grease on the threads.
Yep .
I use LED bulbs in areas I light often, kitchen, bathroom, living room, reading lamps, overhead bedroom light; lights that are not on often, closet lights, some table lamps, those lights I use incandescent bulbs. When the latter burns out, they get replaced with my stock of incandescent bulbs, then LED.
There's an animal shelter locally that was hoarding them as they used 'em in the doghouses in the winter as a simple heater. I doubt attempting to ship to CO would be worth it, and I honestly don't know if they still have a need. PM me if really interested
Other than that...build yourself a rod oven
It's kinda too bad as bulbs DO have uses other than LIGHT. Plus, how are kids gonna grow up without EZ Bake ovens????
Other than that...build yourself a rod oven
It's kinda too bad as bulbs DO have uses other than LIGHT. Plus, how are kids gonna grow up without EZ Bake ovens????
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and the only thing remaining is the 'thread".
Incandescent bulbs: Only two left in my house (garage door opener).
Old were tossed.
CFL: I hated those things and gave mine away when LED became popular.
Incandescent bulbs: Only two left in my house (garage door opener).
Old were tossed.
CFL: I hated those things and gave mine away when LED became popular.
I still have incandescent bulbs in infrequent corners of the basement and CFL’s used for outdoor lighting but haven’t bought a CFL in 5 years. All new bulbs are LED and are being phased in.
Since 90% of the energy used by an incandescent bulb is heat, they get swapped into the bathroom in winter for a little extra warmth out of the shower.
Since 90% of the energy used by an incandescent bulb is heat, they get swapped into the bathroom in winter for a little extra warmth out of the shower.
He didn't invent the light bulb. His deal was making a practical one with enough longevity and output. All of Edison's advancements were really in manufacturing. The tungsten filament became the standard, and GE didn't start using that material until Edison could figure out how to produce the filaments.
gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
I toss them. They no longer serve a practical purpose and never will again.
gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
You should do the ROI on replacing incandescent with LED (or even CFL with LED for those who still have CFL bulbs). You might be surprised at how quickly LED's pay for themselves. I replaced three outdoor CFL's when I moved into the house and they had an ROI within five years, IIRC. They've already paid for themselves, considering the number of days we forget to turn the lights off in the morning.
With that said, about half 25% of my original Cree LED's from around eight years ago, the ones with the cooling fins on the base, have died or were tossed due to flickering. I just replaced them, along with all of the remaining CFL and incandescent bulbs in my new-to-me house 3.5 years ago.
Three of THOSE bulbs, out of maybe 40 bulbs total, have also died and been replaced. \One was DOA and reimbursed by Philips and the other two just died recently and were replaced. The latter two almost met their payback date.
But likewise Edison did not invent nor use tungsten filaments since the element was too difficult to work with.
Goodwill.
My reading is that Thomas Edison anticipated that tungsten would be the ideal material for light bulb filaments if they could ever figure out how to work with the material. GE was the first manufacturer of mass-produced tungsten filament light bulbs.
Edison's Lightbulb
Learn the story of inventor Thomas Edison, and his workshop's journey to the invention of the incandescent lightbulb in 1879.
By January 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting. Still, the lamp only burned for a few short hours. In order to improve the bulb, Edison needed all the persistence he had learned years before in his basement laboratory. He tested thousands and thousands of other materials to use for the filament. He even thought about using tungsten, which is the metal used for light bulb filaments now, but he couldn't work with it given the tools available at that time.
But GE hired someone who figured out how to work with tungsten at a mass production scale. The first ones sold were interesting too as they used a mercury amalgam (like dental fillings) where the softer metals were then melted out. I guess it worked, but it was spongy and brittle.
Tungsten's Brilliant, Hidden History
One hundred years ago, William D. Coolidge coaxed tungsten into filaments, illuminating incandescent light bulbs—and the world.
www.americanscientist.org
In March 1906, a breakthrough happened when a spongy rod of tungsten accidentally fell into a pool of liquid mercury from the sintering furnace, and the mercury filled the pores. Coolidge then recalled getting a tooth filled as a child. His dentist had prepared the amalgam by combining silver slivers, shaved off of a Mexican coin, into liquid mercury; the young Coolidge noticed that this sticky paste was moldable before it stiffened into a permanent shape. Coolidge realized that mercury could be mixed with tungsten and then squirted into wire. He mixed tungsten into an amalgam made of mercury and other soft metals, including bismuth and cadmium, extruded it, and melted off the amalgam’s softer metals to create a tungsten filament. The filament glowed stably inside a light bulb.
Delighted about the success of his process, Coolidge wrote to his parents in early 1907, “The outlook for my method is certainly very bright now.” GE put the tungsten filaments on the market and soon sold nearly 500,000 of the new bulbs. Coolidge’s mother wrote that fall, “Your lamps are already in town.” But the tungsten filaments were still fragile: The amalgam gave filaments their flexibility, yet after the soft metals melted away, the remaining brittle tungsten particles could easily snap. So Coolidge was tasked with making a more robust version that could withstand harsher conditions such as vibrations in cars and trains.
*****
Coolidge’s contributions have been largely forgotten compared with Edison’s, in part because the shy and introverted engineer preferred to quietly unlock puzzles and remain out of the spotlight. But Coolidge had tenaciously tamed tungsten, and in a 1922 newspaper article even Edison admired his ability to wrangle “so rebellious a metal.”
And the building where they developed these technologies doesn't seem to be terribly high tech:
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