Compact fluorescent bulb warm-up time

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (or at least some kinds) do not put out their full brightness as soon as they are turned on. The bulbs I tested here happened to be in various fixtures in my house, and they take one to three minutes to warm up and produce full light output.

The test setup is simple. The bulb was off for over an hour, then I just started recording, flipped the switch on, and waited. Once the bulb reaches a steady brightness for a couple of minutes, I took that to be the max output. The camera was set to manual exposure, manual white balance, and manual focus. It was wintertime and the temperature in my basement was in the upper 60s. Compact fluorescent bulbs seem to take longer to reach full brightness in colder temperatures.

The bulbs tested here are:
1. Bright Effects 15W compact fluorescent floodlight
2. Maxlite 13W Home Comfort Series compact fluorescent bulb
3. GE 26W helical compact fluorescent bulb
4. GE 13W helical compact fluorescent bulb
5. Philips 65W incandescent floodlight (control)

The Bright Effects 15W floodlight is by far the worst of the bunch. The light output right after turning it on is probably less than 10% of the max brightness and it takes over three minutes for the thing to warm up and produce full output.

Thanks to ganon95 for the music

Category:

Education

Tags:

• CFL
• CF
• bulbs
• lumens
• light
• output
• watts

[poiiihy]

@Checkerholic naah, invest in led.

[Checkerholic]

CFL"S ARE A FIRE HAZARD! They Contain MERCURY too!

BUY REAL LIGHT BULBS WHILE YOU CAN!

begining in 2012 they will be Banned in the USA

[ganon95pulze]

@VinceElectricCompany

its a remix i made of jeopardy, if you want to download it come to my channel and find my newgrounds page

[andycflbulb]

Dim Effects

[tushologramas]

@VinceElectricCompany sounds like a tetris version of geopardy

[VinceElectricCompany]

What's the title of that song? Sounds pretty good!

[gchenley]

Nice video

[trek1200233]

Relly anoying at all these discounted or most any CFL lights being sold and haveing so many problems warm up time, not fitting is some apps ,dimmer compatable problems,many types of timer and motion sensor problems, leave it on for 3 hrs minium (instructions say)And most is light out put FALSE 1/3 less than on any package. Nead to up any replacement wattage . And yes proved it with a light meter to someone that said its me. Discount LED lights. 10x less energy , 5 to 10x longer life.

[ErikLeenhouts]

your basement looks really similar to mine haha

[nategreenbay]

Good test. The best CFLs that I have found so far are the Great Value brand at Wal-Mart, they warm up fast. I have also tried 2 different 15w (65w equiv) CFL Flood lights (Phillips and Bright Effects) and both have terrible warm up times much like the ones shown in the video.