Instant ON CFL bulbs

[spaceman spiff]

All the CFL bulbs that I have bought (Ikea, Home Depot, Walmart) usually take a minute or so to get to it's full brightness. Are all CFLs like that? It's not too bad for my rooms, but I want to replace my old bulbs in my bathroom with CFLs, but I don't want to wait a minute for them to warm up. So I'm looking for CFLs that are instantly on (if they exist) and ones with a rounded cover (instead of the bare spiral).

[notanexpert]

All the CFL bulbs that I have bought (Ikea, Home Depot, Walmart) usually take a minute or so to get to it's full brightness. Are all CFLs like that? It's not too bad for my rooms, but I want to replace my old bulbs in my bathroom with CFLs, but I don't want to wait a minute for them to warm up. So I'm looking for CFLs that are instantly on (if they exist) and ones with a rounded cover (instead of the bare spiral).

Unfotunately I still haven't experienced any that are instantly at full brightness, especially when its cool.
I use a pair of CFL's on my porch, and in the wintertime, the're aweful. It takes a couple of minutes to get decent light out of them. My porch light is on a motion detector with a 2 minute timer, so they just start getting bright when they switch off...

[st7860]

this bulb is instant on.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/led_bulb_replac.php

[ccdude]

higher end cfls are virtually instant on. Primarily avaliable from commercial distrubuters

[spaceman spiff]

ahh..that sucks. I guess you have to spend money to save money (in the long run).

thanks everyone.

[gordholio]

All my CFL lights are from Dollarama and they seem to only take 2 seconds to light up enough for me.

[astroboi]

Philips and Luminous CFL's are virtually instant on. I have bought Globe and Silvania CFL's that have a long delay. Now I put one of each in my fixtures so that I get some light instantly and the rest later (better than throwing the slow ones out). I hated walking halfway into a room before the light would turn on...

[Spliffy]

How does everyone dispose of the old bulbs? I have a container with a whole bunch of bulbs in it, but don't know what to do with them.

[shutterbug]

How does everyone dispose of the old bulbs? I have a container with a whole bunch of bulbs in it, but don't know what to do with them.

Ikea has recycling bins.

[hoob]

I have two CFLs in my fridge, generic 13W units from HD... They seem to come on instantly even in the cold. But I also have other CFLs that are a lot slower to reach full brightness.

[Webhead]

How does everyone dispose of the old bulbs? I have a container with a whole bunch of bulbs in it, but don't know what to do with them.

Here in Mississauga, Ontario we have waste and recycling centres. One would bring them here for proper disposal because of the small amount of mercury in the CFL bulbs.
Try checking your local recycling centres.

[felix]

We should have a thread or list of CFL's that are instant on. I replaced mine with instant one ones a while back. I posted the few models I had tried a while back, I don't remember which one was instant on ... probably Philips.

[notanexpert]

I found that the ones that are the slowest to come to full brightness are the ones that I bought at IKEA. They were pretty cheap at the time (a couple of years ago I think).

[l69norm]

How does everyone dispose of the old bulbs? I have a container with a whole bunch of bulbs in it, but don't know what to do with them.

Some Rona stores have bins for old CFLs

[confused student]

Some Rona stores have bins for old CFLs
+1

Also check home depot, IKEA, and your local HHW Disposal site

[brunes]

Environment Canada used to just say to tie it in a plastic bag and throw it in the trash, like any other light bulb. Their site seems to have changed a bit now though.

People make too much of the mercury in a CFL. How do you dispose of a watch battery, do you drive down to the recycling centre for that too? It has 5 times more mercury in it than a CFL bulb. Higher-end bulbs with low mercury have even less, more like 15 times less than a watch battery. And if you have watches like mine you probably burn out watch batteries twice as often ans you change CFLs (2 years or so)

You're probably being less green bruning all the gas to go to the recyling centre than you are for putting a tiny amount of mercury (which at the end of the day is a natural element found everywhere in all soil in trace amounts) in a landfill.

[majesus]

Phillips daylight CFL are instant.

[mrcantrell]

Sylvania has just released a true instant on bulb (full lumen output instantly) called the Micromini. I've just outfitted a whole bunch of fixtures in my home with them and love them.

[majesus]

Sylvania has just released a true instant on bulb (full lumen output instantly) called the Micromini. I've just outfitted a whole bunch of fixtures in my home with them and love them.

Just curious, what does that mean?

I haven't really notice any of the CFLs in the house not being instantly on...
At least not able to tell with the naked eye . Is this a major problem for people? CFLs not coming on instantly?

[napalmfrog]

Depending on the brand (and especially the temperature), there might be a little bit of a lag. However, I think the bigger problem is that when you first turn them on, they are rather dim, and can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to warm up to the right light amount.

[mrcantrell]

Just curious, what does that mean?

I haven't really notice any of the CFLs in the house not being instantly on...
At least not able to tell with the naked eye . Is this a major problem for people? CFLs not coming on instantly?

Long story short, light output is rated in lumens, not watts. A watt is a measure of heat, not light output.

Most Compact Fluorescent bulbs will take some time to come to full lumen output (ie, 100% capacity of light output) and this can manifest in a few different ways. One is to have 0 lumens (no light output) at start up and take some time to give off any light at all, and another is to have some lumen output and brighten as the bulb warms up. Yet another is to have some lumen output and not have full colour temperature (ie the light will look yellow and get whiter as it warms up).

The new MicroMini has full lumen output at startup. It's also smaller than any other CF on the market.

Depending on the brand (and especially the temperature), there might be a little bit of a lag. However, I think the bigger problem is that when you first turn them on, they are rather dim, and can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to warm up to the right light amount.

Colour temperature shouldn't have anything to do with the warm up. It's all in the technology of the bulb. A cheaper (read lower quality) bulb will generally take longer to warm up.

[spaceman spiff]

I made the mistake of not checking the RFD forum before I bought some CFLs for my bathroom. I finally found some vanity CFLs and bought a pack. I totally forgot about the delay that's involved in most CFLs. I regret buying them.

Brand: Globe from Rona.

They're not that bad, but they do take ~20 secs to warm up.

[CodecX81]

We should have a thread or list of CFL's that are instant on. I replaced mine with instant one ones a while back. I posted the few models I had tried a while back, I don't remember which one was instant on ... probably Philips.

+1 for Philips Daytime! They're instant on, and bright!

[majesus]

Long story short, light output is rated in lumens, not watts. A watt is a measure of heat, not light output.

Watts is Not a measurement of heat, Watts is a measurement of Power.
Temperature is a measurement of heat.