BANNED: What the end of Fluorescent Tubes Means for YOU!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2024
- It may be over 100 years old, but the venerable fluorescent tube is set to pass into history next February…we give you the low down on the bulb ban.
Also: the Japanese boffin who’s come up with a light that doesn’t use electricity…
And we reveal the winner of our big Marshall Tufflex competition.
Electrical News Weekly 13th March 2023 in association with Scame
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00:00 Electrical News Weekly
00:37 Fluorescent tube will be banned
02:04 Energy label ratings have been recalibrated
02:27 Light which uses no electricity or battery
03:39 Do you think your job is dangerous?
04:23 UK needs 100,000 electricians
04:53 The average electrician is owed £7,000
06:03 The winner of our competition with Marshall Tufflex is unveiled
06:34 Thanks to our premium partners
07:32 Coming up on eFIXX this week
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Show notes 🗒
Free lighting efficiency training package 👉 www.efixx.co.uk/Know%20How/ef...
LED bulbs downgraded 👉 • LED Bulbs Downgraded F...
Ballast replacement 👉
• DON'T cut the Wire - C...
The mysteries of glare 👉 • Uncovering the Mystery...
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I wonder how the fluorescent tube ban is going to affect the cost and availability of UVC germicidal tubes. Mercury vapour discharge is still the most efficient way to create high levels of UVC for sterilisation of water, air and food-machinery surfaces.
The amount of mercury actually used in fluorescent tubes is very low.
That's a very good point about the UV sterilisation, might have a dive into that. 👍
@@efixx Please do, this one could effect my son's business if they are stopped. UVC LEDs do exist, but are not cost effective yet.
I'd imagine there would be exceptions for speciality lamps, which this would surely fall under?
Just like in AU you can still get speciality incandescent lamps for things like ovens etc.
I can't see that UV tubes could possibly be described as fluorescent, since they don't contain the fluorescent coating that gives them the name.
@@devonfuse There technically are excimer fluorescent lamps that excite rarefied xenon or krypton, which then emits short wavelength ultraviolet which can be downshifted to 254 nm UVC with a Ca2P2O7:Pr,Na phosphor. There are also excimer fluorescent lamps that convert the 172 nm (xenon) or 146 nm (krypton) to visible light. A prototype compact fluorescent based on this technology achieved 90 lumens per watt using trichromatic rare earth conventional fluorescent lamp 254 nm phosphors not optimized for shorter wavelengths. The scientists thought the luminous efficacy could go as high as 150 lumens per watt using optimized shorter wavelength phosphors.
No 'end of fluorescent tubes' in this house, got a life long stockpile & other fluorescent spares.
...They work well, last many years and are cheap to buy too...maybe that's the real problem!
@@paulwilliams5013 Not to mention out of patent and they need competent production line staff. Globohomo corporations want everything made as cheap as possible by third world expendable slaves.
My local Lidl Supermarket changed from fluorescent tubes to retrofit LED tubes a few years ago, and now they have removed every other tube making the supermarket very dim and shadowy. Manager says they have had to to save energy. When is this madness of us being cold and in the dark going to end?
Bonkers isn't it?
Years ago i was on the front against led lighting, they were bulk inefficient, light was of terrible quality. Salesguys were informed not to show up with led products until they do not resolve above issues. Then at some point in time suddenly led tubes became much better than fluorescent ones. We retrofitted 100000 sqft factory within a year and never looked back. All we had to do was to do some on site testing with medium bay and fluorescent tubes. Over 8 years they gave as 3fold return in energy savings. Only advice is to buy stuff of legit oems.
@@therzook Im sorry, but i have yet to see a retrofit tube with the same warm white, same brightness and same spread of light like a real Fluorescent tube. Seen some really good complete fixtures, but facility budgets dont want equal or better lights, they want the cheapest they can get their hands on. And a LED tube and even complete fixure costs more than a simple fluorescent setup.
@@just_saw_dust They just go with the easiest, cheapest option at the time. Obviously they wanted to save more energy, so just removed half the tubes! Why they didnt just fit solar panels on the roof, i dont know! Some serious idiots in this world controlling budgets, more interested in keeping costs low to keep their bonus's high!!!
'When is this madness of us being cold and in the dark going to end?' When we vote in politicians who are not ignorant morons, but good luck finding any of those at next year's election.
50 years in the electrical industry and retired 5 years ago, I had had enough of all the rules & regs changes .
Yes the shed 19 or what it is now and the books cost £80 that electricians have to buy.
Thing is, you have to be a qualified electrician just to change a light, these days.
No. You just got OLD. It HAPPENS!!!
@@tonyclough9844 Womp, womp!!
Makes me sad. I love fluorescent tubes even more than LED lighting. I grew up with them (I was born 1998, which is when they were already widely adopted). Thank goodness I still have a stockpile in my basement. 😂
One of the new build schools here from 2019 has already had to face thousands in bills due to the LED downlights emergency lights failing the 3 hour test. Not to mention the LED bollards and bulkheads indoors that have failed. They were from a reputable company too.
Almost like making the consumable parts of the fixture replaceable is a good idea or something...
I have some ~80 year old fluorescent shoplights in my garage and sheds that still work fine, and the only repairs they've needed are new cords.
I have gotten over 20 years of unlimited service from a flourescent tube lamp. Its longevity depended on how I used it, without abusing it through turning it off frequently between shorter time spans, before switching it on again. I have several more spare tubes of which would even superceed the lifespan of any great grandchildren of whom may someday inherit them.
If I were to replace this tube with an LED version, I would expect at least equal longevity. Otherwise, frequent replacement would add up to practicing false economy
Time to stock up on a few tubes for my garage & workroom lights. I find it difficult to work with LEDs, can't explain it but the output of the light is different somehow
It flickers at 60hz
@@jupiterblue3227 Only the bad ones
Agree. We had them installed at work a few years ago but they had a harsh glare and seemed to flicker or even strobe. I know the UK is on 50hz, but these seemed to be running at 25hz. Awful things. If you waved your hand in front of you you could see it judder.
As an artist I’m appalled of how hard it is to find a LED with good color reproduction and no flicker. Do not believe CRI 99%, they use fake methodology to test. That’s why we bought couple of spare packs of excellent “Osram Color Proof” fluorescent lamps we use for work. Paired with quality Hellvar drivers, they are wonderful. Hopefully LEDs will improve in 10 years while our lamps last…
Pipe down serf! Lumens are lumens. You use the lights your betters allow you to have and smile about it. Your social credit score just took a hit. Improve it by helping us get rid of cars and electricity in the west to save the earth.
The most common failure mode of LED replacement tubes seems to be low speed flicker. I hoped we'd got away from that!
Don't make the same mistake I did. When they were about to ban the 100W bulbs I bought loads, enough for a lifetime. At that time the replacement bulbs were not as bright. However within a few years the new bulbs had got better than the 100W bulbs and I still got too many.
They're still easier on a camera, give a wider, smoother spectrum, allow your "warm" lights to actually provide some heat in winter in fixtures positioned to vent into the living space and remain the better choice for very cold and very humid locations. No harm in planning ahead.
@@tactileslut ... and they dim nicely in old-style dimming circuits.
Even when LEDs do dim in those circuits, for technical reasons they usual dim only down to half power, whereas the incandescents could be finished till the filament was merely a dim glow.
i still prefer my old incandescent bulbs
I did the same and probably have more of the incandescent bulbs than I'll ever use. The new LED do seem to work fine and do use less electricity. Hopefully I can have on hand worn out flourescent bulbs that I lean against my cattle hotwire to know fence is hot. It's at the end of the run and looking out my window seeing it blinking at night I know fence is working an cows are in.
As they say in Australia, Bugger!
We changed our shop to LED about 4 years ago and had zero failures so far. We did like you showed and bypass the ballast and feed the bulbs directly, cut the power by more than half from about 110W to 45W per light.
If you didn't expand the number of fixtures, then you are almost certainly getting less light. LED retrofit tubes don't usually have more than 1800 lumens. A four foot t8 starts at 2900 lumens.
@@gregorymalchuk272 No the shop is definitely brighter than before, we are using 8ft replacement tubes rated at 6000 lumens. Nice clean lights too and not the dull white/yellow florescent hue. As a bonus in the morning when its cold no flickering.
The UK is such a small corner of the world that I wonder if this video has any relevance. We can buy incandescent bulbs in our local shops (Gran Canaria, Spain) so I what impact if any will this have on us?
Perhaps it might be a viable option to used LED tubes if they are reliable enough. I would insist upon a 10 year lifespan minimum. Find us a manufacturer who will stand behind their product and then ... maybe.
That should include maintaining lumen intensity too... so far it's a big fail on that score.
Don’t know if you’ve already covered it but with Tungsram going bankrupt and others such as ge and Sylvania its meant that some ranges of entertainment lights are now obsolete. These include some par lamps and photography lamps.
Crazy isn't it, once dominant lighting manufacturers not seeing the signs...
@@efixx
Neither did giant global Kodak or Nokia.
Finally, someone comments on the AV industry 😊 as a hire company we struggle with needing replacements for our 400w halide floods, UV Lights, Theatre lights, catering tubes, pins pot lamps, festoon lamps, the list is endless and the equivalent is expensive and doesn't last. We also supply real glass neon and don't get me started on the so called led neon nonsense 😅
@@ChrisFear have a look at stage lamps they are my go to for lamps
Hi mate & thanks for the news as usual! I think the words this week are Enlightened & Wonky. Cheers
Our absolute pleasure, thanks for watching and tune in next week to see if you got the words right! 😃
A bit worrisome to recall the hundreds of tubes we trashed at the workplace, smashing them indoors to save space in the garbage! When CFLs came out the govt warned that we must dispose of them carefully because of the mercury. But no mention that a straight tube has 10-50 times the mercury of a CFL, so most people would keep smashing tubes and inhaling mercury!
Our building maint people said that they always replace tubes in pairs, because one fail usually means the other is 90% gone. Just for fun, we would replace a pair, save the working one, and use it to replace the failed one of another pair if the access was easy. To our surprise, the re-used ones would last for more than a year, with 16 hours a day running. So how many get trashed unnecessarily daily across the country?
I kept all the fittings at home going for years, with tubes pulled from the works tube bins!
Good video as usual. I changed our original fitment (fashionable at the time) four halogen bulb spot lights in one fitting kitchen light, to an LED baton 17 years ago. We were fitting the high energy halogen bulbs at a rate of knots and they were relatively expensive. Nearly went for fluorescent and glad we didn't. Fortunately the LED baton light was and still is bright. Other so called equivalent brightness LED bulbs have been a lot lower than tungsten they replaced.. so called 60w equivalent were more like 40w output. you can get good stuff but you really need to research things well
Just buy 2 sizes up from the LED rating to get the REAL light output.
Our kitchen tube needed replacing. Our local Screwfix only sell LED replacements. However once I bought it I could see it was just the normal tube. Sneakily they are selling the old tubes as LED.
Take it back and threaten them with Trading Standards and the local newspaper if they try to resist. Simples! It was most likely a poorly trained sales assistant though.
@@EuroScot2023 Why would I do that? I shopped around for a proper tube but could not find one. I was delighted that it was a proper tube I ended up with.
@@EuroScot2023 No, the proper solution is to go back and buy loads more.
The Lumen output on LED tubes, like for like is about 2/3rds of the equivalent fluorescent. Saying that they are getting better but always check the specifications and take before and after readings with a light meter so you remain within SLL guidelines...
Silly as it may sound, I’m getting a few tubes to keep as collector’s items, if I still can.
I have found that when using LED in a hot environment like an Engine Room of a ship they do not last. As the internal power supply have a premature failure.
May be it is time we should also move to 48v dc in the home.
Could be, could be.
@@efixx
Recall before LEDs when many lights were 12v, one guy I knew had a 230-12v transformer at the CU with all lighting in the house at 12v. In LEDs the failure point is usually the 230v to LV part of the lamp.
That's why there are still linear fluorescents in the loft here - I've seen 50C up there on still sunny days. Mind you no one will go up there on days like that so they're never on at those temps.
@@Graham_Langley- given the lack of use our loft lamps get, I think the tubes and fittings will last for tens of years 🤣. The only conventional filament lamps left in our place are also in the lofts.
@@Mark1024MAK Three here: Two GLS in a bedroom that are never on for more than a couple of minutes a week and will get replaced when they fail plus the one in the oven. The bedside lights still have CFLs as their slow start is easier on the eyes.
Great news weekly Joe as always .
Thanks much Sean. 😊
No worries. People will hoard them, then not use them and sell then or give away in the future. The thrift store is FULL of new incandescent bulbs and if you are lucky you find 100w and 150w ones
Last month I finished changing 101 light fixtures in our Apartment complex. LED everywhere now.
Thanks for the great video as always. I might be missing something, but you mention a 'cracking video' on replaceing flourescent tubes with LED alternatives and promised a link in the show notes. I cannot find this link. I have only found links for a training package, the new LED rating scheme and the mysteries of glare. I also have failed to find the LED batten replacement video on your main site. Please direct this poor lost soul!
The description's been updated, thanks for pointing it out. Link's here too: th-cam.com/video/kl_UYKw5sBk/w-d-xo.html
I do maintenance work for a well known retail chain and out of the 19 stores in our region over half are still using hundreds of t5 tubes. My nearest store only opened 7 years ago and probably has 200-350 tubes per floor, not to mention loads of recessed twin compact florescent fittings, and hundreds of CDM-T 35W spotlights, which are now about £20 each from the supplier the company uses. Within the first decade of opening all the lighting in the store is either going to be redundant, or not cost-effective to continue maintaining. 🤣
Yeah, crazy when technology shifts isn't it?
I'd be interested to know which retail chain, as I do alot of work for alot of retail chains, and everyone, even the cheapest of brands, has been led from at least 5years ago. The majority of work the last 5 years has been converting the older t5 54w nd 28w and cdm-t 35, 70 and 150w to led
I will be very cost-effective for these stores to move to LED, not just in energy saving, but also on maintenance. Many years ago I was always changing blown tubes, you would get them all done and a week later there were more to do. My biggest bug bear was the amount of new tubes delivered with bent or broken pins!
@MarkUKInsects personally I find the whole maintenance was a problem.
By time you carry g12, g8.3, 35w 70w 150w in 830 and 942 lamps and ballasts to suit
Tridonic 35b emergency ballasts, ballasts ranging from 18w singles to 80w x4, in both electronic and magnetic, starters and lamps in all colours to suit
2d lamps, 8w lamps the odd gu10 or 10w encapsulated
Nowadays they seem to be sticking to about 4 different types of led max per store, so your having to carry less crap with you, and led is certainly not as fragile rattling around In the van as the old glass lamps. Amount of times I've cut myself and had to hoover the van out after a day's work.
@@darylsavage119 I suppose there's no harm in telling you that it's not just florescent lighting, it's M&S florescent lighting 😂
I do see the old lamps being phased out as mostly a good thing, as it is we often only re-lamp fittings that still work, if the ballast goes in a twin CFL recessed fitting we change them for LED SkyDiscs, for T8 fittings we often use these retrofit LED tubes made by Mackwell, they have plastic dummy pins on the ends and a length of 2 core flex coming out of them which makes them very versatile. The only thing we don't currently have a 'fits-all' solution for is the large quantity of t5 fittings that we will still replace ballasts in, and will likely start stockpiling tubes for so our stores can phase them out a little more gradually.
I've known so many lads get their level 3 and even work in the electrical industry but get put off and leave it, due to all the constant demands of high priced re-trainig and re-qualifing, alot of other industrys quality and thats it.
There are fluorescent tubes that don't contain Mercury but most people don't want them because the light output isn't as bright and is often redder in color.
Will the Starters still be available for the existing fluorescent tubes ?
Thanks Joe and Efixx 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Nice...one less Danger(Mercury) for future Sparks!
Keep in mind when refitting LED's that they have higher inrush currents, which can ruin contactors and switches.
Good points both! Thanks much. 😊
How long is there until the u-shaped CFT bulbs used in desk lamps get banned? Is there a direct replacement that can be used or will it be a case of chucking the desk lamp out?
I don't know the ones but someone will probably make a LED replacement.
Fluorescent and Halogen lamps were supposed to have been banned as of las November, I remember David Savery did a video on it
Do you mean halogen rather than *hydrogen* ? All my halogens GU10s I've converted to LED with around 7x power saving.
@@grahamstevenson1740 why do iPhone put a word that similar instead of what I typed ? Thank you for spotting it
They would never be banned in my country
Because they dont care, there’s still a lot (i mean a lot) of fluorescent tubes that still operate on magnetic ballasts and are buzzing all day
You should have named the title of this video "Florescent lights about to be banned in the UK."
In the USA they are not banned and I thought this was a TH-cam channel from the USA until I heard your accent.
The USA, however, tried to ban incandescent light bulbs until many people made a stink about it. As of right now, you can still buy those too.
In the USA, we also have CFL bulbs that use mercury as well. However, we recycle the mercury in both CFL and florescent lights so there's no pollution at all.
How does this affect circular tubes? Both the large type used in room lights (not that I am too worried about this, as I have a stock of spares) and the small type as used in desk lamps (the magnifying type)?
Circular fittings are like hen's teeth.
They make LED Circline and frankly I'd definitely upgrade if given the opportunity.
Your sadly correct a dangerous profession,a friends life changed forever working on an old industrial installation with backup generators disconnected everything visible and started on the tested dead circuits only not! Delay starter fitted and he got serious burns and had to retire in his 40s.
I have small UV lamps in my pond filters. Are they to be phased out?
Thank you
I think for consumers, florescents really won't be missed and won't be a big deal for the few replacements. Currently, I have a few fixtures with incandsecent (a couple that are rarely used and not worth replacing with LED, one over my stove, a couple on dimmers - I just replaced a 60w rough service bulb used daily for 15 years before it failed - one in an enclosed fixture that LEDs warn not to install in, and one in the living room because I like the light quality). I have a bunch of 4ft strips in the garage and basement, and one in the other garage. As for florescents? I have 2 fixtures in the other garage that I just haven't gotten around to replacing them with 4ft LED strips.
The biggest hurt will be for small businesses with a sales floor or a backroom with a bunch of florescents. I recently closed my retail business after some hard times and the place had like 25 fixtures with 4 bulbs each. We did have a box of like 25 new T8 bulbs so every month or so, had to replace a bulb or two. Not a big deal. But if we had to replace all the fixtures or pay for retrofits, it would have been a huge expense that we couldn't afford.
LED is the way to go. In the states our local school district had a bond for upgrades to all of its facilities for heating, cooling, and lighting. This was to be a five year project.
After the data was analyzed from the upgrades to the first set of buildings after a year. The local school board changed to full speed ahead, and the project was done in half the time. The energy savings over the five years of the project was scheduled for paid for the complete project.
The led lamps out there can be made to last a lot longer and not run so hot if they were engineered differently.
But there is a catch.
The amount of chips needed for the same lumens is increased, thusaybe increasing the amount bulbs needed for same output compared to tungsten and fluro.
Point in case
The Dubai lamp from Philips. The real ones...
Most LED lamps can be made to live for much longer by replacing or removing the resistors from the circuit reducing the amount of current allowed to flow to the chips,vthus reducing brightness, but also increasing life span.
But
Oh I hate this...
I can't help but feel because only like 0.02 percent of people might have avgo at microcircuit alterations that there is going to be a illsome presence of planned obsolescence...
Interest comment. 👍
I suspect this running of LEDs at or near their maximum current/power/heat levels is deliberate. Manufacturers don’t want fittings or lamps that last ten years or more…
Big Clive has made a few videos talking about this, Most of the LED chips are well over driven, even a slight reduction in brightness would extend the life by several times.
@@NOWThatsRichy
I feel I now know how to make my own lithium charge control circuits thanks to him. And to be very grateful that we have electrical standards for items bought from retail.
I used to buy cheap stuff from eBay myself years ago, but it would always... Die... Catastrophically, abruptly, and a couple times in flames. Not all in the same manners and ways and of varying degrees but... Yeah.
Buy cheap, buy twice is now a thing again. Except, not buying cheap doesn't Guarantee longevity either 😭
@@NOWThatsRichy It was discovered in the mid 2010s that GaN and InGaN dies used as blue light for phosphor pump sources in 'white' LEDs can have big increases in efficiency at certain combinations of elevated drive current and high temperature at the expense of service life. This is why there are all kinds of LEDs that do over 100lm/W but are horribly unreliable.
THE IMPORTANT QUESTION IS-
CAN WE SWORD FIGHT WITH THE BAD LED LONG TUBES INSTEAD OF THE FLUORESCENT
LONG TUBES, LIKE BACK WHEN WE WAS KIDS??
I should be able to turn my lights in for New Free lights.
If you dont replace the old ballast it uses more power, and if you do replace it, you have to basically pay to dispose of it
Yes, because older magnetic ballasts were very durable and often were in service for decades. What that being said, where you really need to be careful, is removing and disposing of fluorescent ballasts, and the capacitor of an HID fixture manufactured before 1979, because they often contain PCB's, a suspected carcinogen.
Just leave it in place
Why the f*** dispose it? Collect them and use the for electronics projects. Only NPCs dispose of electrical items.
I bought an LED tube which said it could be used with ballast but not if electronic which mine is. Your explanation which seems to imply a simple swap seems a bit simplistic.
Can you provide the link to the video how to change the ballast over
Thanks
The description's been updated with the link, find it here too: th-cam.com/video/kl_UYKw5sBk/w-d-xo.html
About the floresent tubes: could they replace the mercury with gallium or would it not work because it needs to be a liquid first to transfir the current into the tubing, or is it that gallium isn't as conductive as mercury?
Hi, The two wors are Neeps and Taties and Cockaleeky soup. Thanks for a great video.
Last time I had to change a tube the led ones were not long enough to fit so the shop staff had to find out a florescent tube in the end as it was the only thing that fitted my light. Hope they get the led lamps that actually fit things next time.
I hope the calculator takes into account the lumen degradation that LED tubes suffer from. I was shocked at how fast the light levels dropped with the lights I changed. It was especially noticeable after noting the lumen reading (using a lux meter) and logging the downgrade each month from new. I've since re stocked a good supply of t5's as I'm not going to waste more money on LED's, on top of that a couple have already started strobing clusters of LED's within 24 months, in this case about 1/5'th of the T5 average failure time. I also had similar lumen decay on some big brand recessed 30w panels, that happened within the first 12 months. They still work and still consume 30 watts, but the actual lumen output is half what it was when new.... They never seem to mention this in the marketing hype.
What kind of crap did you buy. We switched our office lighting 8 years ago to retrofit LED tubes. During this time the Lumen on my desk went from 600 to 850 with the switch to LED. Over the past 8 years it degraded to about 800. We had less than 50 failed tubes (we bought 50 extra back than so we have identical for replacements) out of 1200 tubes. Only now we are slowly running out of replacement tubes.
I personally hate these new fangled LED lights. Everyone seems to install a cold white/blaring white LED tubes, that feel and look cold, clinical and very shadowy! LED tubes dont spread the light as evenly as a fluorescent tube!!
Look, you can CHOOSE the colour temperature ! With other types of bulb you never had a choice. Get some 2700K bulbs (with high CRI (colour rendering index).
I think it is great that we are moving on to LED. But with that said, I have also had problems with facilities not keeping warm enough during fall and winter after a big swap. So keep that in mind that the excess power consumption from flourescent lights turned into heat when you do your calculations.
That was a problem when filament lamps were withdrawn too. Good news in summer, massive deficit in winter. 😬
I noticed that in my house when I changed my GU10s and R7s to LEDs. The room was noticeably colder and I don't mean colour temperature (which was also a bit colder)
Check the color temperature of your bulbs/tubes.
Find a chart with color temperatures for lighting.
Check by yourself in showrooms.
@William Tell problems are coming from cheap lamps that flicker, have poor color rendering and have bad diode distribution and light diffusion... LEDs can be better in any aspect than the 'cassics''
@William Tell wait, aren’t fluorescent tubes the worst offenders for eye strain?
I myself at home I have a 4 tube fluorescent fixtures in the kitchen and one day I added up the watts The fixture draws , 368 watts
You have to add the watts of the fluorescent tubes plus the watts of the ballast
So I replaced them with LED tubes and because LED tubes are brighter , I only had to use 3 tubes instead of 4 and now the fixture draws only 45 watts , Quite a difference
45 watts compared to 368 watts
Oh well, looks like I'll be buying a lifetime's supply of yet another "banned" product.
...me too...!!
Omg. Australia here and haven’t heard any news here about flouros but I am sure we’ll probably follow suit with banning them in time. My Question 🙋♂️ is what about solariums/sun beds??? Are those tubes still going to be available???
Well, I'll stock up on fluorescent tubes and starters, for years to come.
I find that led lighting effects my eyesight in a negative way…
Fluorescent Tubes will be missed, but I am sure you will still be able to get them second hand for decades to come.
I love how they turn on and the gradial mercury colour that develops at the ends.
I found LED Tubes way to unreliable, my denist recently changed all the fluorescents with led tubes and serveral already died, the sports hall at school also did that and serveral also are dead. With LEDs they are too many factors to consider while all evsn cheap fluorescents last longer than they have any right to.
Mercury is toxic but fluorescents are mostly used by companies or governmental institutions etc. so they can take care of proper disposal.
Talking about disposal, fluorescent tubes can be 100% recycled, there are videos on the process on youtube.
While LED bulbs/Tubes mostly end up broken in the trash and burned somewhere. Also LEDs can contain arsenic or lead, while it is more contained in the led package, its really not worth extracting LEDs so they end up trashed.
Fluorescents have shown to be reliable and descsntly efficient, wastefull enegery use is not a problem if its somewhere you want heat, schools are a great example of this. The hallways have a lot fluorescents and the hallways are always a pleasing warmth with no radiators
There is no need for disposal, you can use them forever. A Tesla coil can turn on a worn fluorescent lamp.
we are going to have crappy black lights left. I always loved the florescent blacklight tubes becaues they have this lovely soft purple glow and florescent tubes can produce true UV. unlike the crappy purple light made from Leds that pretends to be UV but is not.
Back in the 60s fluorescent lamps had so much mercury in them you could see the bead of it rolling around inside of the tube but now there is hardly any at all. I think a bigger push to get rid of them would be from the power they consume compared to the led lights we have today. They've been saying fluorescent lights would be gone years ago but they are still here.
US energy efficiency standards appear to be pushing fluorescent out in 2024 by virtue of lumens per watt.
The fixtures are easy to convert to LED tubes. I have converted several rooms at my facility. Some LED tubes work with existing T-8 ballasts as is. Others the ballast needs to be removed or disconnected and line wires connected to sockets along with 1 amp fuses. LED tubes cost more up front but last 2-3 times longer and use 50-75 % less electricity.
I get 30000+ hours from high intensity T5's and so far between 5-10000hours before LED's become too dim to use (below required workplace minimum).
Meanwhile the LED consumption remains constant.
Great podcast
Nice to see the nasty fluorescent tubes with their Mercury being withdrawn.
Bring on the LEDs with their Gallium Arsenide!
I believe it's actually gallium nitride.
@@soundspark Indium Gallium Nitride (effectively Gallium Nitride in blue LEDs as you add indium to the die active region to lengthen the photon wavelength into the green and greenish yellow) or Aluminum Indium Gallium Phosphide depending on the color. Gallium Arsenide and Gallium Phosphide are used for indicator LEDs that are nowhere near as efficient but far more reliable.
I have installed several of the four foot LED tubes in some fixtures and what I have requested from my supplier is that the tube have a color of 4000 to 4700 kelvin and a CRI of 90% or better. This is the easiest on my eyes and there is no glare issue. I still have under cabinet lights using T5 lamps as well a four foot fixtures using T8’s. There is even a comms shelter I own that is mid 80’s vintage that utilizes T12 lamps with mag ballasts and interference reducing choke coils considering this unit is used for HF military communications. Does anyone know of a supplier of four foot tubes the are in the 4K to 4.7K range that operate at 12 volts DC?
It's not just in Scotland. It is hard to paid everywhere.
I went into a Sainsbury's supermarket yesterday for the first time in ages and was dismayed at how dull it was in there. It looks like they've replaced all of the old ceiling lights with those embedded LED lights where the actual light is run through a vertical perspex light guide. For me I could hardly read the produce labels, with or without my glasses. Once I got outside I had no problem reading the labels. To be honest I rarely go to a Sainsbury's, and the light was so bad and uncomfortable I doubt I'll be going again. I'm sure that'll change once all supermarkets install these horrible light fittings so we have no choice.
They were installed over ten years ago.
The first practical fluorescent lamp was developed in the USA in 1938. The fluorescent lamp helped the allies win WWII. For instance, the first application was in the Springfield Armoury in the USA.
Mike Sage Fellow Illuminating Engineering Society of Australia and New Zealand
I'm thinking anyone complaining about the color of LED bulbs, has not actually shopped for LED bulbs. The range of color temperatures is overwhelming. I personally use 2700K in most of the living areas, 5000K out in the workshop/garage, and 4000K at my desk. I have been slowly replacing florescent bulbs for the last decade as each dies and never looked back. I have had almost zero issues finding colors from 2000K thru 6000K. I can say that even living in a rural Texas community of under 6000 residents. If I need something a bit more special, I can order online and receive in 48 hours. (end of rant)
From the UK, Ive still got dozens of CFLs I haven't even used yet, about 15 years they were being given away for free by many energy companies to encourage people use them, & shops were almost giving them away for free, so l amassed a quite a big collection .!
No more standing in the field near where I used to live holding 6ft. Tubes above our heads while standing under low point in the 450kv pylons, and then playing light sabres with them after pulling them from the skip out side the factory next door.
What a shame end of an era, wont be the same with the horrible led guff of today, glad i have over 300 fluorescent lamps so i dont have to use LED!!
having spent 10 years of my life as a (house basher) a person who goes into a property to rewire or plumb whilst occupied , residents used to class us as house bashers
A quick check on Screwfixx shows 4' fluorescent tube uses 36W to produce 3350 lumens of light. 93 lumens/W. And a LED tube uses 16W to produce 1600 lumens. 100 lumens/W. So where's the huge saving resulting in a "3 month payback"? Especially after fitting or altering the lighting batten.
Should I buy 10k worth now and hold on to them to re sell.
Hm, depends on a few factors...
Definitely 100%
Fluorescent lights are used alot when it comes to greenhouses and plant nurseries due to the amount of uv light they produce i wonder what are they gonna do now
LEDs are well adopted in this market www.lighting.philips.co.uk/products/horticulture
LEDs are better at that anyway.
What are we suppose to do for aquatics and reptiles that need cfl for the types of light required like UV and full spectrum as I know for sure that led’s don’t grow the plants in the aquarium half as good as the triphospher t8 and t5 and even cfl’s . They banned the incandescent bulb and that wasn’t good for old types of incubators that used them as a heat source . Lots of things that require proper lighting having to make do with inferior products
I was an electrician for 17 plus years, but quit as the pay was terrible, and went to JCB instead as pay is much better and overtime rates , working on Sunday for T + 1/3... not likely. and no bonus either.
Oh my 4W torch might need a few spares
The customers pay first, and the electricians finish the work once the payment is in their bank account. If non payment has become this big of a problem, then something needs to be done about it. Is there a national electrical workers union or trade and promotion group that can coordinate such an effort?
That electricians pay is shockingly low, here in Denmark they get more than double that on average! No wonder that there is a shortage.
As with any other trade, if the employer paid properly then they would get the employees.
What's the rather poor power factor of all those LED fittings going to result in though ?
YES - i cant see an inverter in those thin strip led tubes designed to replace directly a florescent tube.. how is power factor correction done inside those led strips?
@@g8rdt Proper power factor correction is rare. Manufacturers rely on their bulbs and fittings being below the wattage where power factor correction is mandatory (was 75W, may be 50W now). However if you have a large factory/warehouse/office block with, say, 500 fittings of 10W, that's 5kW of poor power factor to consider. The nature of the load current waveform does not benefit from classic L/C correction either.
I've been involved in designing LED lighting that's run from typically 36 or 42V DC from power factor corrected PSUs which is far better but it's very rare to see this level of attention to detail.
A couple years ago a new customer phone me . He had his Fluorescent changed for recessed LED spot lights. He blamed the last electrician as since replacing the light his Bose radio would only pic up hash on FM when his new lights were on. I couldn’t solve the problem but assured him they were safe. I believe he lived in a poor reception area.
The RFI from some LED lamps is horrendous. My short wave radio was completely blocked by noise a while back which I traced to a Chinese-made LED spot which I had recently swapped out for an older halogen one. I bought a Philips branded lamp and changed it for that, and all the RFI has gone. Beware cheap brands!
Thanks for this privilege to watch such perfect summary of electrical news and I'm guessing the 2 words are neeps and tatties.
Well thanks for watching, it's much appreciated. And make sure you're listening in next week to see if you got it right. 😃
@@efixx certainly
Why can't they do this in the USA as well?? This is been a long time coming. Glad at least the UK is on board.
The Energy Independence and Security Act went into effect in 2007. In 2019 the administration reversed the policies, but after 15 states sued, put them back in place. California has been rather aggressive with phasing out fluorescents for many years.
Only an imbecile can with for the ban of a plasma light source.
means darker rooms and more breakdowns. not to mention expense
Big problem with LED is that they are absolutely NOT white.
They are more blue than anything.
Natural light is a whitish yellow.
If they will make LED's with 4000K temperature that might help with eye strain.
Can 'smart meters' tell if you are using LED vs another kind of bulb and if so, how to thwart the utility company's spying on you?
As long as metal halide lamp not banned, I'll be just fine, thank you.
Old is gold
i got some over 30 year old and still working
and then there's me sitting here with my 1995 year of release Tungsram 40w t12 tubes with 530 halophosphate glowing softly just outside my computer screen. I will never give into that shit with fluorescent bans. in my woodworking shed there are still fluorescent fixtures from 1950s still in use with original ballasts and starters, and the tubes are modern T12 Tungsram tubes that I have stashed safely literal boxes of them in various colors.
heak t12 ban ban for years and you can still buy them
Well yeah, meanwhile I just got about 60 plain old-fashioned fluorescent tubes to last a lifetime, a pack of starters and a few replacement ballasts, all dirt cheap. I get to say how I light my garage and kitchen, period. I'll probably write up the remaining spare tubes in my will...
I find it hard to believe sparks not well paid as soon as you need one First thoughts how much is this going to cost probably one month's your average wage. Now l.e.d. run to hot resulting in dry joints and circuit fail brunt boards. Most can be repaid ie when flashing on off or completely dead.
If you desperate to stay with them you can get them online.
Yur, I would imagine it'll take a loooooooong time for stocks to dwindle.
@@efixx probably still making them in China.
I don't know where I've been living it's the first I've heard of this. I've got LED spots in my kitchen and they're bloody useless I was going to change them do a couple of short fluorescents!
If this is all tubes then it's really going to hit the fish keeping hobby and reptile keepers who use specialist tubes to provide UV or light at precise wavelengths.
Re: Dangerous jobs. There's a risk of surviver bias in these studies. They calculate danger purely on the accident statistics, and don't actually assess the various risks involved. Comparing the accident rates of trained electricians with trained deep sea fishermen is one thing, but since the risks are usually addressed in any industry, but not counted, it isn't a fair comparison of which is more dangerous. Were we to put an amateur in those roles, which would be more likely to have a serious accident? There's half a dozen serious risks the fisherman NEEDS to know about, or they won't survive the trip, but there must be hundreds of serious no-no's an electrician could encounter in a similar way. We shouldn't be asessing danger levels by how many accidents there are in that field, but by how many serious risks people are facing, and in professions, how many of those serious risks can be avoided, or minimised. This would give us a better idea of the risks faced, because you can be a safe, professional electrician all your days, mitigating hundreds of potentially life threatening factors every job, while fishermen, firemen and miners only face a few big risks, but half of those are ultimately beyond their control.
I generally dislike Governments making technical decisions, but this one is probably a good call. I've replaced severa; florescents with drop-in LEDs. The light is steadier, comes on faster and uses less energy, as well as avoiding hum and other issues. I've had no failures and the LED seem to last far longer than the tubes that they replaced. In all, a swap-out is a great idea.
In that case, why does the government have to mandate the swap-out? They don't except that the big manufacturers have paid Congress to kill off competition, to make sure no one keeps producing fluorescent tubes to compete with them.
I agree with switching to LEDs now. However, several of the problems you mentioned with fluorescents can be avoided by using electronic ballasts. In my downstairs bathroom, I have LED tubes, and in my upstairs bathroom, I have T-8 fluorescent tubes with an electronic ballast, and I cannot tell the difference between the two bathrooms.
Governments environmentalists are a pain!
I haven't used florescent lamps in years anyway.
A mate of mine is in Madison Wisconsin and told me he still has incandescent light bulbs. Country of manufacture? Hungary.