I bought a few fluorescent bulbs to replace incandescents… They are the kind that look like cork screws. This evening I switched the kitchen light off and noticed that one of the bulbs was flashing on and off. It seemed to maintain a regular rhythm of about a half second flash with about a second or two in between. Does anyone have an idea of what the cause might be?
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Defective power supply in the bulb? Have you tried swapping? Otherwise, maybe the light fixture itself is allowing too much heat to build up and the bulb has a high temp cutout?
PaulB
Swapping makes your bulb glow better?
Lemme ask my wife if she's game.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
"We strive for conversion,we get lost in conversation, and wallow in consternation. "Me.
Did this last for a short time, or did it continue?
BTW, just don't accidentally break your compact fluorescent bulb....
See http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=105908.1
"Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words." - St. Francis of Assisi
I saw the same thing recently at a hotel that I stayed at. They had installed some new fangled dimmable fluorescent bulbs into all the lamps in the room. As I retired for the evening and turned off all the lights one of them started to flash off and on. The only way I could get it to stop was unplug the lamp.
I'm not sure of the source of the problem ut I'm guessing that the bulb is bad, probably the ballast.
Do you control your lights with X10 equipment?
Scott.
Always remember those first immortal words that Adam said to Eve, “You’d better stand back, I don’t know how big this thing’s going to get.”
I have one on a dimmer that does that, too, but pushing the dimmer toggle down firmly stops it. (Dimmer was used with a regular bulb before.)
Considering the previous poster's experience in the hotel, i guess the next question would be...is the light on a dimmable circuit?
Actually, what it sounds like is that the circuitry in the lamp base is defective.
As I understand it, the lamps need some circuitry to get the voltage/power requirements the tubes need to "fire" off. Which probably combines some component acting as a capacitor and possbliy a small transformer. Still guessing, there's probably a diode-based "gate" that "senses" power to feed the circuitry. If that gate is/becomes defective, the capacitor will continue to "fire" until all of the stored power bleeds away.
Now, on a dimmer circuit, there can be enough stray voltage to keep capacitor-driven fucntions going (put a "candle flicker" lamp on a dimmer switch and see if it will shut down <sigh>).
But, that is a guess.