Dimming compact fluro's

Yes more people emailing the Minister will I hope get his and his advisers attention. For those who want to feedback their comments on the subject should contact his office at [email protected] <[email protected]>

I suspect that Clispal will be none pleased with his proposed direction. Having just spent a total of 10K on C-Bus kit and being told that I can't dim a light of choice I am seeing red.

I hope some on the forum will give his email a touch up!

Cheers,

Fleetz

 

CFL dimming

JohnC
The new Megaman DorS lamp will be a nice addition. Its a pity that all those C-Bus and other dimmers wont suit.

 

Yes not compatible with C-Bus dimmers and stepped dim which is very clunky.

I have actually bought a couple of Meggaman CFL GU-10 downlights (Not Dors) to have a play with they are not bad the warm white is a reasonable colour temp, BUT they can be dimmed.

If a Philips, Osram or Meggaman and the like design a truly dimmable version CFL they will make a killing. Maybe a Clipsal dimmable CFL downlight!

Cheers,

Fleetz

 

I would probably see red too .. But then - with market restrictions in place, there's suddenly a real opportunity to develop dimmable globes that are energy efficient. Sure, there's that opportunity now - but there's no financial motivation as the products probably just wouldn't sell.

I certainly see the concerns - but I'm hopeful as well that this will create the incentive to develop some real alternatives to incandescent globes.

 

The theory is nice, but...

It's all about COST. Anything is possible, but people don't look at the benefits... they always look at the up-front cost.

Back in the mid 1980's when philips released the first SL compact fluoro (not exactly "compact" in todays terms), they cost about $40 each. Even then, these lamps were commercially viable because they saved more power than the extra $ that they cost. But they didn't sell in huge numbers, mainly because of the high initial cost and ugly appearance (which was only relevant in SOME applications).

Now days, we have $5 retrofit CFL lamps but people are finding new excuses to "not use them". Inability to easily dim is the latest excuse not to use CFLs.

That "non-dimmability" issue of CFLs only applies to retrofit lamps, and every time I have demonstrated how nicely a dedicated CFL dimming system works the viewers have been absolutely gobsmacked at how nicely it operates.

However, do you dim your laundry? Walk in robe? Kitchen? Exterior lights? So, there's no reason not to immediately change those lamps, eh?

Further, poor lighting design (usually done by builders) means that there's usually only 1 lighting circuit per room - therefore because the room usually needs multiple functionality, the only solution is over-light it to hell... and then use a dimmer to bring it down as required fo rthe majority of the time. This is incredibly inefficient (and ugly too).

A proper lighting design determines then separates out the individual usages of the space, and provides a lighting scheme to suit each activity. In a living room, that could be separate schemes for walking through the room, cleaning, reading, lounging around, watching tv, doing homework, etc etc. In many of these cases, there is absolutely NO need to dim the lights... the dimming is only required if the room has been over-lit.

I don't know if what I just said makes sense to a non-lighting person... but it is entirely possible to have a functional, NON-dimming lighting scheme. But you have to separate the lighting into "groups" and then use scenes to switch them in and out as required.

This is commonly done in commercial lighting (where they mainly use Metal Halide which is extremely hard to dim)... so there's no reason not to do similar in a domestic situation... except for initial cost.

But the very first thing is to rememeber... to make CFLs work well (either commercially or domestically) you cannot select an incandescent or halogen light fixture, and then try to make a retrofit fluoro lamp fit in it. This is basically like buying a 1961 motor car, ad then stuffing around trying to get a modern engine to work properly in it. At the end of the day, the result is usually expensive, unreliable and severely compromised.

To get a good result you have to buy a fluorescent light fixture up front... that way, you can get something that performs properly, is designed to hide/utilise the characteristics of the lamp, and has the ability to dim, etc. Then, add more relay channels, a few scenes... and there isn't any NEED to have a dimmer !

 

I have read your post with great interest. I must say, I agree with your concept however, I re-started this thread because of the announcement by Mr Turnbull about banning the globes in favour of CF's.

If you are building or renovating a home, then great. Unfortunately, this won't be the case for most so this is not practical or cost effective. Having an electrician replace the fittings and re-design lighting will be very expensive

Unfortunately, we are mainly dealing with the retrofit market when dealing with a blanket ban which is not practical.

John, we look at every installation on it's merits. I have many clients who do require dimming of laundry, kitchen and WIR lights. eg... With automation, a great selling feature of C-Bus is to have lights in a path to young children's bedrooms be dimmed when arriving home late at night when kids have fallen asleep in the car and need to be carried to their rooms. Many homes have entrances through side or back doors which often is the laundry. It may also be through the kitchen.

Likewise, I have a scene in my bedroom which switches my WIR light on to a low level (particularly in winter) so as not to flood the bedroom with bright light and wake my wife.

I have hallway and WC lights come onto a low level (again triggerred by automation) during the night for the kids to find their way to the toilet.

Sorry again... We are selling C-Bus to clients who have some beautiful, ornate light fittings including chandeliers. Dimming is a huge part of our business. I would be interested in hearing the throughts of other C-Bus installers.

Can anyone clear something up for me... Does this 'ban' include halogen lights too?

Cheers

 

Here is Malcolm Turnbull's statement press release no mention of HL. I have heard that there might be some easing on halogen downlights, I heard on a TV grab on a morning news the day after the press release words to the effect " consideration will be give to to halogen downlights of the effeicient kind" I suspect he (or his advisers) are referring to the Osram IRC and the like.
World first! Australia slashes greenhouse gases from inefficient lighting
Tuesday, 20 February 2007


"In a world first move, the Australian Government is taking action to phase out inefficient light bulbs.

The step, announced today at Double Bay Public School by Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull MP, should reduce Australia?s greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tonnes by 2012. (See the photo gallery section of this website)

The reduction in emissions will increase as the phase out progresses and the annual average reduction between 2008-2012 is estimated at around 800,000 tonnes.

However, by 2015 the annual cut in emissions will have soared to an estimated 4 million tonnes per annum.

Household lighting costs can be reduced by up to 66 per cent.

?The most effective and immediate way we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions is by using energy more efficiently,? Mr Turnbull said.

?Electric lighting is a vital part of our lives; globally it generates emissions equal to 70 per cent of those from all the world?s passenger vehicles.?

?But it is still very inefficient. We have been using incandescent light bulbs for 125 years and up to 90 per cent of the energy each light bulb uses is wasted, mainly as heat.?

?A normal light bulb is too hot to hold ? that heat is wasted and globally represents millions of tonnes of CO2 that needn?t have been emitted into the atmosphere if we had used more efficient forms of lighting.?

?These more efficient lights, such as the compact fluorescent light bulb, use around 20 per cent of the electricity to produce the same amount of light.?

?A compact fluorescent light bulb can last between 4 and 10 times longer than the average incandescent light bulb, which can lead to major savings in household energy costs.?

?While they may be more expensive to buy up front, they can pay for themselves in lower power bills within a year.?

In Australia, lighting currently represents around 12 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from households, and around 25 per cent of emissions from the commercial sector.

Working with its state and territory counterparts, the Australian Government will gradually phase out all inefficient light bulbs and is aiming for full enforcement of new lighting standards legislation by 2009 to 2010. Special needs areas, such as medical lighting and oven lights, will be taken into consideration.

The Government will also work with the world?s largest manufacturers of light bulbs, including China, to broaden the benefits beyond Australia.

?The International Energy Agency has estimated that if all countries made the global switch to compact fluorescent lights that by 2030, annually it would save energy equivalent to more than 5 years of Australia?s current electricity consumption,? Mr Turnbull said.

?The climate change challenge is a global one. I encourage other countries to follow Australia?s lead and make the switch to more energy efficient products like compact fluorescent light bulbs.?

Media contact: Sarah Stock (02) 6277 7640 or 0404 848 186 ....ends

Still have not had any reply to my email sent to Turnbull. I did mention the effiencent halogens on the market today which claim upto 45% energy saving....but again no response from the Minister.

I do agree with your comments in the previous post. Sorry JohnC not taking sides but common sense must rule when applying something like what is being proposed. I did make the point in my email to Turnbull that I can have a 3 phase 25KW airconditioning plant installed in my home running 24/7 but I can't have a 35W dimmable halogen lights.

I too want to be able to most of what you are pointing at in your email.

Cheers,

Fleetz

 

It's always good to hear from people who have real experiences in varied situations. Adds depth to a discussion. Unpracticed (if there is such a word) theory can get so boring.

No slant on you JohnC, as I know you have vast lighting experience Just great to hear real world application knowledge every now and again

 

Hey - Don't get me wrong... I think that the situation re: banning of incandescents is absolutely ridiculous. But in the USA they have banned PAR38 lamps. Here they have banned Halophosphate fluorescents. They have also banned lead in petrol.

The lobbying about MEPs is very strong - it is pretty misguided, but the politics are very strong. The government is not REALLY serious about energy savings anyway - it's just politics.

I was in FNQ this week, sussing out an energy saving project that we did 2 years ago in a pretty large hospital. I checked the lighting and all the measures that we had implimented, and confirmed we had reduced the lighting from 109.4kW to 61.9kW (on the circuits that we worked on), which saved them 47.5kW or 43%.

As I walked around, I noticed a small building that was about the size of an average domestic house. Inside a cage at the back was a heap of split system air conditioners, all running flat out... I photographed it, since there was so many... my estimation is that they had :

9 x 1kW + 2 x 1.5kW + 2 x 2.5kW = about 17kW worth !

And there was literally hundreds of other packaged A/Cs scattered all over the site. The hospital was unable to understand that THOSE were the reason for their high electricity bills... not the lighting!

 

Hey John

Unfortunately, the hospital suffers from the same mis-guided thoughts as the pollies..... lights are the major problem. Your post was very interesting and I'm sure, many others see the same thing every day. Maybe it's a hangover from when we were kids and our parents were for ever telling us to switch off lights!!!! I guess times have changed and today's house has many more electrical devices compared with 30 years ago.

I might (as an exercise) do a real world experiment in my own home over the next few weeks. I would be interested to see exactly how much power is used (it will be very interesting with the stand-by devices). BTW..... what is the 'standby' power of C-Bus? If I'm not home and all of my devices are off, how much power is consumed? How does this translate over a year? I imagine it will be surprising and would be keen to see how/if we can dynamically change the power supplies on the netywork depending on demand.

We did a project a couple of years ago with essential power and backup power. Wired the network input devices using orange/blue for normal and brown/green for backup and joined the two networks with a bridge (needed to do some trickery at the dimmer/relay modules). Maybe something similar could be used for 'at home' and 'away/night' to reduce power consumption of C-Bus' phantom power use. I'll report all of my findings back to the group.

Thanks again for your interesting perspective John.... I'm interested in learning more about lighting with CF and how it can be incorporated

Cheers

 

Hey Conformist - You need one of these handy doo-dads...



http://www.clipsal.com/consumer/products/DandC_Elec/power/Electricity_Montiors

 

Thanks John

I'm taking the unit we have here in the office home tonight to have some fun. Can't wait to clamp it on the C-Bus power supplies

Cheers