[Monophoto]

Just for the record, somebody posted a message ( not sure if on another thread on apug.org. or elsewhere) that the spiral BLB tubes can not be used in horizontal orientation due to the nature of the ballast. I have no idea if this is true, but I know for a fact that it was said, and the posted seemedm pretty sure of the information.

Sandy

0

Sandy -

When I first raised the question (another thread, perhaps another board), I mentioned that when CFLs were first introduced, the manufacturer's did impose constraints on mounting - the choices were base up or base down.

I just did some research in the other thread and found the following note from Nick Zentana:

"I'm not sure all those issues you mention have been cured. When I was looking at using them for an enlarger head I found a few things.

1) The bulbs over a certain size don't like being enclosed. Heat becomes a issue. I think 28watts. That's one bulb. If you're using multiple bulbs I bet you need to worry about cooling even if the bulb is rated for enclosed fixtures.

2) The bigger bulbs can only be burned bulb up."

Perhaps this is what you were recalling.

A logical followup question is "what is a bigger bulb?" I've seen some very large CFLs (equivalent to upwards of 300w of incandescent), But I've only seen smaller (eg, 20 and 27 watt) spiral BLBs listed on various web sites - are there any restrictions on these spiral BLB bulbs?