A good justification for doing lighting

[signal15]

In my previous house, I had a bunch of crappy X10 dimmers. They would ramp up when turning on over about 1.5 seconds, and ramp down when turning off. After a great amount of research and testing *many* different brands of bulbs, I found that Ushio PAR bulbs put out the best light and have the best cone out of anything else out there. They are about $7 each.

Over 2 years, I burned out ONE bulb in my old place. Shortly before I sold it, I got rid of the X10 switches and put in regular on/off switches because I didn't want the lights flaking out when the house was being shown. About a month after I sold the house, I spoke with the new owner, and EVERY bulb burned out. 22 of them. 22 bulbs * $7 = $154 for bulbs.

In my new house, I replaced all of the bulbs with Ushio bulbs. I have regular on/off switches. Over the last year, every bulb has burned out at least once.

The ramp-up function on the dimmers save bulbs. And if you have a significant investment into bulbs, then a couple of Insteon/Z-wave/whatever dimmers will actually pay for themselves. The amount of time it takes depends on how many lights are on a single circuit and how many switches are used for each circuit. But, eventually, they will pay for themselves.

 

[JeffVolp]

The ramp-up function on the dimmers save bulbs. And if you have a significant investment into bulbs, then a couple of Insteon/Z-wave/whatever dimmers will actually pay for themselves.

That is certainly true of incandescent bulbs. The tungsten filament has lower resistance when cold, which results in a surge current when the bulb is first switched on. Ramping up slowly eliminates the surge current and sudden thermal stresses. The few incandescent bulbs we still have in use have lasted years running on Leviton X10 switches, which have the ramp on/off.

Compact fluorescent bulbs are another story. They can be damaged by the ramp on/off. Relay switches are best to use with CFLs unless they are specifically designed for dimming. The older type X10 switches that just switched on and off can also be used as long as the switch is never dimmed.

Jeff

 

[signal15]

I *HATE* CFL's. I do have some for lights that I leave on all the time, like my can lights above my garage and front door. But for interior lighting where design is a factor, they suck. Most you cannot dim, some take several minutes to warm up and put off a decent amount of light, and 90% of the manufacturers don't put a Kelvin rating on the box so you have no idea what color they are. At least they don't flicker anymore like they did 10 years ago.

I'm looking forward to decent LED lighting for reasonable prices, HID, or plasma. But all of that stuff is just ridiculously expensive right now. Which, it shouldn't be. An SSC P7 LED costs about $15 and puts out nearly 900 lumens, equivalent to a 100w incandescent. And it only takes like 3 or 6 watts. Still, it wouldn't be dimmable with a normal dimmer.

 

[MikeB]

I have to agree. I can't believe how long my incandescents are lasting using a .5 second ramp rate and 90% on level.

 

[drozwood90]

I had some outside like that.

I popped 1 / year on the garage. Then after I hooked in the Automated Switch, it lasted for as long as I owned the house.

So, I require ALL of my outside lights to be incandescent style that RAMP on (can't really DIM on...well, maybe you can DIM*-1 on...).

--Dan

 

[Steve]

I have also noticed that my PAR halogens last MUCH longer since being on automated dimmers with ramp.

 

[GraysonPeddie]

I use an 8 second ramp rate using Insteon lamp modules.

I can't stand CFLs, no matter if they flicker or not.

Incandescent is the life for me until better technology comes out that are fully dimmable and affordable.