I have one of those incandescent light bulb replacement units in my kitchen,, and it makes an audible hum,, along with a vibration that can be felt with the fingers, anyone else experienced this?

bob(from black rock) said:

I have one of those incandescent light bulb replacement units in my kitchen,, and it makes an audible hum,, along with a vibration that can be felt with the fingers, anyone else experienced this?

Cut the red wire, not the green!

You mean compact fluorescent? Lots of components in them I would suggest it is nothing to worry about. Just be aware that they do not like heat, and puting them in enclosed fittings (even downlights) will shorten their life considerably.

Thanks for that Carmen, just removed the diffuser.

I have one light fitting with CFL that has always buzzed since installed… Same thing when bulbs changed.
I wondered if I had miswired the fitting.

Ian said:

I have one light fitting with CFL that has always buzzed since installed… Same thing when bulbs changed.
I wondered if I had miswired the fitting.

A pissabolity ‘spose, but all I did was change the bulb, so no wireing chang in my case.

Carmen_Sandiego said:

Just be aware that they do not like heat, and puting them in enclosed fittings (even downlights) will shorten their life considerably.

I’m not sure what you mean….“exactly”
Can you elaborate?

there are electronic components inside the base bit of the bulb. they aren’t like incandescents which are just a evacuated globe with a bit of tungsten wire which heats up. these electronic components are cheap and nasty to keep the price down. these don’t like excessive heat.

http://www.cliftonlaboratories.com/compact_fl.htm

that little transformer will probably be the vibration source.

Thanks Boris

Incidentally, I’m an electronics techician ‘by trade’…so I get the gist of what ‘e was saying.
It’s just that I haven’t read or heard of specific CFL being restricted to only certain types of housings.
I haven’t heard of any “over heating” as such, by being in a certain type of light fitting.

High power LED’s driver units run hotter and have differant requirements with regards to heat dissipation.

yes, it is usually halogen or high power LEDs that are problematic. CFL run pretty cool, but you never know…though unlikely to be an issue.

So, does it matter if you were to attach the active wire the neutral terminal?

apart from being poor wiring practice i would imagine not as poor wiring would happen in some installations and this would have to be accommodated in the design of the unit for safety sake.

Boris said:

http://www.cliftonlaboratories.com/compact_fl.htm

that little transformer will probably be the vibration source.

There are no heatsinking requirements here, so inherant heat within the starter/driver circuit is unlikely to be a problem.
Poor construction or low quality components…well, that is another issue.
Units for sale in Oz “should” meet minimum safety standards.

The small transformer “may” be a source of vibration if the laminations are resonating, but I think they operate at quite high frequency….tens of kilohertz range, so they usually wont buzz but more, squeal, produce a high frequency ‘ringing’ sound.

*It’s difficult to know what Ian is referring to exactly without first hand observation.

There are 2 terminals sticking off the top of the largish flush-with-ceiling fitting..

it’s been a while now.. the thing has always hummed/buzzed.

Here is a fairly decent article on CLFs.

http://sound.westhost.com/lamps/cfl.html

Ian, these things don’t care if the active and the neutral are swapped around, although it is a no no for safety reasons.

The noise will come from the transformer. It will be switched at quite a high frequency, certainly above say Boris’ hearing frequency, which would be about 1 kHz. These things would switch at > 20 kHz, but that will set up vibrations in the transformer which will vibrate the whole thingymebob and some will be well within a normal hearing range.

They don’t like heat (see article) and this will certainly lower their effective lifetime.

http://sound.westhost.com/lamps/cfl.html

rod is a good source. some informative articles.

>rod is a good source. some informative articles.

A few years ago I helped him out with one of his articles, so corresponded by email for a while.

certainly above say Boris’ hearing frequency, which would be about 1 kHz.

it the bass that makes the music.

Boris said:

certainly above say Boris’ hearing frequency, which would be about 1 kHz.

it the bass that makes the music.

2k higher than mine then.

thanks sibeen, boys

sibeen said:

Here is a fairly decent article on CLFs.

http://sound.westhost.com/lamps/cfl.html

That clears up my query regarding heat, cheers sibeen.

I wasn’t aware that low power CFL’s generated enough heat to cause a problem with thermal dissipation & heat transfer within the circuits of the lamps.
I’ll definately keep this in mind on my daily travels when observing light fittings and which type of lamps are installed.

It’s surprising there isn’t more general information on the packaging for these CFL’s

>> I wasn’t aware that low power CFL’s generated enough heat to cause a problem with thermal dissipation & heat transfer within the circuits of the lamps.

From my experience with unvented (good spacious housings) sounds like Rod Elliott is full of hot air.

Hi Folks, thankyou all for your info, so it not an over-active imageination on my part, so the noise/vibration is real not the figment of my imageination.