Author Topic: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks  (Read 18283 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline tooki

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 13157
  • Country: ch
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #175 on: April 12, 2023, 07:12:42 am »
Apparently Home Depot has banned access in some countries. Or maybe it's just me. :-DD
Quote
Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://www.homedepot.com/" on this server.
(and yes this is what I get using a https address, so not the problem here.)
No, not just you. It’s been blocked from
Switzerland for years, too. I guess it’s just a broad geographic block.
 

Offline tooki

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 13157
  • Country: ch
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #176 on: April 12, 2023, 07:14:37 am »
If Home Depot doesn't operate in and won't ship to addresses in the EU I don't see why they would care about the GDPR or other regulations that have no jurisdiction over their operations. It seems even easier to just ignore what people in irrelevant (to your operation) places are regulating.
I basically agree, but its a bit weird to respond Access Denied. It seems a bit hostile to people who may at some point be in the US, and be potential customers. They could have a page which politely says "We don't operate in your locality", and leave it at that.
I’ve always assumed that this type of ISP- or CDN-level blocking is primarily to prevent DDOS attacks.
 

Offline tom66

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7336
  • Country: gb
  • Electronics Hobbyist & FPGA/Embedded Systems EE
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #177 on: April 12, 2023, 08:33:00 am »
I’ve always assumed that this type of ISP- or CDN-level blocking is primarily to prevent DDOS attacks.

I would take a guess that it's done so that they can prove that there is absolutely no GDPR relevant information being collected.  If they're not going to make any money from EU customers, they don't want to deal with their data.  It's knee jerk, but then GDPR isn't exactly well designed legislation anyway (even if it is well intentioned.)
 

Offline BravoV

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7549
  • Country: 00
  • +++ ATH1
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #178 on: April 12, 2023, 08:39:48 am »
Ban ? What ban ? FJB !!!

My incand hoards lately ...  >:D




Offline 5U4GB

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 624
  • Country: au
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #179 on: April 12, 2023, 08:45:40 am »
I did a quick look for the source of this news and its Fox. Quell surprise. I guess this explains the thought that it also means car headlight bulbs. I did chuckle as I went down the list on the search as one of the places which this is a hot topic is a AR15 forum.

It's often not too hard to spot the Fox stuff.  Was watching a Youtube woodworking video a few months ago and the guy, who had to date only ever talked about woodworking in his videos, suddenly made some bizarre, couldn't-possibly-be-true claim about... well, I don't want to go down a political rathole over details but it was some "muh freedumbs" piece of crazy I thought could only have come from Fox.  Quick google and, sure enough...

In terms of LED lighting, we've had this in the house for at least ten years now and I'd never go back to those ghastly room-heaters with a little light as a side-effect that we used to have.  I checked the LED output once with a spectrometer and it was perfect daylight-balanced, the exact same spectrum you'd get from sunlight, with no flicker.
 
The following users thanked this post: tooki

Offline james_s

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 21611
  • Country: us
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #180 on: April 13, 2023, 03:20:20 am »
I wish more LED bulbs had a perfect spectrum with no flicker. It would also be nice if somebody would perfect one that does the same cozy warm shift as incandescent. Some at least attempt but only get it about 70%. I have a bunch of Philips Hue RGB bulbs and those do a pretty good job but the red is an orange-red rather than a true deep red so yellow is kind of a sickly greenish. As I've said before, LED bulbs have enough advantages that I use them pretty much exclusively for general illumination but if energy were free I'd go back to incandescent for many of my lights. The heat is beneficial around 75% of the year here, my gas furnace is a more efficient way to heat but again if energy were free that wouldn't matter.
 

Offline 5U4GB

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 624
  • Country: au
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #181 on: April 13, 2023, 05:57:48 am »
The problem is that people go out and buy the cheapest lights they can find off Aliexpress and then wonder why they're getting blue-tinted flickering.  I must admit I was surprised by these ones given how much junk is out there, but they've got good-quality diffusers to get an even colour spectrum and don't flicker at all.  They've also got a massive heatsink that's bigger than the entire rest of the luminaire, good-quality electronics... and a price to match.

Another problem with many cheap LED lights is that you're getting the raw LED output, or close to it, so they can be advertised as 6.023e23 lumens rather than sacrificing a small amount of output to get better-quality lighting.  And then throw in some Gluxon capacitors... and the metal cap on the end is fine for a heatsink, right?
 
The following users thanked this post: tooki

Offline tooki

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 13157
  • Country: ch
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #182 on: April 13, 2023, 08:52:26 am »
It would also be nice if somebody would perfect one that does the same cozy warm shift as incandescent. Some at least attempt but only get it about 70%. I have a bunch of Philips Hue RGB bulbs and those do a pretty good job but the red is an orange-red rather than a true deep red so yellow is kind of a sickly greenish.
They exist, using neutral white and very warm white LEDs, blending as needed. Very different (superior) effect than RGB bulbs.
 

Offline tom66

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7336
  • Country: gb
  • Electronics Hobbyist & FPGA/Embedded Systems EE
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #183 on: April 13, 2023, 09:23:52 am »
It would also be nice if somebody would perfect one that does the same cozy warm shift as incandescent. Some at least attempt but only get it about 70%. I have a bunch of Philips Hue RGB bulbs and those do a pretty good job but the red is an orange-red rather than a true deep red so yellow is kind of a sickly greenish.
They exist, using neutral white and very warm white LEDs, blending as needed. Very different (superior) effect than RGB bulbs.

I have a Philips dimmable LED bulb that does that, and it works very well indeed.  It even fades out like an incandescent when the mains is turned off, though a tad quicker.  I used to have a dimmable CFL but it was very weird.  It would only 'start' at about 50% brightness and then you could run it down to around 10%.  Made for a clunky interface so wouldn't recommend it.

I now have some Ikea TRADFRI smart bulbs that have a cool white and warm white LED in them in addition to the RGB element, so they can produce cool and warm white at high brightnesses and still offer the gimmick of colour mode (kinda fun for Halloween/Xmas time).
 

Online SiliconWizard

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 15800
  • Country: fr
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #184 on: April 13, 2023, 08:07:29 pm »
It would also be nice if somebody would perfect one that does the same cozy warm shift as incandescent. Some at least attempt but only get it about 70%. I have a bunch of Philips Hue RGB bulbs and those do a pretty good job but the red is an orange-red rather than a true deep red so yellow is kind of a sickly greenish.
They exist, using neutral white and very warm white LEDs, blending as needed. Very different (superior) effect than RGB bulbs.

Can you point us to some references? At a reasonable price point?
 

Offline tom66

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7336
  • Country: gb
  • Electronics Hobbyist & FPGA/Embedded Systems EE
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #185 on: April 13, 2023, 08:35:16 pm »
It would also be nice if somebody would perfect one that does the same cozy warm shift as incandescent. Some at least attempt but only get it about 70%. I have a bunch of Philips Hue RGB bulbs and those do a pretty good job but the red is an orange-red rather than a true deep red so yellow is kind of a sickly greenish.
They exist, using neutral white and very warm white LEDs, blending as needed. Very different (superior) effect than RGB bulbs.

Can you point us to some references? At a reasonable price point?

Remote control dimmable:
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/tradfri-led-bulb-b22-1055-lumen-smart-wireless-dimmable-white-spectrum-globe-70517641/

TRIAC dimmable:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Classic-WarmGlow-Dimmable-Filament/dp/B073FMGQ4X

I guess you can find comparable examples in your country's stores.
 

Offline Zero999

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 20363
  • Country: gb
  • 0999
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #186 on: April 14, 2023, 08:39:39 pm »
It stems from the fact that we consistently find right-leaning media to report more falsehoods than left-leaning media. (Neither side is perfect. One is just consistently worse.)
That's a joke. It's obvious your bias is at play here. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but it's important to be aware of ones biases, even though it is difficult.

As for everything else we are happily offshoring our footprint. We don't make very much in rich nations, we import it so our emissions have simply migrated. Yes lots will argue that this is not their problem, well to every sensible reasoning their will be hundreds of stupid retorts. Let me see, has international trade gone down or up over the last few decades? Who are we trading with and how do they make our junk? yes junk. If a throwaway society is how you want to fuel economic growth then lets hope those developing nations are getting their faster than they are churning through the natural resources or by the time their are "rich enough to care" they will only be caring because they have to anyway.
Yes that's true. Originally it started because labour is cheaper in less developed countries and they often have the raw materials too. Environmental protection laws in developed countries have actually made it worse, by making it more more expensive to manufacture goods domestically, so importing makes even more sense. Net zero will only make it even worse.
 

Offline james_s

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 21611
  • Country: us
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #187 on: April 14, 2023, 11:11:22 pm »
The problem is that people go out and buy the cheapest lights they can find off Aliexpress and then wonder why they're getting blue-tinted flickering.  I must admit I was surprised by these ones given how much junk is out there, but they've got good-quality diffusers to get an even colour spectrum and don't flicker at all.  They've also got a massive heatsink that's bigger than the entire rest of the luminaire, good-quality electronics... and a price to match.

Another problem with many cheap LED lights is that you're getting the raw LED output, or close to it, so they can be advertised as 6.023e23 lumens rather than sacrificing a small amount of output to get better-quality lighting.  And then throw in some Gluxon capacitors... and the metal cap on the end is fine for a heatsink, right?

That's the problem with everything, many/most people shop almost purely by price. Two things look almost the same even though they're not, so people buy the cheapest one, then complain that it sucks. I don't really know how to fix that other than education but that's easier said than done.

I try to avoid it when I can, I've bought quite a few Hue LED bulbs which are certainly not cheap and they're quite good, but they could be better, incorporating some true red emitters for example. So far I've only had one of those fail and thankfully it was a relatively cheap 2700k white one and not one of the tunable CCT or RGB bulbs.
 

Online Monkeh

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8135
  • Country: gb
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #188 on: April 14, 2023, 11:20:16 pm »
Two things look almost the same even though they're not, so people buy the cheapest one, then complain that it sucks. I don't really know how to fix that other than education but that's easier said than done.

Regulation on the quality of products can be beneficial, in this case. LED lights for general applications could have mandated CRI, flicker levels, and efficiency, and be required to pass various accelerated aging tests to improve reliability. You could also mandate both long warranties and long-term compatible replacements (I'm looking at integrated fittings, especially downlights, here. With some anger.).
 

Offline vk6zgo

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7858
  • Country: au
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #189 on: April 15, 2023, 02:04:05 am »

And yet, in some US states, it is still currently illegal to have 'Day Beam' headlights or run your headlights during the day because of the slight extra load on your alternator, ....


   really?  source?   I haven't heard this. although it wouldn't surprise me in some of the People's Republics.

Of course, in some parts of the world, it seldom gets dark enough during the day to need the use of headlights!
 

Offline TimFox

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9003
  • Country: us
  • Retired, now restoring antique test equipment
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #190 on: April 15, 2023, 02:56:42 am »

And yet, in some US states, it is still currently illegal to have 'Day Beam' headlights or run your headlights during the day because of the slight extra load on your alternator, ....


   really?  source?   I haven't heard this. although it wouldn't surprise me in some of the People's Republics.

Of course, in some parts of the world, it seldom gets dark enough during the day to need the use of headlights!

As I pointed out above, daytime headlights are legal everywhere in the US.
One reason to run them is to make your car more visible to others on the road.
 

Online SiliconWizard

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 15800
  • Country: fr
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #191 on: April 15, 2023, 03:06:03 am »
Whether it's actually useful in full daylight (unless very cloudy) is questionable, but there are some countries where not only it is legal, it is mandatory.
 

Online coppercone2

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 11341
  • Country: us
  • $
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #192 on: April 15, 2023, 04:07:32 am »
they should ban lead free solder and PCB adhesives to stop the flow of e-waste, booby trapped for the repair man :--
 

Offline vk6zgo

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7858
  • Country: au
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #193 on: April 15, 2023, 09:42:26 am »
Whether it's actually useful in full daylight (unless very cloudy) is questionable, but there are some countries where not only it is legal, it is mandatory.

It can be simply tested whilst on a country road during a sunny day.
I found no difference in visibility between vehicles with their lights on or off.
Whether it is any more effective in heavy traffic I don't know, but I doubt it.
The original idea came from Scandinavian countries where it is dark for most winter days.
 

Offline PlainName

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7509
  • Country: va
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #194 on: April 15, 2023, 11:55:00 am »
Quote
I found no difference in visibility between vehicles with their lights on or off.

But you know the car with the lights on is operating, whereas the one with lights off is dead in the water. Makes a difference if you're keeping track of potential hazards.
 

Offline coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10035
  • Country: gb
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #195 on: April 15, 2023, 12:10:25 pm »
Whether it's actually useful in full daylight (unless very cloudy) is questionable, but there are some countries where not only it is legal, it is mandatory.

It can be simply tested whilst on a country road during a sunny day.
I found no difference in visibility between vehicles with their lights on or off.
Whether it is any more effective in heavy traffic I don't know, but I doubt it.
The original idea came from Scandinavian countries where it is dark for most winter days.
You don't have bad weather? Running lights are pretty much irrelevant on a bright sunny day out in the open. Even on one of those days you only need to go under a big underpass, and the lights start to be effective. In bad weather they are a real boon.
 

Offline james_s

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 21611
  • Country: us
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #196 on: April 15, 2023, 06:04:27 pm »
You don't have bad weather? Running lights are pretty much irrelevant on a bright sunny day out in the open. Even on one of those days you only need to go under a big underpass, and the lights start to be effective. In bad weather they are a real boon.

I just turn my lights on when it's dark out, whether that's because it's a gloomy cloudy day, because the sun has set or because I've driven into a tunnel doesn't really matter. It feels dark, lights on, sun comes out, lights off. I don't even consciously think about it.

I actually think DRL has created a problem that didn't really exist before and that is people driving around at night without their lights on. Many/most newer cars have the instrument cluster illuminated all the time and that's typically what lets you know the headlights are on. I see so many people driving around town at night with nothing but the running lights on, no rear lights at all. In populated areas with streetlights it's not obvious that your headlights aren't on. I see it at least once almost every time I drive at night.
 

Offline tom66

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7336
  • Country: gb
  • Electronics Hobbyist & FPGA/Embedded Systems EE
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #197 on: April 15, 2023, 06:24:36 pm »
I actually think DRL has created a problem that didn't really exist before and that is people driving around at night without their lights on. Many/most newer cars have the instrument cluster illuminated all the time and that's typically what lets you know the headlights are on. I see so many people driving around town at night with nothing but the running lights on, no rear lights at all. In populated areas with streetlights it's not obvious that your headlights aren't on. I see it at least once almost every time I drive at night.

I had a Ford without daylight running lights where the cluster was always illuminated when the ignition was on, regardless of headlamp setting.
Whereas my Golf with DRL's does not illuminate the cluster at night with the headlights off (though it has auto headlights, so not like it's important anyway.)

So I'm not sure you can blame DRL's for this.
 

Offline mendip_discovery

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1024
  • Country: gb
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #198 on: April 15, 2023, 08:49:34 pm »
I actually think DRL has created a problem that didn't really exist before and that is people driving around at night without their lights on. Many/most newer cars have the instrument cluster illuminated all the time and that's typically what lets you know the headlights are on. I see so many people driving around town at night with nothing but the running lights on, no rear lights at all. In populated areas with streetlights it's not obvious that your headlights aren't on. I see it at least once almost every time I drive at night.

I had a Ford without daylight running lights where the cluster was always illuminated when the ignition was on, regardless of headlamp setting.
Whereas my Golf with DRL's does not illuminate the cluster at night with the headlights off (though it has auto headlights, so not like it's important anyway.)

So I'm not sure you can blame DRL's for this.

I have witnessed it many times and its DRL 19 times out of 20. I got bored in Oxford one evening.

Part of the issue is the DRL light up enough things for city drivers to think that they have lights on. I think that the switch to cars having auto lights at the same time is partly to blame. If only the DRL also had the rears on I would be much happier, at least when it get dark I wouldnt be so worried. There have been moments at night where I haven't noticed straight away a car due to no lights on the rear but as it was moving it took a moment to process what was going on.

Motorcycles were made to have the lights on all the time. The old Volvo was known for having the side lights and tail lights on all the time. So its no great challenge.
Motorcyclist, Nerd, and I work in a Calibration Lab :-)
--
So everyone is clear, Calibration = Taking Measurement against a known source, Verification = Checking Calibration against Specification, Adjustment = Adjusting the unit to be within specifications.
 
The following users thanked this post: Kim Christensen

Offline tom66

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7336
  • Country: gb
  • Electronics Hobbyist & FPGA/Embedded Systems EE
Re: Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks
« Reply #199 on: April 15, 2023, 09:13:54 pm »
But either way, most modern cars have auto headlights and I can't fault how it works on my car or indeed a few others cars I've driven.  Even a little bit of light rain gets the auto headlights to come on, but it's clever enough not to flash the lights on for an underpass whilst detecting tunnels quite well.  Looking at the diagnostics, it uses the presence of street lighting at a certain beat frequency and the vehicle speed to switch between 'highway' and 'non-highway' modes, presumably on a highway mode it's got different sensitivity and some way to reject street lighting at higher speeds. 

If people don't use the tools they've got then nothing can save us.  I wouldn't blame DRL's, and there's a reasonable body of research out there justifying their use (for instance, TRL report).
« Last Edit: April 15, 2023, 09:15:45 pm by tom66 »
 
The following users thanked this post: tooki


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf