UL listed 60W CCFL bulb recall in Canada

A friend had one fail on him.

Oops, looks to me as though something in the ballast got pretty toasty. Were that me, I'd dismantle it and find out what. Bet it's just an underrated capacitor (seems to be the usual, run right on the max spec in a lot of cheaper units) or inductor that's cooked.

Kinda scary though, that one didn't do any damage, but that would have been a fire risk I'm assuming.

Spiral CFLs do seem to have a greater tendency to cook themselves than the standard types when used in a cap-up position it seems though.

That's exactly what has happened to 4 of those light bulbs in my house. I opened them up and all the resistors on the board are carbonized... blackened.. and have desoldered from the board... the plastic on the bulb base melted too in all of them. My bulbs were Feit Electric I believe. Lame.

Guys, think on this for a moment.

An electronics package and a lamp.

The lamp in operation makes heat, In the fixture shown, the heat rises and warms the electronics package. The package is making heat of it's own.

The way electronics work is the more warm they get, the less well they work, and have to work harder (draw more energy) do to the same job. After a while it all adds up.

The fancy term is Thermal Runaway. Look at the soot marks, the smoke followed the heat up.

Ive got some lamps like this in service for more than ten years, and they all run base down.

It also looks like the fixture had a globe on it, that's a nice way of saying 'heat containment unit'. This was a game rigged to loose.

Later guys
Jack Crow in Iraq w/my poor attitude

My bulbs were facing up not down and they still fried.

N,
Fair enough, all I had to work with was expereince and one photo. Thats the way it works sometimes.

Hope you get an answer.
Jack Crow in Iraq

Bulbs are often in globes, they should have been designed to handle it.

Yeah, especially since it was UL listed.

forged ul listings on cheap china crap are common.
regardless of mode of failure these things have to be designed to fail safely.
that one definatly was an ignition hazard.
post the make model and ul /fcc listings on the unit.

Saw that picture in this web page too. It has some link regarding the recall and other usual info.

Also...

"Fujian Joinluck Enterprises Co. said Thursday it "assumes full responsibility for an error that might have occurred in the manufacturing of a compact fluorescent 13-watt mini-spiral light bulb." The company, one of China's leading makers of compact fluorescent bulbs, said the problem does not affect any other items in its 100-style product line."

and offer offers "two-for-one exchange of hazardous 13-watt bulbs"
Link

I wonder what's causing the probs with my Feit Electric bulbs. It looks like the same problem. Plastic melts..blackens.. a nasty nasty smell fills the room. All the resistors are on board fry. I switched to westinghouse bulbs...

My boss had every one of his, I think nine, GE branded bulbs die in under a year.