GE Biax CFL Failures

jayflash · #1 06-14-2005, 03:29 PM

The GE spiral CFLs have been holding up but their Biax lamps are burning up the circuit boards. I'm responsible for specifying and replacing thousands of lamps in several buildings and will be returning a bunch of bad Biax lamps to GE. 12kHr of lamp life?! Try a few hours on some.

What is your CFL experience?

Zelandeth · #2 06-14-2005, 03:42 PM

Hmm,not got much experience with them, but I've got a couple of them running here, one 24/7 in a dark hallway. Presently, it's at *grabs calculator* 8795 hours and still going strong.

brickbat · #3 06-14-2005, 08:27 PM

If you buy thousands of lamps, and are seeing lots of infant failures, I'd take it up with GE - sounds like a problem they'd like to know about.

Might be stating the obvious here, but not knowing your background I'll go ahead. The operating temperature of the board has a huge effect on its life. If a CLF is one of the bigger sizes, such as the 28 or 29W and being operated base up, or in an enclosed fixture the life can be pretty disappointing.

My CFL experience has been great, even with cheapie Chinese no-name lamps, but the only lamps I burn base up are 14 Watts and smaller sizes, and run pretty cool.

mattheww50 · #4 06-14-2005, 11:26 PM

I cannot comment on the GE's biax, the Feits(LOA) hae been a disappointment. I won't buy them. I have had good experience with the Sylvania's, the GE's with magnetic ballasts in the base, and the Panasonics.

I was an early adopter of the Philips CFL, and none of them got anywhere near the specified life (most died inside of 6 months). I wrote to Philips with the manufacturing dates. They didn't argue, they just sent me a case as warranty replacements. I guess they knew they had a problem..
The replacements lasted long enough that I don't know if they ran for 10,000 hours, but it was long enough that wasn't going to argue about it.

jayflash · #5 06-15-2005, 05:23 PM

The only GE CFL specified to use base down is the spiral, 42 watt, model. I've got a ton of the 26watt spirals base up in enclosed cans with nary a failure. I've been experimenting with the biax due to the (advertised) better lamp life. Some of the biax will light at low ambient temperatures and, therefore, lend themselves to outdoor use during Wisconsin winters.

The problem is circuit board failure and I have discussed this with a rep. I'm waiting to see if they come through for me.

VidPro · #6 06-15-2005, 07:14 PM

i was doing great with "lights of america" things (undoubtedly made in china :-) then i got a slew of bad 42W types. sent 4 back, and rapidly recieved from LOA 4 NEW ones, no charge for shipping even.
the 4 lasted a few days, much less time that the original 4. just when i thought i was getting good service [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

greenLED · #7 06-18-2005, 10:09 PM

I forget what brand we have at home (got'em at Costco), but most of them didn't last 1 year of "normal" household use.