Physics/Electronics question...

[Terran]

A compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), also known as a compact fluorescent light bulb is a type of fluorescent lamp designed to replace an incandescent lamp. Many CFLs can fit in the existing incandescent light fixtures.

Everyone knows of them as "energy saving bulbs"....


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Compact-Flourescent-Bulb.jpg/544px-Compact-Flourescent-Bulb.jpg


What I want to know I cant seem to find a clear cut answer to...anywhere...

And I wondered if any of the people around here knew...

So heres my question

Can these work in reverse?
And what I mean by this is if you excite the gas in the tube so that it lights up would you be able to measure electricity coming out the the other end......

[_liam_]

yes, stick one in a microwave for a few seconds and it will light up by itself (any lightbulb will), so i suppose if you connected it to an voltmeter with long enough leads and you drilled a hole in the microwave door for the leads to come out, you could get a brief reading before the rotation pulled the leads away from the voltmeter/bulb.

will probably break your microwave though

[Terran]

I was thinking more in terms of static electricity.....I got one to light up pretty bright by enveloping it in a wooly blanket....so I was wondering if I could use static electricity to excite the gas in the bulb to light and measure a voltage coming off the appliance itself.....follow me now?


O <-----Light Bulb induced with static.....and glowing brightly....
ll
ll <-- ------wires coming off bulb.....
ll
ll
^
[] <-----Volt meter reading a voltage...


Or does the bulbs just not work that way I couldnt quite gather if this would work from how they say they work in normal operation....

[_liam_]

weird, might have to try that! not sure then. maybe if the charge gets strong enough

[Terran]

You can also get them to light if you run them across a staticy TV.....They are "energy savers" so they have to have this low energy of activation....

[Eyebiter]

Everyone thinks CFL's are great right now. Just wait five years when people realize how much mercury they contain, and the cost to recycle them.

[tkane18]

Everyone thinks CFL's are great right now. Just wait five years when people realize how much mercury they contain, and the cost to recycle them.

I just bought some for the first time and was disappointed when I read the warning about mercury. :(

[kortick]

CFLs are already being replaced by LED bulbs
which use 90% less energy than a standard bulb

the technology isnt mainstream enough
they still cost a lot but they last up to 10 years

in the future there will be LED bulbs only


And I dont understand why you are interested in the voltage
output of the things
they have a wattage rating on them which tells you the power
power=watts
watts = voltage x Amps

voltage alone doesnt light them up
you need a combo of amperage and volts to do it
and they should have manufacuters specs available

so I assuming you have some other reason for
being interested in the voltage alone

[Terran]

And I dont understand why you are interested in the voltage
output of the things
they have a wattage rating on them which tells you the power
power=watts
watts = voltage x Amps

voltage alone doesnt light them up
you need a combo of amperage and volts to do it
and they should have manufacuters specs available

so I assuming you have some other reason for
being interested in the voltage alone

LEDs lights are most definitely the future....



But thats not what Im interested in this concept about.......


I thought the second time I explained it I thought it might have been understood what I was looking to have answered....but my description was rather vague on second inspection....



I dont particularly care how much Power the CFL takes to run normally Im not plugging it into a wall and running it so the particular values printed on the bulb very likely have little meaning without applying other concepts...


I want to know if the circuit of the bulb works in reverse....

The CFL bulb circuit in normal operation works like this essentially Electrical energy in the form of an electrical current from the ballast flows through the gas, causing it to emit ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light then excites a white phosphor coating on the inside of the tube.


In reverse I would unplug it from the wall and use static electricity to excite the gas inside the tube causing ultra violet light then to excite the white phosphor coating on the inside of the tube.....and if the circuit worked in reverse it would produce a difference of electrical potential (a voltage) in the leads of the bulb ..... (which I would want to measure)



The whole idea being that if the CFL bulb circuit worked in reverse it could be used to capture electrical energy like a capacitor does in a Wimshurst machine.....but this is all dependant upon wether the circuit works in reverse which no one seems to know.... :(

[Terran]

This is a bit of a bump.....


But I guess the lack of responces means that no one knows....


I was hoping Kaos would know something.....

I guess I should email a professor or something....