incandescent vs florescent lamps ?

[SphinX]

Hi,

What is the difference between incandescent and florescent lamps if i used them as load ?
Becuse i saw a site describe a dimmer for the incandescent lamps and the designer wraning from use it with the florescent lamps ?

Thanks

 

[House_Cat]

Fluorescent lamps use a heater in each end to heat a gas to the point where the gas will readily break down and ionize because of the potential difference between the two ends of the tube. The ionized gas excites the fluorescent coating on the inside of the tube which produces light.

An incandescent lamp has a resistive element (filament) that glows with heat as a result of the current passing through it, and thus produces light. The inside of the bulb may be frosted to more evenly distribute the light from the filament.

You are warned not to use your dimmer on the fluorescent lamp because, with most simple dimmers, the lamp will not have enough voltage across it to properly ionize the gas. A misfiring fluorescent lamp can damage the dimmer, lamp, and/or the fluorescent ballast transformer. A fluorescent dimmer is specially constructed to modify duty cycle while maintaining sufficient firing voltage for the tube.

 

[flatulent]

further differences

Also, fluorescent lights are more efficient and therefore produce less room heating for a given light level. Another difference is the spectral output. Incandescent ones are more biased toward the red end. There are special ones for photographic use that operate at higher temperatures to make a more sun like spectrum, but they burn out after 10 hours. With the lowered cost of electronic flash equipment these are rarely used these days.

The incandescent ones normally have right hand thread screw in bases. The New York City, USA underground system had ones with left hand threads to keep people from stealing them and using them at home.

Bell laboratories had trouble with employees stealing notebook paper so they had their paper hole pattern not match the standard. After this the employees also stole the binders with the rings that matched the new hole patten.

 

[venus]

we are using incandescent lamp as load routinely in our test lab, even with pwm at line frequency. for dc you need to check the maximum voltage to below rms value. do not use florescent lamps.