PowerSource Blogger Margery Connor at sister pub EDN carps about the pathetically short life of CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) in down lights, offering up this photo of the burned-out innards of a failed CFL. (Note the brown scoring on the plastic base.)
A case of exaggerated advertising or an application failure?
An EE, Margery theorizes that it’s a thermal management problem (oh yeah, sure Margery, blame the MEs!) and to prove her point, she shot the temperature of a downlight CFL in her home with an IR gun. She reports a reading of 160F at the base, 20 degrees hotter than a table lamp.
While not cripplingly hot, you never know about those finicky little transistors.
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