Embedded Files
CF Lamp Surplus and Salvage
What is inside the base of a Cold-Fourlescent Light controller?
CAUTION:
Do not break the coiled glass tube. It may contain up to 5 mg of mercury. The EPA (Environmental Protection Association says the 0.5 mg of mercury can be hazardous to your health.
Today I had to change the Cold-Fluorescent type light bulb outside the front door (it failed to turn on). So, in order to salvage as much as possible from this effort I decided to open up the base on the dead bulb to see just what is inside those units (not an original idea, as others before me have done this also).
Here is what I found:
The un-opened but defective CF bulb:
The bulb opened up with it guts exposed:
Closer view of the PCB mounted components:
Electronic components removed from this unit include:
- 2 transistor looking devices of some sort (both labeled "13003 HJ V10")
- Later Note: These are 13003 type 400 Volt NPN 5 MHz transistors
- See Datasheet at <http://www.szgkt.com/newspic/13003(TO-220).pdf>
- 6 diodes (2 are labeled 1N4007)
- A green surge suppressor of unknown characteristics, but labeled "mZ1".
- A bobbin-wound ferrite-core inductor labeled "0.2 mh".
- A toroidal inductor on a small green core or unknown characteristics.
- 1 transformer-looking inductor of unknown characteristics but labeled "L2 (123) 1.4 F".
- A 4.7 ohm 1/2 Watt resistor
- Capacitor 682K400
- Capacitor 472JU1200
- 2 Capacitor 473K250
- Capacitor 681K 1KV
- Capacitor 15 mfd 200V
- Capacitor 0.01 (SMT)
- 2 resistor (SMT) 100 ohms 1Watt
- 2 resistor (SMT) 334 ohms 1 Watt
- (those SMT devices are on the opposite side of the PCB)
One more item...DO NOT BREAK THE COILED GLASS TUBE! It contains up to 5 mg of mercury, and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) says that 0.5 mg of mercury is enough to cause problems for human systems. This makes one wonder if changing from incandescent bulbs to CF type bulbs is a step in the right direction, but who are we to question the all-powerful and all-knowledgeable environmental lobby? :-\
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