How many forum members does it take to change a lightbulb?

[Buck Fush]

I like cookies.

[John CANavar]

1st MIP Lightbulb Changing SOP
------------------------------------------

- A1 (Assault): Bring and mount the ladder

- B2 (Engineer): Use the ladder and remove the destroyed lightbulb

- A3 (Medic): Go prone next to ladder and get ready to provide medical assistance for B2

- B1 (Support): Drop a lightbulb pack carefully, in fact you better not drop it. Hand it out to B2 directly

- SL (Spec Ops): Coordinate alpha and bravo fire teams, set C4s on fusebox and blow it if the new bulb doesnt work

- A2 (AT): You are not needed for this operation. Use your SRAW to make astronomical observations and report to leader.

[Grunt 70]

roflmao after reading these posts...

[Mateo]

I thought it only took 2 tactical gamers: Apophis to say "hey, that lightbulb needs changing" and one random supporting member to say "right away!".

[IceCold]

Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

I was thinking about putting a regular flourescent 4' tube fixture in the kitchen replacing a 2-bulb hanging fixture that generates way too little light and too much heat and uses too much electricity. Any tips for choice of fixtures? (I'd want something flush-mount.)

Go to Home Depot/Lowes and look at their 4 foot fixtures. Ask 'em to show you their T8 or compact fluorescent fixtures. It'll cost a bit more than a standard T12 fixture, but may be worth the money if you want the light to be bright. If cost is an issue, then a standard T12 fixture is the way to go. Easy and cheap to DIY. I do recommend buying an electronic ballast instead of an old "tar" ballast, although that's a bit of a jump in price, too.

[ed_chiang11]

Here we go.... whose gonna be the one group lurker to start it over again 5 months later?

Ed

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by Diceman

Cing, flourescents might be a good compromise for you as well. They cost more than standard bulbs, but not outrageously so (I consider $10 CDN for a 3 pack to be a good deal). They also have far better performance than incandescents. I don't know how they size up next to LED bulbs though. I imagine LEDs would emit fairly "cool" light (light which is very white, without the yellow hue of incandescents), and so the light from flourescents would likely be comparable.

Yeah, I'm actually using screw in fluorescents in most of my household lamps. The one that I really want to replace is the lamp over my stove. It uses a full size bulb and we leave it on all the time. There's not enough room for the ballast of a screw in fluorescent, though...

[Diceman]

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Yeah, I'm actually using screw in fluorescents in most of my household lamps. The one that I really want to replace is the lamp over my stove. It uses a full size bulb and we leave it on all the time. There's not enough room for the ballast of a screw in fluorescent, though...

Yeah, I have found that some lights can take flourescents, mainly due to the receiving socket being designed for an incandescent (too narrow above the thread, or the housing cover is too short. Some bulbs can't be helped.

All there is left to do is find out how long that incandescent can burn for before you've saved the cost of an LED bulb. My guess is a good long time.

[ScratchMonkey]

The biggest problem with the Edison socket flourescents is their incompability with dimmers. Most of my light switches are X10 and I've not seen an X10 wall switch without the dimmer feature. But I still end up using the flourescent "bulbs" in all my ceiling lights and just have to be careful to not hold the light switch down (which puts it in dimmer mode).

My porch light uses a flourescent bulb and they don't start so fast in cold weather (for California). My fixtures were also kinda dark until I made a simple modification: I cut a circle of aluminum foil and glued it into the top "hat" of the fixture and now all the light that was getting lost in the black ceiling of the fixture gets reflected back down and out. I think I doubled or tripled the output.

[Buck Fush]

Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

The biggest problem with the Edison socket flourescents is their incompability with dimmers. Most of my light switches are X10 and I've not seen an X10 wall switch without the dimmer feature. But I still end up using the flourescent "bulbs" in all my ceiling lights and just have to be careful to not hold the light switch down (which puts it in dimmer mode).

My porch light uses a flourescent bulb and they don't start so fast in cold weather (for California). My fixtures were also kinda dark until I made a simple modification: I cut a circle of aluminum foil and glued it into the top "hat" of the fixture and now all the light that was getting lost in the black ceiling of the fixture gets reflected back down and out. I think I doubled or tripled the output.

How do you like your X10? I had way too many problems with my setup, but I believe that may be because of the age of the wiring on my house. Things that were scheduled to turn on sometimes didn't and vice versa.

[leejo]

Originally Posted by TG_Mateo

I thought it only took 2 tactical gamers: Apophis to say "hey, that lightbulb needs changing" and one random supporting member to say "right away!".

And 4 to debate the light-bulb changing policy in the officers' forum.

[TG_Bubba]

BF2 guys do not use light bulbs. We have the night vision goggles.

[ScratchMonkey]

Originally Posted by Buck Fush

How do you like your X10? I had way too many problems with my setup, but I believe that may be because of the age of the wiring on my house. Things that were scheduled to turn on sometimes didn't and vice versa.

My roommates and I started with X10 as one of us had mobility problems and it let her control lights as it got dark in the evening without getting up.

One issue you may run into is that your house may have different circuits on different sides of a 220 main feed. You have to install a gizmo in the breaker panel to allow the X10 signals to cross from one 110 side to the other. (It's essentially a capacitor.)

I'd also recommend avoiding the "A" house code, since all the newbs will be using that and you don't want your lights turning on and off if signals leak from the neighbor's house (including wireless transmitters).

The only automation I have at the moment is a timer to turn one light on in the front of the house in the early evening for a couple hours, as I often work in the evenings, and it makes the place look like someone's home. The timer randomizes the start and stop times (within an hour of the set time) so it's not so obvious that the lights are on a timer.

[Iamthefallen]

I agree.

[Zephyr]

Originally Posted by John CANavar

- A2 (AT): You are not needed for this operation. Use your SRAW to make astronomical observations and report to leader.

That cracked me up more than anything else in this thread.
-Zephyr