I have to agree with Dave here.
PDF is pretty much the standard for distribution of technical information. I've got gazillions of PDF documents stored locally, and can conveniently access them whenever necessary. No fancy monitor or graphic card is required. I was using them years ago with a crappy graphics card and a 14" monitor. A quick scan through my semiconductor "bookshelf" shows PDF documents dating back to 1996. I do miss the old databooks though.
Jeff
First a response to the substance of the discussion in brief: As I posted in part earlier, this is incorrect in part:
1) because Norway had (eg) conventional fluorescents and High-Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps before it had CFLs. Old fluorescents have more mercury per lumen than CFLs. So the assertion that "they were putting no mercury in the environment before " is flat-out wrong even if only looking at the source component from lighting. 2) Norway has been the atmospheric dumping ground for Europe's mercury-laden soot for centuries. Their soil and aquatic environments are loaded with mercury. 3) and there are other sources in Norway including thermometers, thermostats, and a sunken Nazi U-boat with 65 metric tons aboard.Also,
4) CFLs sequestered in a landfills are inconsequential compared to what is mobile in aquatic and atmospheric and soil environments already. And Norway has mandatory recycling already, but might ban CFLs anyway. 5) CFLs are easier to recycle correctly than long fluorescents 6) CFLs can be put into a contain to prevent breakage or otherwise contain the mercury so that if they are land-filled, the mercury is less mobile.Time permitting I will post more, intended to be useful to others under an appropriate subject.
(My principal area of expertise for 20 years was the mobilization, transport and fate of environmental pollutants but not specifically mercury. While not central to my research I was invited and nominally chaired a working session at the Second International Environmental Geochemistry meeting in Upsala Sweden on trace metals in the environment including mercury in the late 80's. I was obviously much more up-to-date on trace metals in Scandinavia then.)
ROTFL As you will see when time permits me to respond fully, my problem was quite the opposite of being "stumped".
The original post dealt with many different topics that did not relate specifically to " N:Vision CFL's "
To be useful (and that is the intention), a new subject and a well-posed intro to the subject is preferred and netiquette tradition. A "subject that is informative" is also usenet tradition. Brevity is also usenet tradition. But you posted an exceptional long initial post with a myriad of different topics.
Hence the triage in which I responded first to other parts of your multi-topic, very long post. Very simple. very customary. Not stumped.
Snipping to isolate the part that I am/was responding to in any particular post is normal and customary and recommended in usenet and what I did in this case.
I will answer more of the question above in a separate post when time permitted.
What is *not* normal and customary in my experience is for someone to start a post with one topic in the subject and then immediately launch into an entirely different topic. Usenet custom and common sense suggest that the subject should inform the reader of the content.
I tried to be helpful. C'est tout.
" [Mercury discussion unrelated to subject deleted] " is a simple, accurate, explanatory statement using simple declarative language.
If you could read the words in the tone and tenor written and intended, you would not have any problem with them.
I used to do a lot of technical review and the statement used would have completely acceptable and non-confrontational in that context by folks accustomed to being reviewed.
"bub" ?
Actually, my understanding of how usenet works is/was supposed to work is pretty good and tracks long-standing netiquette.
When folks post a request for help (as you did in the refrigerator thread), and others respond helpfully, it is/was customary for the poster to summarize when so requested. Look at your favorite newsgroup netiquette source.
It is both rude and a violation of usenet tradition in my opinion to ask for help, post incorrect data, and then refuse to correct or summarize -- as you have done with the refrigerator threads.
There is no "harpie mode". Go to the top and re-read. In fact there is no 'modality'. Read it out loud, say, in a friendly, lilting British accent . The 'modality' is entirely owing to _your_ perception.
Your imagery does not fit the circumstances.
Feeling is mutual ;-) "Future of Home Automation is ..." except that many/most of your assertions in that other thread you started are flat-out false and you weren't willing correct them so someone else had to clean up the misinformation you left behind. Jist my opinion, but firmly held.
Yup. As it stands, you have (eg) posted the assertion that your ancient refrigerator only uses X watts. And you have also posted that you re-measured. This is a simple plain-language request that you post the data. Why do you resist correcting the record ? It isn't for my benefit! It is so others are not mislead (I am not). When you did summarize recently a thread in another context, it was acknowledged. Good job .
My experience with you has been than when you post misinformation, rather than correcting it, you first disappear into a cloud of ink like a squid into its own camouflage and then, with respect to the topic, disappear altogether.
What context are you talking about? "Harp"? How does getting the facts right, instead of wrong, constitute "harping"? You are creating a record. Is it right and useful? If not, what do you do to correct it? If you don't , who will? If no one does, how useful will usenet be?
The analogy I use is pollution. Does my/your/anyone's uncorrected information pollute usenet? If so who cleans it up? If it isn't cleaned up, what happens to the usefulness?
LOL. No need for you to be defensive ;-) You wrote a subject title about a specific brand of CFLs and then what? forgot and posted about Norwegian energy supplies?
Not bilious, no ill intent,and certainly not vicious as you were trying to be in the paragraph above.
No bile, no attack mode. If you go back to the beginning of this post, and re-read it without the assumption of "bile", you will find that there is no bile in it. The 'modality' is in your perception.
Let's turn this around to see if it helps. Now I see now by the context in your _second_ use of "bub" that you don't use "bub" in an insulting way, right? I thought that you did the first time you used "bub" it to address me.
See how you can be misunderstood (too:-) ?
HTH ... Marc Marc_F_Hult
Did they ever find the Holy Grail? ;-)
Your patience is commendable, but all of your problems seem to be related to X-10. ABIK, all the other features parameters and properties of interest are met by the 60-watt bulbs. So one could define the problem as a problem with X-10.
So this seems to me like yet another good reason to move on from X-10.
The interaction with each of the X-10 devices you have may be specific to the X-10 device-CFL pair, leading to n different trouble-shooting scenarios. Maybe that's what the n: in n:vision stands for ;-)
Some might note you have invested upwards of (IIRC) $1000 in just various X-10 diagnostic tools and signal enhancers (Monterey, ELK, XTBs, SmartHome booster, phase coupler,) which is more than my entire 30+-device INSTEON cost me.
And I note that the n:vision CFLs I have installed in an INSTEON system devices has none of the problems you describe (although I have mostly used the 60-watt equivalent).
I'll try to go systematically through the matrix of 60, 100, 150watt using ICON and V2 lamp modules, appliance modules, dimmers, switches and keypads.
(There is no intent to try to convince Bobby to change anything. He has reasons to stick with X-10 that he has explained elsewhere.)
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
You might google ' CFLs non-linear ' for hundreds of non-silly references properly "argued".
No need to "go to school" again. Differential equations and linear algebra were required courses in my geophysics graduate school program. I've used PDEs in 3D finite difference hydrologic modeling since the 1970's.
No need for you to be obscene, either.
(Friendly suggestion: Avoid having too much vino with your pan de higos. Best I've ever had were on Formentera where they are called 'pa de figa' in that island's dialect of Catalan.. Michael Jinks, aka "Slammer" knows what I mean.)
...Marc Marc_F_Hult
No.
The hysteritic effect is that the lamps turn on at a higher voltage (rising voltage) than they turn off at (lowering voltage). The term is widely and conventionally applied to this effect(eg) with analog comparators.
Yes. Each of the twelve toroidal chokes in the Applied Electronics DP
12/2400 cabinets in my basement measure 3 inches in diameter and 1-1/2 inches thick.So in culinary techspeak, they are larger than a cake donut and smaller than a raised donut ;-)
They probably provide about 500usec rise time. That's not atypical for 2400 watt (20-amp) architectural dimmers. The active elements in the dimmers are conventional 40-amp random-phase solid-state relays constructed using back-to-back SCRs.
This lamp
I loaded it up with three different n:vision 60 watt CFls and one 60-watt incandescent and dimmed and brightened the light using conventional phase control.
No I do not. I mean exactly what I wrote.
You betcha. And it is clear to me that you have no idea what you write about.
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
ROTFL
The great preponderance of moderately complex documents prepared for public distribution are in pdf in my experience.
Why don't you proclaim "Y'all are too lazy" at a public meeting?
That, as you say, would make their "jaws drop".
Seems like I'm mythical. Neat! ;-)
...Marc Marc_F_Hult
Technical documents probably lend themselves the most to "pan and scan" type reading. But PDF's are hardly device independent, and that was one of the features of the web that made it so effective to begin with. The HTML browser lays out the page depending on your display and text size preferences. PDFs are a real bitch for the visually impaired compared to a web page that allows for dynamic text re-sizing. Based on the finely detailed work in your XTB's, your vision is far better than mine.
What display settings are you using? What size monitor? I'll bet you're running at much higher resolution than what I use. I run at 800 by 600 on a
21" monitor and have problems seeing even at those settings. My browser settings are for "largest text" and most HTML pages correctly handle that increased magnification and allow me to read without resorting to a clumsy screen magnifier program. That minor difference alone can make the PDF experience just fine for one person and agonizing for another. That's even before one considers how much more security exposure is required to view anything that's not standard HTML in a web browser.There may be no avoiding PDF's in the modern web world, but they're dreadfully overused. Web stuff should be HTML based. Stuff like PDF's and Active-X just add proprietary hooks to something that was designed to be the ultimate "open system" and should be avoided just on general principle. (-: That's my take on it, anyway.
-- Bobby G.
The couple I installed here work fine on X10. Both a lamp module and Leviton 16383 wall switch work perfectly to switch them ON and OFF. Note that both the Leviton wall switch and the X10 lamp module do have neutral for signal return.
Jeff
This computer is 1280 x 1024 on a 17" monitor, but my office computer is
1024 x 768 on a decade old 14" monitor. I do understand your argument for the visually impaired.Since I store documents locally, I like the easy portability and compact size of PDF documents. I wonder how large a typical 200 page PIC manual would be in HTML... Then there is the portability issue and broken links.
I have never heard of any security issue associated with PDF files.
Jeff
That's good to hear. X-10 is still the only PLC implementation that I know of that work with wall switch wiring with only two wires. It would be useful to find CFLs that work with that hardware.
Having replaced about 25 X-10 devices with INSTEON, I find myself with a handful of lights in non-critical areas where there is not the required hot, neutral and switched conductors needed for INSTEON, much less for centralized hard-wired. But these are also some places where if a light is inadvertently left on, it might go unnoticed for days, so being able to turn them off automatically every (eg) midnight would be useful.
My choices seem to be :
1) Rewire for INSTEON or hard-wired lighting 2) RF 3) X-10 2-wire 4) no automationI could install hot and neutral from the same breaker but I'd have to run all the way back to the entrance panel to do so in order to be safe and not violate code (as I understand it).
Some locations still have X10 WS467s that I never pulled. I'll check to see if the n:vision 60-watts work there. If I use them in on-off mode (which was all the control I had locally anyway) I may be satisfied with reliability and performance.
I have both an ACT103 and your XTB, so I could add the X-10 automated control back in and program the use of X-10 so that it tries to avoid sending any X-10 during time slots of likely INSTEON activity.
If this works, it would be the most cost effective and quickest solution.
Do you have any recommendations for moderately priced 2-wire wall switches/dimmers with better tactile response than the WS467?
TIA ... Marc Marc_F_Hult
Sorry, but I don't.
Jeff
When you absolutely need to know that a page will be WSIWIG, pdf beats HTML hands down in part because pdf is vastly better at scaling to the presentation medium. I have easily made pdfs that look great on everything from 13x19 glossy paper copies for kiosk display all the way down to 800x600
16-color monitors.In many cases, I have offered the alternative of html, pdf and excel formats for downloads. It might be interesting to specifically log which is more often downloaded. Sometimes I offer only pdf because that way I have greatest assurance that it won't get mangled.
Just like an artist can decide whether to paint on canvas, wood, or paper, as a provider I get to decide format, both electronic and paper.
To call folks that use pdf "lazy" is self-centered nonsense if only because it arrogantly assumes that the provider knows what the user prefers or needs. Bobby: Had you come to one of the dozens and dozens and dozens of public meetings that I have participated in or personally organized and conducted and called me lazy because I use pdf (?!!), I suspect that afterwards you'da slunk out the back of the room the same way you do electronically in CHA. (No modality, no smiley, just reality and constancy).
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
Dual monitors is my standard setup for all desktop or rack-mount PCs. For coding or photoshop or general multitasking or home automation, having two monitors is invaluable.
Linux, XP Media Center and XP Pro easily support two screens simultaneously. One does not need a dual head graphics card to do so. One can recycle an old PCI card if needed, but many/most modern graphics cards do indeed have two outputs.
Having two screens is exceptionally helpful in home automation in my experience. Having dual video outputs from one HA PC can avoid needing running multiple PCs.
Using a splitter allows me to send the same signal to multiple HA PCs or "televisions" or the surveillance cameras over Cat5 or RGx in multiple synchronized locations.
So for example, the HA engine screen can be displayed using one video signal and the desired output including TV and(or) security monitors can synchronously display on other screens throughout the house. So folks watching TV don't need to see the HomeSeer log scrolling by.
When physical space is at a premium, one can use the dual input feature of many/most modern monitors to toggle between display outputs using a single monitor. This is especially handy for being able to quickly switch (eg) to viewing the security monitors. Picture-In-Picture (PIP) features of many newer monitors are also invaluable
The possible combinations are many but typically require two or more electrically different sources which is where the second video output on the HA PC usefully comes into play.
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
Yowza! Am I having a Vuja De? Just because *you* haven't heard of them, as the saying goes: (-: That's the second time this week I've had an incredulous look on my face when reading CHA. I thought everyone knew about ATM "skimming" devices, too! My mistake.
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I hope those are enough examples. I am relatively certain there are dozens more if anyone cares to look further.
-- Bobby G.
That state exists simply because Adobe worked hard for that to happen. It's the same sort of reason we're stuck with Windows. "In wide use" doesn't mean "excellent" of even "good" by default. Adobe profits wildly from this since they happen to own the technology. That's antithetical to the spirit of the web, at least in IMHO. It's also not display device-independent, a major feature of the web that PDF's, at least IMHO, violate outrageously.
Personal jibe. Unwelcome as all of them. Read the actual text. It's not laziness, it's security and usability, but you never miss a chance to hit below the belt and accuse someone of something if there's the slightest opportunity, do you Marc?
Perhaps you're blessed with perfect vision. Those who are not find PDFs far more troublesome than you do because they are typically NOT device independent but are designed for PRINTING on an 8.5 by 11" page. That means pan and scan for a LOT of people. There are tools to convert said PDF documents for use on the web, but many webmasters, it seems, are too lazy to look out for their sight-impaired brothers and sisters to bother to use it.
Then there are the security issues I mentioned to Jeff.
Good for you. Be proud of your good eyes. Try to put them to good use instead of using them to constantly try to put people down.
-- Bobby G.
| I could install hot and neutral from the same breaker but I'd have to run all | the way back to the entrance panel to do so in order to be safe and not | violate code (as I understand it).
I'm not exactly sure what you mean here, but if you are talking about bringing a second cable from an existing circuit all the way back to the panel from which that circuit originates and connecting it to the same breaker, this is (IMHO) not only not required but a very bad idea (though possibly not prohibited). It is easy for someone later to think that it is a separate circuit when moving things around.
| Some locations still have X10 WS467s that I never pulled. I'll check to see | if the n:vision 60-watts work there. If I use them in on-off mode (which was | all the control I had locally anyway) I may be satisfied with reliability and | performance.
I would be interested in the results. I'm particularly interested in a solution that works outside; I don't really care how long it takes to come up to full brightness.
| Do you have any recommendations for moderately priced 2-wire wall | switches/dimmers with better tactile response than the WS467?
One generation of the WS467 (maybe even the current one) uses an actual switch component on the PC board rather than the tacky contacts. Unfortunately, while the switch does have some tactile response, it seems to be a very low-quality part that fails nearly as fast as the previous generation for contact strips. (Some day I want to find out why the even older generation of contact strips worked so much better. I still have switches from the 80's that are fine.) Anyway, since X10 has done most of the mechanical work it might be possible to find a better switch that is a drop-in replacement.
Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com
Actually, Adobe saw a need and developed a means to fulfill it. PDF does something very well which HTML does only marginally or, in most cases not at all. It allows an author to control the exact shape and layout of a document such that it will appear the same no matter which browser or OS views it.
It also provides a means of "locking" a document so that casual users cannot alter it. This allows digitally signed PDF documents to be used as contracts with the same force as printed material signed in ink.
You're not stuck with Windows. Feel free to use LINUX or Mac any time you like. Note, however, that when you want to create a document that maintains its layout across both of those platforms you'll probably need to use PDF.
That's not because Adobe cornered the market. They simply did a better job than anyone else so their method became the standard.
True, kindly show us what about PDF is less than good quality. General statements that "in wide use doesn't mean good" do not amount to a valid argument that one particular widely used mthod is not.
And?
I suppose you don't use Google or Yahoo either then.
Examples, please.
That is not correct. The PDF format allows the author to select whatever page size s/he likes.
I'm nearly blind in one eye and nearsighted in the other. One of the things I like about PDF documents is that I can easily enlarge text and images simulaneously so I can read fine print. Web browsers allow limited text resizing, but images and other elements usually don't flow with the text and often obscure portions of it.
I use PDF for docs that benefit from it. My website is all HTML though. Any product info which I get in PDF is transferred to HTML as text and images. However, this is a tedious process that lends itself to erros. Having "converted" thousands of pages from HTML to PDF and vice versa, I can tell you that it's not laziness that keeps most webmasters from doing so. It's the shear volume of work involved that keeps most at bay.
We disagree on another point. PDF is IMO much better for those with impaired vision than HTML. Scaling pages up to view them is a trivial task. The need to pan inversely proportionate to the size (in pixels) of one's monitor.
Any time you download anything, PDF, Doc, HTML or whatever, you must concern yourself with possible security issues. That is why we buy anti-virus software, spyware removers, etc. Can you show us that PDFs are inherently more vulnerable to "bad things" than HTML?
Yes, I could have written more precisely and said "for every tungsten bulb replaced by a CFL in Norway they are adding mercury to their environment where they were not because they do not generate much electricity from coal." I had hoped that meaning was self-evident from the context. I'll remember to write for you accordingly and as if a team of editors and Philadelphia lawyers were going to parse my every word. Or not. (-:
Is it possible a man with a CV as long as my arm didn't know that we were talking about tungsten v. CFL replacement cost equations? I am going to rein in your very impressive dissertation and return the original subject: attempting to compute the true costs of switching from tungsten to CFL bulbs. Should I believe that I am going to save (up to) $154 as one N:Vision bulb package proudly proclaims, or are there other costs that might not appear until years from now?
When a *tungsten* bulb is replaced with a CFL, there is mercury in that latter that has to go somewhere, eventually. Household-use tungsten bulbs do not need mercury to function. Or is that in dispute? Tungsten bulbs may (or may not) put mercury in the air indirectly depending on whether they are powered by certain types of (very popular) old coal burning power plants. True?
[As a political aside, do you think we could have put scrubbers on every dirty coal power plant in the US with the money we've spent bombing and then repairing the Iraqi infrastructure? How many US lives might be saved or improved if we cleaned up our own backyard first? What a tragedy. /sermon over]If those plants are powering air-conditioners during very hot days and not CFL's, perhaps the mercury-by-proxy figures bandied about by both sides in the debate are difficult to assess without knowing a lot more details of actual electrical consumption. It seems to me there's so much hypothecation in producing at least part of the "savings claims" model hat you'd be terrified by the thought of that herd of "hippos" wandering about the field.
Consider well-meaning scientists with their gypsy-moth and cane toad solutions. They didn't look far enough into the future with their models. They made assumptions that sounded good at the time but ended up very badly. I'm merely recommending caution in the wholesale dumping of tungsten bulbs by Congressional fiat. Stents were touted as the greatest advance ever in cardiac care. A new study shows they have almost no perceptible effect reducing heart attacks but doctors have been inserting expensive stents in people for years, proclaiming it would save them from future attacks. It wasn't until actual long-term performance information became available that the miraculous solution was discovered to be a colossal waste of time and money.
I believe the indirect mercury contribution of tungsten bulbs can (and very much should) be caught at the smokestack. No matter how "less dangerous" the mercury embedded in CFL's is compared to airborne mercury, it's still highly toxic and incredibly dangerous to pregnant women. I am worried where the directly embedded mercury will go. Will John Q. Consumer recycle responsibly? I'm not sure that banning tungsten bulbs, as the Aussies have done, is the proper solution to the problem for the US, in part because of the mercury recovery issue.
That *doesn't* mean I believe CFL's shouldn't be used. I obviously use a mix of both incandescent and CFLs. I'd like to use more, but CFLs have technical issues with X-10. I want to make sure that there's nothing better on the horizon that doesn't add mercury to the landfills. I also believe the law should attend to the massive polluters before coming after John Q. Citizen. The problem is the power plant owners have lobbyists with buckets of money and fight new regulation in a way private single citizens never could.
Dave and I both appear to believe that proper smokestack scrubbing is likely to catch more mercury pollution than depending on human beings to recycle responsibly. As I have said before, the payback equations *can't* be completed until we know where those bulbs *really* end up and what it might cost to recover the mercury. Predicting whether people will responsibly recycle seems awfully hypothetical to me.
Well meaning people often get into the worst trouble of their lives assuming they know how others will behave in the future. John Brown was certain that blacks would join his rebellion once he started it for them. They never came and he got himself hanged for that bad guess. Kennedy assumed the Cubans would join our CIA forces and revolt and overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs. Whoops! Bush assumed that the Iraqis would embrace democracy and the US like a long lost brother. Nyet!
I just don't have as much faith as you do that CFL's will be responsibly recycled here in the US. Our public works departments constantly sends out flyers urging us not to put car batteries, paint and other toxic material in the trash. I don't think they'd do that quite so often if people were universally "good" about recycling. If not for the mercury, I'd embrace CFL's fully as long as I could still buy tungsten bulbs for my porchlight. But I'd hate to jump wholesale to a problematic solution when it's entirely possible a mercury-free one is in the wings.
For Norway, a country much colder than ours, a further complication is that tungsten bulbs give off more heat than CFLs and likely lessen the heating bills of homes that use them. I know that's true in my own house, so it causes me to seriously doubt I will save $154 using this one bulb. I'll save *something* if the bulbs last as long as claimed, but my contention is that the manufacturer's numbers are very, very optimistic as far as longevity goes. One of the new N:Vision bulbs has something rattling around loose it the electronics bay. It works, but who knows for how long?
The most important issue has hardly been touched upon, and I think it's one central to Dave's argument as well. In some cases a stopgap measure like switching to CFL's merely *delays* the implementation of the correct solution like smokestack sequestration. I stand quite fully by my contention that the model is more complex than most people realize. That's especially important when you replace a relatively environmentally-benign product (tungsten bulbs) with one containing a known lethal and very troublesome poison, mercury.
mercury-laden
OK, isn't there a rule that says when you mention "Nazis" the thread has to end?
(-:
-- Bobby G.
I did not, of course, write that.
And I wrote nothing whatsoever on the topic of Norway in the post that you criticize. What I did was to defer discussion of Norway energy and mercury in the environment in the context of CFLs to a later time.
What did in fact write in the thread was more detailed and closer to "purely technical information than anything I can recall your posting.
Namely (in part), Quote:
Spectral response of the meter is important esp wrt fluorescents. The spectra of 5500K and 3500K n:vision compact fluorescents are here:
End Quote:
So your assertion that I descended into grammatical quibble is plain old nonsense.
The rest of my second post was an explanation of my decision to defer my response of Norway energy to a later time and an attempt to cheerfully deflect your outrageous personal attack.
Go back and read it if you've forgotten.
Please don't purposely misquote and expect to have a conversation with me.
What I was responding to was this statement:
"I was referring to what happens in areas that use no coal. It complicates the mercury equation in Norway, at least. They were putting no mercury in the environment before but the use of CFL bulbs gives them a recycling issue."
Yes, because I surely did *not* think so. And it is *still* unclear to me.
You wrote "putting no mercury".
You wrote "mercury equation" by which most folks would think you mean an equation that deals with mercury (eg, the mass balance of mercury in the environment) not consumer costs, _especially_ in the context in which you wrote it which dealt with the source terms (CFLs, coal) of the amount of mercury in the environment, not consumer cost ($ euros krone
But now you write in clarification :
"tungsten v. CFL replacement cost equations"
which to me means something quite different.
So which "cost" are you talking about? This is a plain-English, good-faith, not snide, not bile, attempt to understand what you mean.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The conventional way of analyzing this sort of problem is, as you suggest, to write a mathematical relationship ("equation") between the variables in order to solve for what you want to know. Examples include: mercury in the environment OR impact on consumer cash budget OR Energy balance OR carbon balance and so on.
I recently outl " ... construct even the simplest conceptual model, and then develop even the simplest mathematical relationship of that model, and then use even flat-out guesses of the constants and variables "
So please consider describing what it is that you want to know (in other words, the left hand side of the equation) and if you like, I will work with you to develop the conceptual model, write the equation, and estimate some values. Fair enough? It will take time, concentration, and discipline.
You might want to start different threads under this subject in a controlled way (consumer costs, need/benefits of fluorescent recycling, environmental effects of mercury, and so on)
Note, though, that some important questions resist solution by this sort of analysis (hence a whole fields in economics).
For example, 'balancing' between competing goals (which by and large have their own equations)
Here is a pertinent subset:
1) Elimination of CO2 emissions 2) Elimination of Nuclear waste 3) Elimination of Environmental Damage from Mining 4) Elimination of Hydropower Dams 5) Elimination of Toxic Metals in EnvironmentEliminating CFLs may allow progress towards 5) but require "backsliding" on
1-4 , because of increased energy use. Norway has reduced 1-3 because they rely on hydropower which competes with goal 4).Because there is already so much mercury already in the (eg Norway's) environment, eliminating a minor new source of mercury may not even be quantitatively important toward achieving the mercury-related goal.. We could have that discussion too if you like. But this is way far removed from comp.home.automation IMO.
(Aside: In the US, there is a 35-year history of tension between 'Reduce' and 'Eliminate' as codified in the US. National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) provisions of the Clean Water Act (CWA) which has not, and never will 'eliminate' _all_ water pollution.)
I think that this exercise might be useful to CHA because it shows the way to quantitative analysis of things that _are_ directly HA-related like home energy balance (Eg, the "Can I save energy by turning off the hot water" FAQ.)
[Rest deleted for clarity. Bobby: If you want to pick up on any of the other topics or discussion, please do so. I will not be offended. I suggest that for clarity you deleted most everything in this post and focus on working out the answer to this particular question, at least in this thread. OK? ]I Hope This Helps ...
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
Right. I think I used too few words to explain what I meant and too many to avoid suggesting the wrong way ;-) Dan has helped me puzzle out some electrical muddles before.
The example I was thinking of is a ceiling can in a third-floor room with inaccessible space above with a wall switch that is accessible from the adjacent attic.
I can:
1) Test continuity of both 2x14 w/grnd from the switch to the ceiling can and (important but easy to forget) isolation of both conductors from neutral, ground and hot of either phase, 2) Rewire the 2x14AWG that goes to the switch across both leads of the lamp holder. 3) 'Abandoned in place' the hot and neutral in the can with wire nuts. (I also label the wires indicating that this is what I've done.) 4) Bring new power to the switch. 5) Wire in switch.In my case, I have little faith in the existing wiring so I would run back to the 2nd flr load center that is accessible through the attic rather than using any existing wires. I've replaced a substantial portion (half?) of the existing wiring bit by bit in this way. The new second-floor load center is where the commercial 2nd Flr dimmer cabinet like the one in the basement is supposed to go, so in theory I could hard-wire the light by not using any AC wall dimmer/switch at all and running back to the relay panel. That leaves with also having to run the low-voltage to a new box for the local control element.
To continue with what Dan was saying, there are at least two rewiring schemes that should not be used.
1) Running a new hot and neutral AC from an arbitrary source to the wall switch and using a mechanical relay-based X10/INSTEON. This puts two different circuits into the same box.2) Running a new wire from the existing breaker that controls the load all the way back to the switch. This would electrically allow using a 3-wire PLC switch or dimmer, but would be dangerous if changes anywhere along the way at a later time connected either wire up to a different breaker. The ambiguity comes in because ABIK, the code apparently doesn't explicitly prohibit this but might not pass inspection anyway and is not sound practice.
As I previously posted, I tested the lamps to 0F. They are rated to -20 F
I have a room with two cans and two sconces controlled by a WS467 (same room as described above). Replacing three of the four incandescents with 60-watt n:nision CFLs works like a charm except that the fluorescents glow _very_ slightly even when off. Replacing all four causes the WS467 to buzz like a like an electric hair-clipper. Completely unusable mode (for me). Tonight I can check to see whether a debuzzing coil (= choke, = inductor) would solve the problem.
Good idea. But the need to keep WS467s air-gap switch is still a nuisance. My mom once insisted that a light bulb was burned out. She was pushing the air gap switch back and forth, working mostly by feel rather than looking at what she was doing ...
..Marc Marc_F_Hult
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