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What causes a CFL to suddenly start working again?

I have a CFL in the bathroom that went out on me. I’ve been too lazy to change it because there are other bulbs that are working. Well after a couple weeks, it magically decided to turn back on. It’s nowhere that it would be jostled or anything, so I found that weird.

wjrii , (edited )

So a little bit of investment in stadiums here, a new TV deal there, some exciting QB play, and a sprinkling of Canadian exceptionalism… Sorry, wrong CFL.

Some people think that failing ballasts will trigger their thermal protection, so it could be as simple as cooler weather or components that are failing but haven’t yet, and a little variability in temperature or the intial jolt of electricity may make it work for a while. I generally found CFLs to be finicky and annoying after a while, though i don’t recall ever having one that seemed to die completely and then come back.

edn.com/teardown-what-caused-these-cfl-bulbs-to-f…

Albbi ,

Thank you so much. I was trying to come up with a Canadian Football League joke.

SkybreakerEngineer ,

Same as any other E-6, getting yelled at by a Chief

NeoNachtwaechter ,

It could simply be a loose connection. It will go out again.

spankmonkey , (edited )

This is the most common one for me for both CFL and LED bulbs. The smooth connection on the base just doesn’t connect as well as the kinda rough old incandescent bases and I have had to gently pull on the little tab it pushes against in the mount to get a better connection.

Have one in the bathroom that I messed with earlier this week after the bulb started practicing for a horror movie.

ThePantser , (edited )
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

Micro vibrations, jet flying over, truck driving by, or maybe the other lights in the fixture vibrated the “broken” one enough to screw it back in. Did you know CFL bulbs can unscrew themselves from the vibrations and heat they make? Also change in temperature could cause the metal to expand or contract causing the bulb that unscrewed itself to make contact again.

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe an electrode with a lot of age on it was nearly burned up and one more flip on managed to blast a little clean spot on it.

Maybe you had a short in your ballast that got hot enough to change material properties a little and not become a short anymore.

Maybe your ballast was loose and had an open line and it just managed to wiggle enough to work again.

Maybe your ballast is partially shorted and ineffective at certain voltages and your temperature in the room is now cold enough to work with a lower potential ballast.

Maybe you had a shorted cap that leaked and then burned itself the rest of the way out and is now open.

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