Warning: Science Content!

[lieperjp]

Although we have had people complain that long periods of time under our house lights gives them headaches. I mildly get the headaches as well, but I think it's really the directors that give me headaches... Also had one lady say CFLs give her seizures.

Yeah, I get those same headaches!

I was wondering if anyone knows why CFLs can give people headaches/seizures...

 

[MNicolai]

Fluorescent lighting flickers really fast. Typically so fast that you can never see it. If you have a significant voltage drop when you turn them on, or have a ballast going bad, you may be able to even watch the electrons move from one end of the tube to another. As ballasts get worse, the flickering slows down and becomes more noticeable, and the light output becomes dimmer. As a result between the flickering and less light output, eye strain results amongst other things.

I get really bad migraine headaches, and I know if I walk into a room with really bad fluorescent lighting it bothers me so much I either get nauseous or have to leave. I've had more trouble with tubes than with CFL's, but I hardly spend the same amount of time under CFL's as I do tubes.

 

[TheDonkey]

They better not ban incandescent lights in Canada!!!

Like they did in Australia(?), I can;t stand CLF's nor 120v LED's(The flickering is insanity, even when they're new, I can tell that the flickering's there)

 

[David Ashton]

Incandescent lights have not been banned in Australia and there are no plans to do so.
Urban myth.

 

[TheDonkey]

Didn't they ban standard household incandescents? and I'm pretty sure it was Australia, but wouldn't all all be surprised if it isn't.

 

[David Ashton]

General service incandescents are being phased out but that is a long way from banning all incandescents, including all theatre lamps, round lamps, mr16 lamps, chandelier type lamps, in brief it's not really a big deal, just an encouragement to use efficient lamp in general applications.

 

[dsm]

It is more difficult to find regular incandescent domestic lighting though. Last time I was at a supermarket looking for some incandescent lights, since I've got some dimmer switches in my house, they didn't have any incandescents that weren't spot lights.

 

[bri4827]

I remember being a board opp for a high school where the school board thought it would be nice to replace all the incandescent house lights with fluorescent tubes one summer without consulting the TD... The genius contractor leaves them all on the dimmers the original house lights were on. So before any show where a member of the school board would be in attendance the TD would have us fade out the fluorescent lights with a 10-15 second fade, creating a great strobe effect throughout the house Don't worry for the nice shows we'd stick about a dozen pars & parnels around the house on booms... ghetto but got the job done. When they re-renovated the space last year though they actually talked to the TD and they have a very well designed/practical setup now.

 

[Peyton]

The best way to eliminate the headache causing characteristic of the flourescents is to group the tubes in threes, so they offset each other.