Do CFL type light bulbs or in other words "the curly type" light bulbs work well with a non pure sign wave inverter? This spring I installed a small off-grid solar system in our cabin on the cheap and I'm using a "Harbor Freight" 1500 watt square wave inverter. This week a 5 year warrented CFL light bulb went out with maybe only 30 or so hours on it. Maybe it was just a fluke? The other CFL's are still working. Any thoughts? Here's the inverter.
HI Andy, They may or may not it's a gamble with those. You may even see a flicker out of them when they are not on as well. They are very particular even without pure sign wave power. Even using the wrong dimmers and timers with them causes problems sometimes. They did no turn out to be the greatest as we all thought they would be. I think with any bulb that has electronics inside, even LED's has to be supplied with good clean power these days. I'd say you may need to just experiment with what you have-a few bulbs at first. That's a nice little set up.
I found a nice little 2 watt LED buld for about 5 bucks at "Ollies" that I put in the bathroom which I'm running with this system so I'm expirmenting with that also. So far so good. Larry Said: Thanks. Two cute little Windy 30 watt solar panels tucked under the eaves. This is why we tucked them under the eaves.
Wow that is a sweet place to be. What else is that small system running be sides lights? I assume you have a small fridge to keep the beer cold? Ollies, yeah we have one here too. They have great deals. Windy Nation has got great deals on a 200w panel kit. Also, there is another company selling them for even less per panel on E bay, like $130.00 for a 100w panel with MC4 connectors and free shipping. I don't think their UL approved like WN though. Andy that's a real nice place you got there.
Larry, thanks for the photo shop but with 80 foot trees all around, the turbines on the roof wouldn't do too much. All we run is 3 or so 25 watt CFL's and the inverter shuts off in 3 to 4 hours. This week I traded in the 2 cheap car batteries that have been in service for 6 and 8 years and replaced them with 2 Walmart 105 amp hour batteries so we'll have to see what they'll do. The inverter is 1500 watts so I can also run a weedeater or run a small saw. Yes House of "Jack" and somestimes, "Something Worse".
