My kitchen fluorescent lamp which is 6 foot 100 watt unit wouldn't light tonite the starter flickered but no sign of any tube activity. It was very cold in the kitchen so I put the boiler on which warmed things up nicely I tried the tube again and although a bit sluggish it lit ( maybe my swearing at it helped) my question is do you think it's just because the tubes old and doesn't like the cold or is there something else going on?
Now you mention it, whilst drilling the fixing holes for a back box today and using a head torch for illumination (no mains lighting for obvious reasons) I thought of this and noticed that my drill appeared to be going backwards; so clearly, even battery powered LEDs must flicker.
Even with LEDs powered from direct current sources, it has been common practice for many years to deliberately chop the supply to the LED. I understand that the reason for this is in the interests of efficiency. The eye perceives a LED fed from chopped d.c. as almost as bright as one fed from continuous d.c., but much less power is used. One can see this flickering effect on instrument panel indicators, car tail lights and, apparently, LED head torches. I checked my own head torch and can't see any noticeable flicker, but possibly it is strobed at a very high frequency.
Now you mention it, whilst drilling the fixing holes for a back box today and using a head torch for illumination (no mains lighting for obvious reasons) I thought of this and noticed that my drill appeared to be going backwards; so clearly, even battery powered LEDs must flicker.
Even with LEDs powered from direct current sources, it has been common practice for many years to deliberately chop the supply to the LED. I understand that the reason for this is in the interests of efficiency. The eye perceives a LED fed from chopped d.c. as almost as bright as one fed from continuous d.c., but much less power is used. One can see this flickering effect on instrument panel indicators, car tail lights and, apparently, LED head torches. I checked my own head torch and can't see any noticeable flicker, but possibly it is strobed at a very high frequency.
