My major research project over the course of the semester centered around the use of CFLs in table lamp fixtures. According to the LBNL Lighting Lab, approximately 70 percent of the energy used lighting a home is used by only 30 percent of the fixtures, table lamps being one of the biggest contributors. Knowing which CFLs perform best in table lamps will help us understand how to save energy while improving lighting quality in the home. They last about 10 times longer than incandescents.
Light quality can be as good or better.
For both the screw-based and the 2D tests I used a standard table lamp fixture. For the tilt tests, however, we had to create a special device so that we could tilt the CFL while having as little interference from a fixture as possible. The purpose of these tests was to find the best screw-based lamp for use in table lamp fixtures. How the best lamp was determined is explained more fully in the body of this paper. The tilt tests used the same 13W twin-tube CFL and ballast for all tests.