Ohm my CFL. Blinking CFL's and Xmas is almost over..

Peter,

I think there are some out there. They are new. They won't be the cheap ones that you find in most places. Feit's might work. You could also change the timer. I have a mechanical one that has been working for years. The down side is that the timers wear out and generate a black residue that collects on the wall.

Scott

Also remember that CFLs perform rather poorly in rooms where lights are constantly being flipped on and off. I don't know how many CFL's my bathroom burned out before I learned my lesson there. Incandescents still work best in my bathroom - at least I am not blowing out a bulb every 2 weeks now.

So after a long hiatus, I mustered up the courage to try and figure out a work around. Since then, my local Lowes has started carrying "dimmable" CFLs. What ever dimmable does aside from doubling the price, it seems to work. Now the lights on my timer don't blink and all is well.

What's odd though, is I also added some CFLs to my post light that is on a photocell (turns on at dusk, off at dawn) and thet do NOT blink. These are regular CFLs, not dimmable. They are however a smaller base and a lower wattage than the CFLs I was trying to get to work on the timer.

Is there some correlation between the wattage and the blinking? I personally have no more timers or photocells that need CFLs, I'm just curious to the cause and what's going on.