Appendix A:
Fluorescent Or Incandescent?
There are numerous advantages to using the kind of fluorescent lighting provided by the PowerBrite PB9 and PowerBrite Pro7 over the incandescent lighting provided by competing rack light products.
Here are the main points to consider when making your purchase:
•Fluorescent bulbs generate almost no heat at all; incandescent bulbs can generate large amounts of heat.
•Fluorescent bulbs last approximately 50% longer than incandescent ones, with a typical life of 3,000 hours (as opposed to incandescent lights, which rarely last more than about 2,000 hours). There are also
•Fluorescent bulbs are brighter than incandescent ones and they deliver much greater light dispersion. This is due to their longer tube length, which imparts an increased diffusion pattern.
•The quality of fluorescent light is similar to daylight, while incandescent lights impart an artificial glow. There are also a wide variety of fluorescent bulb types readily available from most hardware stores, including “soft glow” and colored bulbs which can impart distinctive lighting effects.
•Fluorescent lighting systems require no dimmers, which are notorious for adding noise. Because of the lack of a dimmer and the heavy silicon steel shielding employed by the internal ballast transformer (which reduces hum by 20 dB), the PowerBrite delivers noise performance similar to that of an incandescent system.
•Taking your rack on the road? Fluorescent bulbs travel better than incandescent ones because the bulb is suspended by both ends of the lamp. In addition, the fluorescent filament is robust and is used only to start the bulb and is then switched off (unlike an incandescent filament, which is much more delicate and must oper- ate continuously).
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