Fluorescent tubes: turn off or leave on?

[matthew]

Good evening!

Yesterday I got hooked by a colleague at work, because I turned off the lights of the lab, time to go take the coffee break ...

She told me on this occasion that it is not worth it to switch off for fifteen minutes because according to her, the "off" time is not sufficient to compensate for the overconsumption of the starter during re-ignition ... on what, I tell him that will probe the members of the forum!

If someone is more enlightened than me on this! Let him tell me.

[Christophe]

Overconsumption of starter !! Well then, say it!! No matter what your colleague says ...

I think she has no idea what she's saying because a simple calculation is enough to demonstrate her error.

Suppose she is right: a 52W tube which rotates 15 min will consume 52 * 60 * 15 = 46800 Joules of electricity (I neglect the Cos phi to facilitate).

Assuming that the choke starts for 2 seconds, we would obtain an instantaneous power absorbed by the choke of 46 / 800 = 2 W or 23 kW or enough to melt the stater and the power supply wire ten times ... and set the lab on fire with each "ignition" ...

On the other hand where your colleague could have been right it was in the sensitivity to ON / OFF of neon lights but for 15 minutes I think it is largely "profitable" to cut ...

ps: can we know what kind of lab it is?

[matthew]

Thank you for the clarification...

We have 12 tubes of 18W and 2 coffee breaks of 15mn ...

FYI, I work in a hydrobiology lab and unfortunately, we do not do research ... it may come who knows?

[Christophe]

12 tubes of 18W it's the same for the reasoning ... even if it was 5W ... a starter will surely not consume 2kW ... in short if it is not necessary to turn them off it is surely not for the consumption of starters!

So turn them off and if it continues to rally file the link to this discussion ...

[matthew]

roughly speaking, we are responsible for monitoring the biological quality of watercourses essentially for DIRENs and water agencies ... the analyzes are based on the presence / absence of critters (macro-invertebrates) in more or less poluo-sensitive characters (IBGN Protocol among others ...).

Good evening Christophe.

[chatelot16]

where it is more difficult to answer it is for the influence of the number of ignition on the total lifespan

if by switching off the 15 minute tube you save months of electricity than the shortening of the life of the tube costs, no benefit

but I don't have a serious way of evaluating the lifespan of the tubes or the choke

but there is a behavior that distorts everything: when the tube does not work we are em .... whereas when the counter turns we do not care

so whoever does not pay for electricity prefers to leave it on

[Christophe]

Yes chatelot nevertheless neon lights seem to me to be much less sensitive to repeated ON / OFF than 1st generation compact fluorescent lamps.

Generally it is the choke which releases before the tube.

But I could be wrong?

[bamboo]

In general, those who say that it consumes / uses more to turn off than to leave on are those who do not want to piss off and who always leave everything on ...
(in this case, I think about computers: I turn mine off (professional, and personal) several times a day. Never had any problems. But my colleagues never turn off theirs because it wears out the processor ... Well let's see ... Even for 1 month vacation ?? )

[gregdu13250]

In general, those who say that it consumes / uses more to turn off than to leave on are those who do not want to piss off and who always leave everything on ...
(in this case, I think about computers: I turn mine off (professional, and personal) several times a day. Never had any problems. But my colleagues never turn off theirs because it wears out the processor ... Well let's see ... Even for 1 month vacation ?? )

Turning the PC off and on several times a day uses the hard drive, not the processor. Knowing that a hard drive with a limited number of startups, it is better to avoid, to light up and turn off your pc more than 5 times a day otherwise the dd will not exceed 2 years

[bamboo]

It's true, never has any of my PCs lasted 2 years: I use them rather 8 years... (they don't end up HS, but simply don't have enough performance for the software that demands more and more ...)

In general, those who say that it consumes / uses more to turn off than to leave on are those who do not want to piss off and who always leave everything on ...
(in this case, I think about computers: I turn mine off (professional, and personal) several times a day. Never had any problems. But my colleagues never turn off theirs because it wears out the processor ... Well let's see ... Even for 1 month vacation ?? )

Turning the PC off and on several times a day uses the hard drive, not the processor. Knowing that a hard drive with a limited number of startups, it is better to avoid, to light up and turn off your pc more than 5 times a day otherwise the dd will not exceed 2 years