Why Do Fluorescent Lights Make That Buzzing Noise?

It's fair to say that light bulbs their revolutionary invention, and it's tough to imagine the modern world without them. But they're not perfect. Incandescent bulbs produce way more heat than they do light, and their successors, compact fluorescent lamps hereafter referred to as CFLs, Well, those have their own disadvantages. In office buildings around the world, the weird buzz of CFL is slowly driving people into madness. So what is

going on with this weird noise? Anyhow, The buzz itself is a product of magnet restriction, but for that to make sense, we're going to need to look at how these things actually work. The central element in a CFL is a glass tube filled with an inert gas usually are gone and mercury. The inside of the tube is coated with a phosphor powder, which influences the ultimate color of the light. There are electrodes at either end of the tube and they're wired to an electrical circuit. And

still with me. When you activate the lamp, a current moves through the electrodes. There's considerable voltage across the electrodes, so electrons move from one end of the tube to the other. This vaporizes the mercury, changing some of it from a liquid to a gas. As the electrons and other charged atoms move across the tube, some of them

collide with gaseous mercury atoms. These visions excite the atoms, bumping the electrons up to higher energy levels, and when the electrons return to their original energy level, they release light photons. However, most of this is ultraviolet light. Before it becomes useful to us, it needs to be converted to visible light. This is where that phosphor powder comes in. The ultraviolet light causes phosphor to fluoresce or produce visible light.

Manufacturers can change the color of visible light emitted by using different combinations of phosphors. Here's where it gets a little tricky. The current inside the tube has to be limited so that it doesn't rise precipitously and trip the local circuit breaker. Fluorescent lights use ballasts to keep the current in check. The original ballasts for fluorescent bulbs are electromagnetic devices similar to inductors. Imagine a bunch of wire

wound around an iron core. A change in the flow of alternate currents through the inductor creates a magnetic field. This field also changes, creating a changing voltage in the wire, slowing the currents flow. So a ballast is useful because it prevents fluorescent lights from well blowing things up. Think of it like a break in a car, except well, I guess okay, it can stop small explosions. Breaks and

cars can also stop small explosions. Never mind. The point is that the ballast can also make that buzzing noise through an effect called magnetostriction. This happens when the magnetic field produced by the ballast physically squeezes that iron core. In the United States, the light is operating at sixty hurts. Thanks to magnetostriction, the core can be squeezed and released at twice that rate. A hundred and twenty hurts, creating the buzz, known and often hated by office workers around

the world. Now for the next question, how do you get rid of the buzz? Well, one of the simplest solutions can be to replace the bulb itself. If you have an older fluorescent light, you may want to replace the ballast, But keep in mind that if the device begins to fail again, the buzz is going to return. And that annoying buzz is not the only thing people hate about compact fluorescence. The odd colors can give people headaches, and the mercury inside can pose some serious health risks. Luckily,

there's some good news. We're not stuck choosing between inefficient incandescent bulbs and humming fluorescent ones. Instead, we can use l E ED bulbs. L E D bulbs may well be the light bulbs of the future, but that's a story for a different thing. Check out the brain stuff channel on YouTube, and for more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.