ENS
 
Bangalore, May 5: With elections ahead, you may see the houses of prospective candidates, office buildings of political parties and venues of party workers being decorated with different bulbs, commonly called series sets.

Marriages are never complete with the indoors and outdoors of the halls being decorated with colourful bulbs. Even religious places like temples, churches and mosques are decked up with colourful lights. While nobody questions the need for such cosmetics, it is also equally important to make it safe for the people and property.

Reports of accidents due to short circuits because of the use of decorative bulbs do appear often. Several children are victims of such accidents.

But, unfortunately there is no law in this country to regulate the manufacture, energy consumption, general working and sale of series sets. As a result, markets are full of serial sets manufactured locally, often without revealing the identity of the manufacturer. Anyone can import and sell series lamps.

The Consumer Education & Research Society (CERS) of Ahmedabad has taken the pains of testing decorative lamps and the results are there to see. The CERS tested a total of 41 samples of six varieties, out of which five were of Chinese origin, and one, locally assembled.

The varieties tested were LED series, rice lights, net lights, neon series, rope lights and locally assembled Decorative Bulb Series. LED series are considered the next generation lighting solution.

It is a light-emitting semi-conductor diode having no filament and usually a small area source. Rice lights are ultra small multicoloured bulbs with eight tion motion controllers, giving an exiting lighting effect. Net lights are small coloured bulbs arranged in such a way that the series looks like a colourful glowing net. A neon series light comprises small, gas discharge lamps.

Rope lights also known as drum lights, are miniature bulbs encased in flexible PVC tubing. Decorative bulb series are incandescent lamps of various colours connected in a series. The test has revealed that there was no uniformity in the number of lamps in different samples of the neon series and also the number of lamps did not match the claim on the carton. Decorative series lamps are purchased keeping in view the number of lamps in the series. But the study has found that some of the Chinese series did not bear the number of lamps as mentioned on their carton. The cartons did not mention the names and addresses of the manufacturers/ importers which is in violation of the Packaged Commodities Rules framed under the Standards of Weights & Measures Act.

There is a common belief that that series lamps are of 'zero watt' category. But according to the tests, all the lamp series consumes a considerable amount of power, thus adding to your energy bill. At 230 V and continuous ON mode the energy cost was the least for the LED series and the maximum for the decorative bulb series.

All lights of rice lights, LED series, rope lights and locally assembled bulb series worked satisfactorily for 168 hours. One lamp out of 80 in neon series stopped working at 161 hours and to lamps of Net lights out of 140 stopped working at 161 hours. The diameter of plug-pins is important for proper fitting of plugs into the sockets.

But the plugs of Chinese series samples were of poor quality. The two pins of the plugs were found to be of uneven lengths and their diameter was less than the standard, causing difficulty in plugging and loose contact. This may cause heating and fire.

For more details, refer to INSIGHT, The Consumer Magazine, CERS, Thaltej, Ahmedabad-380 054. Email: cerc@cercindia.org Y.G.Muralidharan Em: creatorg@sify.com