Scott,
No. I can dig up the link to the written word, but my server is bouncing all
url's today and is maddening.
Take for instance a twin tube Thin-Lite. It operates on ac volts even though
you connect it to 12volts. It is polarity sensitive and must not be
connected backward. It has a transformer that simply steps up the 12v to ac
voltage. Same thing in the spiral. It is inside the base.
So 12 volts comes in, steps up, and lights the lamp. Nothing "goes"
anywhere" back to anything. The actual voltage that lights the lamp is much
higher than 110V, but the conversion is to 110 VAC for the high voltage
transformer. It can vary, but all fluorescent bulbs excite the gas very high
voltage, and it is always alternating current because it has to be for the
high voltage transformer. The filament is a high voltage emission, not a low
voltage glowing.
Think of it this way: Your car ignition makes a spark plug spark. The first
cars used the old black ignition coil you are so familiar with. That coil
was supplied 12 volts DC and the older ones 6 volts DC. The end result for
both was a minimum spark at 20,000 volts. Now the new modern car uses 50 to
80 thousand volts to jump a gap from 45 to 80 thousandth's at the spark
plug.
A hand-held taser uses little batteries of varying voltages not even 12
volts DC, yet tases at 60 to 120 thousand volts. It won't kill but will sure
shock you, just like a CPR deliberator.
-Eddie- Houston, TX
----- Original Message -----
> Eddie,
>
> So are you saying that the Spirial CF bulbs I am using that are labled 12V
> DC have something inside of them to convert the 12V DC current they get
> from the battery into 110V AC? Then back into 12V DC again as to not ruin
> my trailer's 12V DC system?
>
> Scott