Phoebus Cartel strikes again

[palusbuteo]

The lights in our kitchen "nipple" dome light had been flickering for the last few days.

The light has gotten noticeably dimmer the past few months, too, so related annoyance.

There was just one bulb left going the last few days and that was flickering inconsistently, but consistently for a CFL bulb on its last legs. I thought we had replaced them with LEDs but those were other lamps in the condo. Muses_realm said she never changed the bulbs in the kitchen since she moved in (over 10 years ago)

So, I embarked on the adventure to try and get replacements.

I took off the glass dome and pulled off one of the already dead bulbs. It's a Panasonic FQ13E27, 13W Quad 2-pin.
The ballast had a little sticker that said "Use CFL 13W Equivalent ONLY"

I was at the studio the next day and phoned the local Hardware store that I end up at fairly often.
The woman on the other end said that they are not allowed to sell those CFL's anymore and that there are LED equivalents, and that I really should bring one of the bulbs to match. I hadn't thought of that at the time. I knew the bulb said "Panasonic" and that it was a 13W CFL. I figured they would know what that is and if they sold them at the store. We'll get back to this in a moment.


That evening I drove off to the Home Depot in Worcester (with bulb in hand) and the light bulb section happens to be near the entrance, and there were some bulbs on for display, so, easy to find.

It took a few minutes to combing through the myriad of selections, but I managed to find "13W 2-pin CFL Replacement". So I grabbed the 3 I needed and back home and installed them without much effort.

The second I flicked the switch, the lights started flickering for a few seconds and then stayed on.
Well. Shit.

I made a remark to Muses_realm about Oh great now we have Gymnasium lights.
And since the kitchen is inside-facing with no windows, it's "dark" enough that when the light gets turned on, the flickering is VERY NOTICEABLE and epileptic-inducing and Very Annoying.

The next night one of the bulbs, brand new, started flickering a little bit.

So, I remembered to put one of the old dead bulbs in the car and off to the studio anyway, and stopped at the Hardware store en-route. The (other?) lady I got sent to then brought me to their lightbulb section, which I did Not remember its location from earlier visits. She pulled one of their offerings off the rack which looked a LOT like the replacements I got at HD, and she pointed to a little lip on the edge of the socket where the 2 pins are that plugs into the socket in the ballast, and pointed out that the Replacement bulbs they have on sale do NOT feature this little lip, and she was confident that chances are good that's why my replacement bulbs are flickering, because they're loose in the socket because it's the wrong type and isn't properly fitted. And that I need to get an exact same model and style replacement.....Which of course they don't offer.

This little lip is like 1/2 inch long and protrudes about 1/8 inch on the inside-edge of the bottom of the unit, and is where the pins stick out of the unit.

Soooooo. This afternoon I got home and pulled out all the replacement bulbs and went back to HD.
With one of the original old dead bulbs in hand to reference.

I mistakenly decided to go to the Customer Service desk first and was able to return the (faulty) replacement bulbs and got my money back. Then I went back to the Lightbulb wall and went back to the bottom corner section of the other CFL's. There was a HD staffer there and I assumed he was the lighting guy and asked for his help, and I made note of the peculiar lip, which didn't seem to mean anything to him.

He found the same replacement bulbs I got, and, another "Replacement CFL" next to it that has a much smaller nib instead of a lip, something like 1/8 inch long and 1/8 inch wide and it's off-center from where the pin comes out. I said unfortunately that's not going to work, and mentioned that I've been told by another hardware store that this little lip must match. He then admitted that he's unfortunately NOT the lighting guy and was just cleaning up the shelves. He said it's something I'll probably have to order online / the HD webpage has "lots of different bulb types we don't have in stock here". He also said something about them no longer carrying different types of bulbs that they are switching to a "universal" plug and phasing out all of these different types of plugs and fittings.

I then disposed of the 2 dead bulbs as they have a receptacle there (good to know) and started back home.
As I was crawling on 290 I remembered there's a Lowes up the road from the HD. But ended up not being able to turn around until I nearly got home. But, determined to get some kind of replacement, off to Lowes I went.

Nope. Even fewer selections than HD. They only had GE and another brand that was basically the same as the erroneous bulbs I got at HD, all without lips but just smooth-edged.

So, dejected, I ended up back home.
So now we have NO kitchen light. At all.
I was willing to endure the flickering strobe-light effect for a little while longer. But I don't see the point in going allllll the way back to HD to buy the wrong shape bulbs knowing they'll flicker and be annoying.

Target next door was also futile.

Now, a smart guy could have tried to use his magical smart phone pocket calculator device while I was there at HD and tried to search for the same component number, and had that been the case, ordered them for in-store pickup right then and there. But did I even THINK of that? Nope.

I spent about 45 mins online trying to search for the exact same component number, and found NOTHING.
Yeah, I found the same number, but, the photos were either incorrect, or of the off-center smaller "tooth" like lip, and I didn't want to waste the money on an online purchase I can't return to have bulbs that won't fit or will flicker just the same.

I got fed-up and stopped searching online for now.

I don't know what to do now.

And I feel like an idiot, holding a broken rope.