A brutal electric murder..

Today early morning, my son was fiddling the remote of his radio controled, toy helicopter. The Chopper was switched off but the remote, powered with 8 x 1.5 AA batteries, produced nice sound effects. I noticed something fishy going with the CFL, lighting the room. It grasped (flickered) for a moment or two and then went, dead. The radio control helicopter remote killed the CFL in cold blood.
Now being a part of the investigating team, I was wondering if I could get some help with the plot of the murderer. (It can turn into a serial killer).
I hope what happened is something like, Mr. Bean mistuning, a toy boats remote and consequently, controls an electric wheelchair unwillingly.

Which part of the CFL could not bear with the rush ? Any way I can rectify it ?

Thanks
Zmint
(Trying to Help, keep the planet Earth clean, by re-using electronic components)

Are you sure it wasn't coincidence, that the bulb died, as a result of the remote? Could the bulb have been faulty, or ready to burnout already. Would assume you have other CFL bulbs in the house, were they effect as well. Did you try to repeat the events you observed? Could have, instead been caused by Global Warming, been kind of quiet lately (cold blip), but starting to heat up again.

HarveyH42 said:

Are you sure it wasn't coincidence, that the bulb died, as a result of the remote? Could the bulb have been faulty, or ready to burnout already.

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No doubt on that, The CFL was a very reliable and reputed brand, I have been using them for years. They don't die till the end of 3rd year, the way I use them.

HarveyH42 said:

Would assume you have other CFL bulbs in the house, were they effect as well.

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No, the other CFLs were not effected, because they we not 'ON' at the moment and the one working ones, were far behind the walls (Out of range I suppose)

HarveyH42 said:

Did you try to repeat the events you observed?

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Actually I remember, the one other day, in the same room, the same CFL showed the signs of flickering when I was testing the same remote. So the chances of coincidence are next to nil.

Any other ideas ?

Zmint
(Trying to understand the electronic world)

You should, in the interest of science, put another bulb in the firing line.

I would do it myself but even though I have 4 transmitters, sadly, no CFLs. Actually that should be happily because I hate the light from them. Anyway, I digress, do you know the type of transmitter? I suspect AM which I don't have but the FM ones may cause the same problem. I'm pretty sure my super dupper 2.4G spread spectrum one wouldn't cause any problems as she's so well behaved.

Mike.

If you have not thrown out the dead bulb yet, please perform an autopsy on it. The failed component(s) will give you further clues what went wrong.

I have a Blade CP, and haven't noticed anything strange with the lights. I've got 2 CFLs going most of the time in the living room, where I occasional mess around with copter.

So, it was only the dead bulb that ever flickered, and you haven't tested your hypothesis on a fresh bulb, or one in another room? I'd still wager on a faulty bulb, even top brands pass some crap every now and then. Besides the Helicopter, I've got a truck, and a Vex Explorer robot, and a couple of gadgets I sometimes work on, but will most likely never actually finish. Don't usually pay attention to the lights, so might miss it. My bulbs are a little over 2 years old, still going strong, and will probably last for ever, since I've been wanting to tear one apart since I bought them...

Anyway, the next step would be to try the transmitter on a similar bulb, to see if it will flicker. Would try both the same socket the dead bulb came out of, and one on a different circuit breaker, different fixture. If you get a flicker from both, you know it's got to be the transmitter. If it flickers only in the socket, which killed the last bulb, might be something else. Nothing flickers, dead bulb was just going bad...

Could have been the cold weather we just had, it killed my clothes dryer, heating element burned out ($35.67+SH). Be here next Tuesday, if the warming trend holds. Hate the laundromat, clip-joint...

There's no logical reason a toy RC transmitter could damage a CFL in any way that I can think of. They simply don't put out much more than a tiny shred of power. If you were very close to the CFL I could see some possibility of influencing of a faulty circuit, but not one under normal operation.

Inspector Gadget

I know just they guy you need to help you with this.

It's possible the CF had a weird fault that made it susceptible to RF. I've seen similar faults in equipment, often caused by a dry joint to a high gain transistor base (or its resistor) that might have a track acting as a little antenna.

Mr RB said:

It's possible the CF had a weird fault that made it susceptible to RF. I've seen similar faults in equipment, often caused by a dry joint to a high gain transistor base (or its resistor) that might have a track acting as a little antenna.

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That is the most likely scenario, that is the reason why an autopsy is a good idea.

I think it's probably a coincidence you were operating the remote controlled toy near the lamp when it failed . Just because it's highly unlikely that the two events happened simultaneously, it doesn't prove cause and effect.