Broken CCFL = sickly sweet smell?

[watercooled]

I've just been sitting here and heard a pop so went to investigate what it was and the light in the hall was off with the switch still on and there's a strange sickly-sweet smell, that isn't what mercury vapour smells like is it? Or is it just the smell of the ballast burning out?

[Whiternoise]

There's not enough mercury in a CCFL to make a smell (i don't even know what it smells like tbh), 4mg last i checked and more recent ones should contain even less.

It's probably just something plastic gone poof

[MadduckUK]

check nobody is baking

[matty-hodgson]

check nobody is baking

Don't just say "What the hell is that sickly smell?" though .

[MadduckUK]

no, focus more on it smelling really, really sweet.

[jim]

I've just been sitting here and heard a pop so went to investigate what it was and the light in the hall was off with the switch still on and there's a strange sickly-sweet smell, that isn't what mercury vapour smells like is it? Or is it just the smell of the ballast burning out?

Nice knowing you mate, my regards to you and you family.

[peterb]

I'm surprised it is a CCFL (cold cathode Fluorescent light) rather than a CFL (compact fluorescent light) as the former are relatively uncommon.

However, regardless of the technology, the (minute) amount of mercury is contained within the glass envelope of the light source, so provided that is intact, there will be no exposure to mercury vapour.

Most likely is that a component in the electronic ballast has failed (my money would be on an electrlytic capacitor) and it is the electrolyte vapour that you can smell.

[Lee H]

Either it's what Peterb said or you have a ghost that walks around wearing Issey Miyake

[matty-hodgson]

My Graphics card gave off quite a nice smell when that failed. Sorta smelled like a nice curry or something like that. Could be related between the 2?

[watercooled]

Yeah it was a CFL I meant to say - I'll blame it on midnight posting!
And yeah it was a sort of curry-like smell now you come to mention it, but I've never sniffed mercury vapour before so I wasn't sure what it smelled like. I checked the bulb this morning and there's a big brown scorch mark on the plastic where the glass envelope enters. Even if it had broken like you say I doubt there's enough in there to cause any harm but I know you're meant to leave the room for a while if a fluorescent tube breaks, breathing in mercury can't be good for you!

[MadduckUK]

My Graphics card gave off quite a nice smell when that failed. Sorta smelled like a nice curry or something like that. Could be related between the 2?

they can both be pretty hot, but i cant see any more than that. no cumin in a graphics card

[peterb]

Some plastics smell when they decompose - for example urea formaldehyde (light sockets) smells fishy when it overheats. So it may just be the smell of decomposing plastic that you detected.

However, whatever it is, ventilate the area (probably a bit late now ) and chuck the lamp away (preferably at a re-cycling centre).

[watercooled]

Yeah I tried to inhale as little as possible and I double-bagged and binned it. Oh and BTW where can you recycle them? You can't put them in the bin for the kerbside recycling collection so should a local tip take them?

[peterb]

Yes, they should be able to dispose of them. (Probably best not to enquire how - I'm not sure that some of these recycling centres are as 'green' as they claim to be)

[watercooled]

I know you are supposed to be able to send white goods etc back to where you bought them for recycling but it wouldn't surprise me if they just binned them...

[jim]

If you're talking about WEEE they tend to go back to the main warehouse, where they should go on to be taken care of properly. Obviously a firm might decide to chuck them straight in the bin, but I imagine it would be fairly difficult to cover that up if somebody came around asking for the paperwork relating to the safe disposal of WEEE from the main warehouse for an entire company's returns.