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Outdoor fixture have a photo light sensor that turns it on at night, and off during the day.Question 1 - Can I use compact fluorescent bulbs?Question came up because fluorescent bulbs have a "starter." And on cloudy days, the sensor may flicker on and off. This is a problem.Question 2 - What kind of problems? Bulb blowing up, or electrical kind?Question 3 - Or have todays compact fluorescent bulbs improve so much that they can turn on and off on a dime with no problems, like how we used them indoors at home.TIA

It should not be a problem. The light sensor has a delay in it so the bulb should not go off and on too quickly or too often.

I have an outdoor on-at-dusk off-at-dawn lampost that I wanted to use compact flourescent bulbs with. However, if you use a standard photolight control made for incandescent bulbs (standard bulbs with a filament), you will have problems when using compact flourescent bulbs. The reason is that most photolight sensors vary the voltage depending on the light level. With an incandescent bulb, that is fine ... the bulb can take varying levels of voltage with a varying level of brightness.However, with a regular compact flourescent bulb, it is made to either turn on or off, not inbetween. The reason is the starter ... with low voltage output from the photolight sensor it will continually try to start but will not have enough voltage to start, thus heating up the compact flourescent bulb and eventually catching fire (please don't ask me how I know this! )There are two ways around this :1) Use a Photoelectric Light Control that actually contains a relay so that it only turns on or off without varying the voltage. I use Intermatic's Nite Eye Model NE200C. It works with both incandescent and compact flourescent bulbs. I have included a link below of the unit's instructions.2) There are now compact flourescent bulbs that work with dimmer switches, so those types of bulbs can be used on a standard photolight control. Be sure to get bulbs marked specifically for use with dimmer switches.Hope this helps!

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