Light bulb power saver

Duro-Test briefly marketed an incandescent lamp with an internal IR reflective coating which focussed otherwise lost heat back to the filament and resulted in substantially improved efficiency. Unfortunately problems with the compact and stiff filament required to keep it in the focus of the returned heat also lead to problems with breakage due to it being brittle. If you can keep the heat where you want it, you don't have to supply as much power to keep the filament hot.

What I meant in my comment though was not dramatic improvements in incandescent technology, but new lighting technologies will eventually come around. LED and OLED technology will continue to improve, induction lamps while technically fluorescent, are promising and see gradually increasing use. Phosphor mixes with excellent color rendering do exist, but are less efficient than the 80 CRI stuff that are used for most CFLs. Ceramic metal halide lamps are available with 90+ CRI and exceed 80 lumens per watt. Who knows what else might be on the horizon.

That sounds like an interesting adaptation of the concept used in the previously mentioned sulphur lamp.

The RFI can be shielded, the Philips QL induction lamp is RF excited and manages to emit very little leakage. I have a 165W example I experimented with and could detect nothing more than a few inches from the bulb. I forget what frequency they operate at, but IIRC it was several MHz.

This paper describes the lamp and technology in greater detail:

The operating frequency range is described, but the commercially realized product frequencies are not disclosed.

RFI from these devices may be significant; an FCC type acceptance would provide more data, but unfortunately most self-certified products now lack online reference data (more research needed for this product).

Anyone here that encounters HDTVs that include this device are encouraged to do a spectrum sweep if you have the gear.

Michael

General Electric is working on some new improved more efficient incandescent light bulbs.They might be on the market place some day.

Every time I go to the Wal Mart store, (food shopping, mostly, I going over there tomorrow morning) I buy two or three packs of G.E.Reveal incandescent light bulbs and I put them on a top shelf in one of my closets.I want to build up at least a five years supply of them.Is that light hoarding? I dont care if it is, I dont want to run out of my favorite kind of light bulbs. cuhulin

By all means. I think if incandescent lamps go completely out of production there will still be people willing to pay a premium to get them and you could be sitting on a gold mine in 30-50 years.

Will they go out of production? Other than government mandates, are there market forces that will drive them to extinction? (pun intended)

The do make great little inexpensive radiant heaters, indicating ballast resistors, home made squibs, dummy loads, and other off-label uses, so I wouldn't want to see them totally gone either.

I like the way they look, but there's the cost of operation and environment to consider too. And the innards of the burnt out fluorescent lamps are a source of parts.

Aluminum foil lamps outshine incandescent lights

GE Announces Advancement in Incandescent Technology; New High-Efficiency Lamps Targeted for Market by 2010

Re-inventing Edison: New Light Bulb Will Provide High-Quality Light and Deliver Efficiency Comparable to Compact Fluorescent Lamps

default wrote in news:1207746075 snipped-for-privacy@isp.n:

efficiency seems about the same as incandecent bulbs.

That's interesting, however it states it uses a gas plasma to excite a phosphor coating, so for all practical purposes it's a fluorescent lamp and will have the same light characteristics.

True enough the only interesting thing is the flat panel emitting surface and "require no ballast, reflector or heavy metal housing."

No ballast seems unlikely; what does limit current?

Both Phillips and G.E. have announced plans to introduce incandescent lamps by ~2010 that "will have efficiencies on a par with CFL's." They also claim a better quality of light - which has to mean that they are using waste IR to heat the emitter.

I figure they probably could have developed this years ago if they had the incentive. With CFL's costing ~$1-$5 each, and government mandates they now have the incentive. A bulb will be cheaper to make unless something else comes along to change things. Perhaps they intend to try to force a mandate that CFL's be outlawed due to the mercury they contain.

Politics, marketing hype, and emotion - hard to design around those. We see how well the "Hydrogen Economy" (most plentiful fuel in the universe) is taking off . . . or the alcohol subsidies which have the effect of raising food prices and may never break even, if corn is the only viable feedstock in the US.

It is basically a fluorescent lamp so they should be able to get at least that efficiency out of it. Hard to predict what the real benefit, if any, will be.

Media and marketing hype are driving the prediction - and they are sucking down taxpayer money to play with it, so even if it is totally impractical, you won't see them admit it.