Article: Incan tech to meet 2012 efficiency standards

[Blindasabat]

Article about incan advances to make home bulbs meet the 2012 US energy law efficiency standards:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/business/energy-environment/06bulbs.html?_r=1&hp

One is similar to Philips Halogena, but improves efficiency another 20% (from 30% now to 50%) with an improved IR reflective coating. Current Halogena does not meet the 2012 standards, but they say the new 50% more efficient improvement does.

Other inventors are mentioned, as is the recently discussed nanopulse laser technology claiming 100% efficiency improvement.

And an Iridium coating by a professor at Rensselear that recycles heat. The professor says up to seven times as efficient.

I searched for "Deposition" & "Halogena" and found no mention of this article or advancements over current Halogena.

 

[lctorana]

Normally, only a small portion of the energy used by an incandescent bulb is converted into light, while the rest is emitted as heat.

Yes. That we all know.
.

...special reflective coatings to gas-filled capsules that surround the bulb's filament. The coatings act as a sort of heat mirror that bounces heat back to the filament, where it is transformed to light.

That's the novel bit, right there. Evidently, less radiant heat is emitted from the bulb, being reflected back in. And some of the filament heating comes from reflected energy, requiring less electric power for the same light output. This must make parts of the bulb run very hot indeed.

Two thoughts:

1) There would be two tricks in development. Firstly, the size and shape of the capsule would take careful design for optimium reflection and distance from the filament, and secondly, the coating would ideally transmit 100% of visible spectrum and reflect back in 100% of what is not.

Or is it only IR that needs reflecting?

2) Since a certain proportion of filament heating comes from energy external to the filament, the light output will rise reverse-exponentially, like voltage does on a capacitor charging through a resistor. This may be slow enough to be discernable.

Anyway, a development that warms the heart.

 

[Kestrel]

This must make parts of the bulb run very hot indeed.
[...]
Anyway, a development that warms the heart.

lol

 

[Outdoors Fanatic]

That's awesome! Let's hope they'll bring this new tech to the flashlight market as well...

 

[Blindasabat]

Filament temp should be the same as the higher wattage bulbs it is matching. i.e. a 50W bulb with new tech will be the same as a regular 100W filament temp. It could even use the same filament as the 100W - it just takes less input current to reach that temperature due to the IR 'trapping.'

...Evidently, less radiant heat is emitted from the bulb, being reflected back in. And some of the filament heating comes from reflected energy, requiring less electric power for the same light output. This must make parts of the bulb run very hot indeed.

 

[LuxLuthor]

This is the technology that Osram uses in their IRC bulbs. Check them in my sig destructive testing thread.

 

[jtr1962]

While interesting I remain skeptical. First off, even the article admits the new lamps will cost more than CFLs, never mind the 25-cent plain old "regular" incandescents the general public has been used to buying. Because much of the general public buys solely on initial purchase price, guess what they'll be buying now? Kind of ironic in a way. Second, making things even worse is that there is no mention of the lifetime of the new lamps. Will it be long enough to justify the higher price, perhaps similar to that of CFLs or even longer? Or will it be no longer than today's incandescents? If the latter, then the economics get even worse. Third, the potential to be twice as efficient as today's incandescents implies around 30 to 40 lumens per watt. This is hardly revolutionary or groundbreaking. T12 fluorescents on magnetic ballasts were doing this in the 1940s. It may indeed meet the 2012 efficiency guidelines but certainly not those coming along later (I think it's 100 lm/W by 2020 IIRC). So at best this could be a product sold for a few years, if that.

The idea of laser pitting sounds intriguing, but how long will that last in service even if it could result in great efficiency gains? Like I said, I remain skeptical. So many other light sources are improving at breakneck rates. Who really knows where LED or OLED will be by 2012? I question the rationale behind trying to improve incandescent when the improved product ends up costing as much or more than technically superior alternatives, while having a fraction of the service life. But I do know why they're trying to do so. If you can get the public hooked on a steady diet of $3 bulbs which burn out in 750 hours you'll make more money than selling them $40 LED bulbs which last 100 times as long. Well, we'll see what happens. Now maybe if someone invents a material which can remain at 6500K for tens of thousands of hours I might be less skeptical. I personally think incandescents today are where CRTs were about 4 years ago. The manufacturers are doing whatever they can to amortize their investment in the machinery making the lamps. But sooner or later reality will set in where they realize their product just can't compete on a mass market. They may continue to produce lamps for niche uses such as ovens, of course, but I'm not seeing much beyond that. It's just too little, too late. If these improvements had come about 20 years ago, before CFLs were mature or white LEDs even existed, then they would have had something.

 

[Blindasabat]

I think they will have limited future uses as well. They do state in the article that with higher cost than even CFL, these are likely only for certain applications where the customer needs or demands in incandescant for some reason.

My interest in posting it here is the potential for battery savings in flashlights. I doubt the 700% efficiency gains will ever happen due to the eventual emergance of fuller spectrum or incan-like LEDs with still far better efficiency - and therefore further drop-off of research in incan tech, but there are still those here on CPF that won't give up the incans. There is still no elecronics/driver to fail and the most frail part is replaceable - so some may still see incan flashlights as the most reliable light solution.

And maybe smaller 1AA/2AA incans could make a resurgance if the cost and efficiency output both improve. :shrug:

I am still betting on LEDs for my future lighting needs.
BTW, I suppose the IR trapping/internal reflecting will make it harder to set fire to newspaper...?

 

[LuxLuthor]

BTW, I suppose the IR trapping/internal reflecting will make it harder to set fire to newspaper...?

That's why those of us "in the know" have already bought a lifetime of our delicious, totally inefficient incan bulbs to enjoy for the rest of our lives, and passing them on to our relatives.

 

[Icebreak]

Laughed out loud enough to scare the neighbors, Lux.

Was eating late night fajitas in a casino restaurant named Agave a couple of nights ago. They had strings of focused MR16s overhead arranged so that each table had many angles of light shining down on the steamy, colorful plates of scrumptious Mexican fare.

The lighting was, in fact, delicious.

 

[lctorana]

I don't know why that's funny.

I've certainly stocked up on plain-Jane incan bulbs, especially pearl 25W bulbs (the most inefficient of the lot!), enough to last some years.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I can hear the stories now.

Grandpa: "Remember when lights were really beautiful and natural looking?"

Grandma: "Yeah, poopsiekins those were the nights of romance, love, and passion."

Grandson: "OMFG WTF?"
​

 

[Icebreak]

L.C. -

It was the stark truth that made me laugh, like, "I freaking heard that, dude! Ha Ha!" I've got a couple of cases I got for $0.21 a bulb. Along with some boxes of MR16s. I don't have any spare pearls. I guess the other part of the humor was a double whammy. Knowing that LuxLuther is usually going to swing for the fences, I'm thinking he measures his supply in cubic feet not quantity. Maybe a hundred or so cubic feet. The shock and awe of that visual cracks me up. Doling the unobtainable light sources out to his clan as a robed visionary may sound hyperbolic but again, is so close to the truth that the observer's visual holds humor.

 

[2xTrinity]

I'm not a huge fan of either of the alternatives on the post 2012 horizon. IRC halogens, or cheap low quality CFLs. I hope (but highly doubt) that contactors / building designers move away from the current paradigm of recessed can light fixtures and triac dimmer. I would love to see residential light fixtures that actually use fluorescent lamps separate from the ballasts (either bipin CFLs, or say linear T5 lamps), or later if costs drop, LED fixtures as a means to meet the new efficiency standards, rather than the horribly unreliable CFLs, running in sub-optimal fixtures designed for incan lamps ~80 years ago...'

That said, in certain applications -- such as spotlighting, where CFLs obviously do not work, and where most on-the-market LED technology is terrible, I'd be willing to pay more (comparable to CFL pricing) to get a more efficient IR-reflecting incan lamp.

If they could get the coating right, they could even use this technology to get higher color temp without efficiency loss -- that is, why stop at just reflecting back the IR. Reflect back a fraction of the visible red and orange onto the filament, and let the device radiate its power at a (apparently) higher color temperature. IMO that would totally beat simply absorbing those colors and dropping efficiency in order to increase color temperature as is done in the neodymium doped glass incan bulbs.

I'm not sure whether such a coating can be made cheaply, and able to survive very high tempatures, in the surface of a light bulb though.

 

[LuxLuthor]

"This day is called the feast of Incands:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Incand.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Incand:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his lights.
And say 'These bulbs I had on Incand's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Lux the Luthor, Icebreak and Ictorana,
KiwiMark and Sylathnie, Outdoors Fanatic and RichS,
Be in their flowing lights freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And warm incan lumens shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that shines his light with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And jockeys of LED's now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their torch's cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Incand's day"​

 

[saabluster]

"This day is called the feast of Incands:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Incand.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Incand:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his lights.
And say 'These bulbs I had on Incand's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Lux the Luthor, Icebreak and Ictorana,
KiwiMark and Sylathnie, Outdoors Fanatic and RichS,
Be in their flowing lights freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And warm incan lumens shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that shines his light with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And jockeys of LED's now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their torch's cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Incand's day"​

That was just beautiful Lux. I had to go throw away all my LEDs after that.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Such an auspicious occasion certainly requires its own thread. Profound humility goes without saying in altering the Master's Henry V

 

[Icebreak]

The skillful re-circuiting of modified components is inspiring.

Nice.

 

[jtr1962]

I've certainly stocked up on plain-Jane incan bulbs, especially pearl 25W bulbs (the most inefficient of the lot!), enough to last some years.

I'm LMAO here but for a different reason.

I don't want to burst your bubble or especially LuxLuthor's (who likely has pallets of incans just in case he lives another 10,000 years) but any of you guys notice how the utilities keep bumping up the line voltage? It was about 115 VAC when we moved here 31 years ago and now it's at least 125 VAC, often even over 130 VAC. Right now the utilities don't have much money to put in heavier lines. The only way they can cope with the increased demand is by increasing the voltage (and keeping the current the same). This works reasonably well for a lot of things nowadays. Many appliances have universal power supplies which can cope with 85 to 265 VAC. I guess you know where this is leading. In a decade or two when household voltage has been bumped to the ~150VAC region most things made will cope just fine-except your new old stock incans. Sure, they'll be brighter and whiter, at least for the much shorter time they live. I suppose you could use a dimmer, but at some point I suspect rowing a boat against the current is a game of diminishing returns. I learned my lesson ages ago regarding stocking up on things "just in case". Been there, done that. Turns out what I stocked up on was superceded by something so much better 9 times out of 10 that I just threw the old stuff away.

I actually have a supply of bulbs myself which my father got from work years ago (135W and 185W IIRC). Not a huge amount, perhaps a few dozen. I don't see that I'll ever actually use them for lighting (the last time we used a standard incan here was the last century-just a few small base ones in rarely used chandeliers now, and those are going as soon as good LED replacements exist). They might come in handy as a stress reliever. I know throwing burnt old bulbs against the side of the house is lots of fun. Might try it with the brand new ones. Or maybe microwave them. Like I said, I really have no other good use for them beyond entertainment. I somehow doubt they're going to be a hot item going for good money in the future. It's like CRT monitors. You probably couldn't give one away to the majority of people nowadays.

 

[saabluster]

It's like CRT monitors. You probably couldn't give one away to the majority of people nowadays.

The only problem I see with this analogy is CRTs don't really have anything superior to the alternatives. Incandescents do. Even the best high CRI LEDs do not come close to the richness in color as an incan. That said I have yet to see Cree's new fixed lighting with the blended LEDs. And then there are the future LEDs which will have full visible spectrum output. Hard to say when those will come along though.