High Efficiency Incandescent Bulbs?

[FrogsInWinter]

How 'bout that? A breakthrough for incans. According to this article these energy efficient incans should be about on par with CFLs. Looks like incans can evolve and improve as well. IMHO I don't think incans could match the Cree & other next-gen LEDs for runtime/efficiency, but I'd love to be proven wrong on that. Can someone say "Next Generation 10X Dominator"? with maybe 30-40+ min. on high?

Oh yeah here's the article:


-----> http://www.flashlightnews.org/story643.shtml <-----


Can't wait for this to hit the mainstream.

 

[AtomSphere]

WOW! Looks intresting indeed!

Lighting technology is really improving recently! We are lucky to witness the evolution of lighting in its infant stages till the high efficientcy days....... Whats next after cree? 3X efficiency from luxeon days? Maybe 30 years down when I am an old man, I might have a 500 lummie L2X from fenix!:laughing:

*At the mean time, AtomSphere imagines running his M4 Variant at 2 hours instead of 1 hour

 

[2xTrinity]

I don't know how they're planning on the 60 lumen per watt bulb. 30 lumens per watt is nothing new though -- they can do with 12-volt halogen with infrared reflective coating. However, by the time they throw in the transformer, envelope coating and so on in an A-Type lamp, they're already pushing the cost of CFL bulbs up front I bet.

Also, in the time it takes to develop the much more efficient bulb (sounds like it's years away), I suspect CFLs and upcoming LED lighting sources will continue to improve in efficiency and color rendering, not to mention the fact that they're already way ahead in lifespan. However, I do think both this and perhaps improvements in LEDs will make it possible for there to be efficient alternatives for the applicatoins where fluorescent doesn't work well -- frequent cycling, spotlighting, and dimmable output.

 

[Schnotts]

None of my lights come close to the huge 240 lightforces strapped on to the front of my vehicle.

 

[matrixshaman]

Sounds to me like this is a response to California's and Australia's pending (?) law banning incandescents. GE doesn't want to loose the mega bulb sales they currently have. Hopefully they can get these to produce as I personally would hate to see lighting choices start to be limited in this way to CFL's (or LED). I actually plan on going to LED home lighting as it becomes affordable but just don't think it's good to make laws like this. I think the shift to more efficient lighting will happen by itself.

 

[2xTrinity]

Sounds to me like this is a response to California's and Australia's pending (?) law banning incandescents. GE doesn't want to loose the mega bulb sales they currently have. Hopefully they can get these to produce as I personally would hate to see lighting choices start to be limited in this way to CFL's (or LED). I actually plan on going to LED home lighting as it becomes affordable but just don't think it's good to make laws like this. I think the shift to more efficient lighting will happen by itself.

I bet GE knows more about the proposed laws than we currently know from the newspaper articles etc. I wouldn't be surprised if instead of being an explicit ban on incan, it's actally a requirement that all lamps sold exceed 25 lumens per watt or so (which would be a de facto ban on present-day incandescent). I do know though that lighting companies generally dont' like CFLs as the profit margin on this is slim to nil, and they don't sell nearly as many replacements as incandescents that frequently burn out.

I'm sure GE would absolutely love to be able to sell more efficient, more expensive incan bulb every 1000 hours of use, especially if those were the only bulbs avilalable up to the legal spec.

I agree though that the shift to more efficient lighting will happen to some degree by itself. I am against laws like this, but not compeltely against regulations that encourage more efficient energy use, such as by enforcing quality standards for things like electrical noise, and longevity of the CF altenratives to make them a better choice. It would even be better to tax, rather than ban, the bulbs (small tax, not a huge tax that amounts to a de facto ban) -- I'm actually surprised California didn't try this like the ballot propositions last election -- a proposed $3 a pack cigarrette tax, and a proposed tax on domestically produced oil that supposedly was going to reduce dependence on foreign oil (that logic right there tells a lot about the screwy mentality of lawmakers/politicians in this state) -- the legislators here love to pass taxes on things and just use the money for the general fund (while claiming it's to be used to subsidized clean enrgy, or whatever).

 

[Paul_in_Maryland]

Lumens Factory lamps deliver about 24 to 29 bulb-lumens per watt. I'm pretty happy with that.

 

[Nereus]

Here is a thread that is closely related to the same topic: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=111481&page=1&pp=30

-N

 

[Outdoors Fanatic]

Lumens Factory lamps deliver about 24 to 29 bulb-lumens per watt. I'm pretty happy with that.

Me too! I couldn't be happier.

 

[greg_in_canada]

Any idea how they plan to improve the efficiency? If it was just an IR coating on the glass couldn't they introduce them today?

Thanks - Greg

 

[tebore]

Sure it's ultra efficient but if their lifetime is terrible like WA bulbs overdriven then what's the good in that?

It's like taking a 100 watt bulb making the filament thinner, adding IR coating, upping the voltage to 240 and it's double in efficiency but has a life time of 1 hour what's that good for?

 

[KROMATICS]

Any idea how they plan to improve the efficiency? If it was just an IR coating on the glass couldn't they introduce them today?

I already have some Halogen reflector bulbs with the IR coating so it must be something else. Wish they were easier to find. In the meantime three of my fluorescent bulbs have burned out in the past year. Not happy about that.

 

[sysadmn]

Sounds to me like this is a response to California's and Australia's pending (?) law banning incandescents. GE doesn't want to loose the mega bulb sales they currently have. Hopefully they can get these to produce as I personally would hate to see lighting choices start to be limited to CFL's (or LED). I actually plan on going to LED home lighting as it becomes affordable but just don't think it's good to make laws like this. I think the shift to more efficient lighting will happen by itself.

It's partially in response to that. GE started investing years ago - remember Reveal, Edison, the halogens? Nobody makes much money on the plain vanilla stuff, but margins on new and innovative products are pretty good. There's also a "big bet" initiative around OLEDs to replace most lighting.

From what I've heard, the Australia ban targets incandescents; the Cali ban is just one senator's press release. The EU is studying banning "low efficiency lighting", which makes more sense.

Disclaimer: I work for them, but not in Lighting.

 

[AtomSphere]

is IR coating Infra Red coating? Sorry but i know nuts about cloating on bulbs

 

[winny]

They miss the entire point. You can get 60 lm/W if you want to, but only for a minute or so with an overdriven Osram 50 W IRC lamp.

"The target for these bulbs at initial production is to be nearly twice as efficient, at 30 lumens-per-Watt"

Now, if they want to make it last 1000 hours, it can easily be done with impedance matching, halogen and IRC.

Osrams Halostar IRC line does 31.24, 32.13, 32.68 lm/W at 1000 hours for their 35/50/65 W versions respectively already and Philips Masterline TC 60 W does 34.46 lm/W at 1000 hours, so GE is only a couple of years behind, as per usual.

 

[sysadmn]

Yes, you can do a lot with IR, Halogens, 12V, etc - if you're starting from scratch. There are billions of lighting sockets out there that can't tolerate extreme heat, don't run on 12V, and won't ever be replaced. That's why CFL in a standard form factor took off. Maybe you could build a high efficiency power convertor into the package, but you drive costs up, and still have to deal with the heat.

Given that the bulb's lifetime is printed on the package, I doubt you'll see this come to market until it hits the 750 - 1000 hours that a conventional bulb has. Even then, I'll bet there's another "hook" to differentiate it from CFL and LED (both of which are technically superior on several fronts). If that hook is not just marketing (Oh, look! eco-friendly light bulb!), I'd guess it will be color temperature, since that's hard to adjust with an LED, and has worked well with fluorescent tubes.

GE & competitors have always used innovation to differentiate themselves and increase profit margins. Look at the wide variety of light bulbs available at supermarkets, home warehouse stores, general retailers. They are there because demand is there, and they are profitable for the retailer.

 

[2xTrinity]

Yes, you can do a lot with IR, Halogens, 12V, etc - if you're starting from scratch. There are billions of lighting sockets out there that can't tolerate extreme heat, don't run on 12V, and won't ever be replaced. That's why CFL in a standard form factor took off. Maybe you could build a high efficiency power convertor into the package, but you drive costs up, and still have to deal with the heat.

This is what I guessed earlier -- that this was going to be a 12V halogen with inegral power supply, similar to a CFL, so that it coudl be used as a retrofit for standard bulbs. I know of many, many people who would be interested in such a thing -- including several who want to save on energy, that tend to run low level lighting most of the time with dimmer circuits where the dimmable CFLs they tried out just didn't work (don't dim low enough)

Given that the bulb's lifetime is printed on the package, I doubt you'll see this come to market until it hits the 750 - 1000 hours that a conventional bulb has. Even then, I'll bet there's another "hook" to differentiate it from CFL and LED (both of which are technically superior on several fronts). If that hook is not just marketing (Oh, look! eco-friendly light bulb!), I'd guess it will be color temperature, since that's hard to adjust with an LED, and has worked well with fluorescent tubes.

Even if they just throw the words "higher efficiency incandescent" on there, I they they will simply have a built in market for people who simply prefer incandescent due to perceived disadvantages in the alternatives that in some cases are true, but in most cases are based on experience with older, crappier CFLs or linear fluorescents. People are often blown away at how nice some of our new Electronic fluorescent fixtuers are with high CRI tubes compared to what they are used to.

 

[sysadmn]

Halogen with integral power supply does sound like one approach. If the lifetime is twice regular incandescent, you can invest a little more in each bulb. My understanding tho is that Halogen must be high temp to be efficient. There are a lot of applications that are limited to 60W or even 40W incandescents - maybe they'll push CFL for those? Hmmm, wonder if a double-wall Halogen would do the trick? Maybe beef up the base for better heat transfer?

Even with a product as mundane and mature as a light bulb, there's still a lot of engineering left to do!