How much more can incan efficiency improve?

[3rd_shift]

The reasons I ask are this;
Incans need no ballasts and are not as fussy about current, or forward voltage as leds.
They can have a really good colour rendition.
Are often cheaper to make and replace as needed.
Heat is not as much thier enemy as with many other forms of lighting.

 

[nuggett]

I'd like to know too. I guess all that can be changed is gas mix and filiment comp. What would be ideal filiment characteristic? Gas? Temp?

 

[scott.cr]

A Philips 23177-9 pushes out over 40 lumens/watt when driven at spec. Overdriven, that can be 50+ lumens per watt, but then life expectancy ends up in the 14 hour range. (It's a $5 lamp, so to some this may be a non-issue.) Short lifespan aside, this is deep into LED territory.
Philips 23177-9

 

[cfromc]

Aren't the new LED's approaching 100lumens/watt?

 

[KentuckyMike]

Barring some breakthrough in filament/gas technology, I would say the future of incan efficiency is regulation. This will keep roughly the same lumen/watt range we have (probably even slightly lower), but we'll enjoy steady output. With companies like SF going to LED drop-ins for their 6/9P and G2/3 lines, I'm willing to bet they won't be the ones to develop the technology. After the A2, they seemed the likely innovators in this arena, but maybe not anymore. With the sweeping stampede to LEDs (and for good reason), I'm not sure many companies will want to invest R&D dollars in incan when the money is in LEDs right now. Maybe one of our CPF masters will cook something up. If it sells well, one of the larger manufacturers may take notice.

I love my incans, but I tend to change batteries when my eyes notice the dimming (probably 60-75%), so a regulated 6P/G2 type of light would be great for my task-specific lights (i.e. my G3 used for backyard spotting). Many LEDs give me a headache for close up work, so I use incans as my around the house utility lights, and regulation would be a lifesaver.

 

[js]

Do a search on "IRC". It's an infra-red reflective coating used on the glass envelope to reflect heat back into the filament, thus insulating the lamp, thus reducing the electrical power input to maintain the same temperature at the filament, all while not affecting the light output at all. The IRC lamps can achieve 60 LPW and higher, if I remember correctly.

Also, if a filament material can be found that will withstand 6000 K, incans could theoretically acheive 130 lumens per watt. Then add the 25 to 35 percent savings of an IRC and you could be up into 170 lumens per watt.

Of course, you'd have major heat issues and materials challenges and all that. And you'd also have a LOT of ultraviolet radiation to mask out. And so far, there are absolutely no leads on a material that could stay solid at that temperature, and conduct electricity and be a good black body radiator.

LED's are almost certainly the future of lighting. Although, I did hear something about a photonic matrix that was sort of like a filament with special quantum/solid-state properties and all that, but you couldn't really consider that possibility an incandescent.

Hope that helped.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Love the Osram IRC bulbs.

This is the best place I have found to get them. If you get 10 or less bulbs, the shipping from Slovenia is $12.59, whereas 11 bulbs shipping jumps to $36.26

 

[greg_in_canada]

I thought of the IRC bulbs too. I wonder if there are additional benefits that could come from having IRC bulbs with a double envelope. For example the inner glass/quartz envelop could be very small allowing for expensive fill gases to be used and the envelope to reach proper temperatures for the halogen cycle to work. The outer envelope may allow a second IR reflective coating to be added (tuned to a different wavelength) that may improve efficiency.

I guess it depends how close the Osram IRC bulbs are to perfect in reflecting all the invisible energy back to the filiament.

Greg

 

[jimjones3630]

There are upsides and downsides seems to me to any light.

Interesting discussed this very topic with someone yesterday.
IRC 64429 approaches 148 lumen/w but only if can keep over 18vbulb.

battery advancement-emoli, A123- has made possible flater discharge rates with long run steady lumen out and no need for regulation. 6xA123 has nominal voltage 19.8v and do sag some on start up. 6 A123 are one long pak but with 6449 2.71A draw would be almost one hour runtime.

to get that long of run time with regulation light that batt. pak would be large, don't know exactly, but maybe even larger.

 

[FILIPPO]

Re: 管道疏通18

<< Spam quote deleted by moderator >>

ok...got it!:duh2:

 

[jtr1962]

Honestly, barring any major breakthroughs in filament material I think IRC is incandescent's last gasp. At this point almost all R&D is going into solid state lighting as it isn't hampered by the same limits as incandescent. Even assuming you can make incandescent much more efficient the lamps themselves are still fragile and short-lived. In fact, there are so many other real drawbacks to incandescent compared to solid state that there probably isn't any point spending R&D dollars on them. Even discharge lamps, which overcome many of the drawbacks of incandescent, seem poised for eventual replacement by solid state. Maybe I'm wrong, but I seriously doubt much R&D money is going into discharge lamps, either. At some point every technology ends up being displaced by something which is clearly better. For what it's worth, incandescent had a pretty good run of well over a century. That's nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[yellow]

Incans need no ballasts and are not as fussy about current, or forward voltage as leds.

ever had the wires insta?
on powerful hotwires some kind of start-up protection greatly affects lifetime.

PS. I am still not so sure on IRCs. I had 2 of them for modding around. One of them is bow mounted into such an outdoor lighting "bar" at my parents. This one houses 5 pc. 12V/20W Halogen reflectored bulbs and I doubt anyone can say which one is this much "better" IRC.
Even I have to look at the strangely formed bulb itself sometimes to be sure ...

 

[2xTrinity]

Also, if a filament material can be found that will withstand 6000 K, incans could theoretically acheive 130 lumens per watt. Then add the 25 to 35 percent savings of an IRC and you could be up into 170 lumens per watt.

There won't be found a material that can withstand 6000k. I believe there was talk of making a "Filament" of sorts that gave off an apparent color temp higher than its actual temp, but that's because it was no longer really blackbody emission/incandescence. It would then be a device manipulating quantum effects, similar to an LED

Carbon has the highest melting point. Tungsten is lower, but has other attributes making it better suited as a filament material, so that isn't going to change.

While the concept of IRC theoeretically makes it possible for large efficiences, in practice the difference ends up being small because the coatings only capture a small portino of the wasted radited IR, and of that, not all is completely re-absorbed by the filment. There will still be a singnificant portion of energy at wavelength so low that is simply heats up the envelope itself, and will be impossible to recapture. I don't expect there to be a lot of money put into improving these coatings either, as by the time some new improved next gen IRC coating comes around, LEDs will probably already be improved in every area where incan currently holds an advantage -- IE color rendition, and power density.

 

[Chrontius]

There are upsides and downsides seems to me to any light.

Interesting discussed this very topic with someone yesterday.
IRC 64429 approaches 148 lumen/w but only if can keep over 18vbulb.

battery advancement-emoli, A123- has made possible flater discharge rates with long run steady lumen out and no need for regulation. 6xA123 has nominal voltage 19.8v and do sag some on start up. 6 A123 are one long pak but with 6449 2.71A draw would be almost one hour runtime.

to get that long of run time with regulation light that batt. pak would be large, don't know exactly, but maybe even larger.

This sounds like a job for the AW Hotdriver. Can 6 A123 cells be crammed into a Mag body?

 

[Patriot]

I thought of the IRC bulbs too. I wonder if there are additional benefits that could come from having IRC bulbs with a double envelope. For example the inner glass/quartz envelop could be very small allowing for expensive fill gases to be used and the envelope to reach proper temperatures for the halogen cycle to work. The outer envelope may allow a second IR reflective coating to be added (tuned to a different wavelength) that may improve efficiency.

Greg

I was also wondering about multiple envelops. I realize that maintaining envelope temperature is important and takes a lot of energy to maintain. I wasn't sure is sandwiched glass layers would help with this or how much it would do.

Someone else mentioned regulation and I'm surprised that is hasn't been more of an issure with modders especially. Surefire only produced one regulated incan during more than a decade of perfecting them. It's too bad that the M3 or M6 regulation never came into being.

I think digital regulation would be a huge step in prolonging the life of incan technology.