Reading through the automotive forum here I'm seeing claims that halogen bulbs in autmotive stores have claimed outputs of 1600lumens at 55-watt and 2100 lumens at 65-watt.
I'm assuming you're referring to H7 here, and the rest of the time where you discuss the Phillips Xtreme Power without reference to bulb type.
Yes, 1600 lumens at 13.2V from a bulb that nominally runs 55-watts at 12V and is tested to a maximum of 68W at 13.2V.
Which isn't 32lm/W, it's 24 lm/W. Yeah, it's kinda confusing, but that's what happens when you regulate bulb types, and then manufacturers try to compete while conforming to those specs.
So, why can't I get a 2100 lumen / 65-watt lumen Halogen bulb at the local store?
Because the bulbs you get at the local store have 2000h or more lifetime, whereas the Phillips Xtreme Power gets something like 300 hours. Astonishingly, most people would rather pay a bit more in power to match the output with a higher wattage bulb than pay 7x as much because their bulbs keep burning out; as a result, nobody even tries to sell high-efficiency (=short-life) halogens.
But, actually, some bulbs come close, if you're willing to drop to the 50-100 hour range. Look around, for example I found
FCR bulbs which make up to 36 lm/W -- for 50 hours. Apparently intended for dental applications, so you won't find
that in your local store.
I also maintain a ton of legacy DJ fixtures that run off 12-24volt bi-pins (some as high as 650watts), and none of them spec as high as 1600lumen / 55watt or 2100lumen / 65-watt.
No, because general lighting bulbs, unlike regulated types for automotive lighting, are rated at what that bulb can do, not at some evil hybrid of what the bulb type is nominally specced at and what that particular model can do. The lifetimes needed for real 32 lm/W are too short for most practical applications.
Why can't we have this new Halogen technology in fixed lighting? I mean, 32lumens per watt is pretty darn good for Halogen.
Yes, it is, but it's not new technology, just bulbs driven hard for a short life. And if you overdrive a 64447 IRC (4000h 65W, really new technology) to ~14V for comparable bulb life, it handily exceeds not only the 24lm/W the headlights should be making, but also your figure of 32 lm/W. Sucks that there's no high-output IRCs to run in a stock 12V fixture, of course, but there's life for you.
No debate there. The million dollar question is how much voltage would be required to get the advertised lumen value and why won't anybody answer the question and stop making countless excuses for the Phillips marketing dept.
Because it's a question about automotive bulb specifications, and this isn't the automotive forum, so nobody knows. As two people have
tried to explain, automotive bulbs are tested for power and output at 13.2V under the ECE system, and it's likely (although not 100% clear to me, as DOT spec is at 12.8V, and you haven't even mentioned what bulb type you're testing) that the lumens ratings come from that 13.2V spec. But instead of listening to their best guess, and if you don't believe them digging into the ECE and/or DOT specifications yourself, you simply responded by blathering on in ignorance of automotive electrics and the specifications pertaining to them, with the disclaimer that it "may be playing semantics". And then come back with the claim that nobody will answer the question.
A 100watt bulb puts out a fairly standard lumen ammount which is also the claimed out-put of the Phillips. When measured head to head at 11.7 volts, the Phillips couldn't put out half the light. The question is, how much voltage would be required for the Phillips to match the Incan. I'm guessing it's a lot less than my Mazda.
:huh:
I'm also guessing adding .3 volts to the Phillips won't make it twice as bright.
Well, adding .3V wouldn't but since nobody tests automotive bulbs at 12V (and nobody runs them at that, either, unless your wiring is bad enough to drop 2V under load), that's pretty irrelevant. Going up from 11.7V to 13.2V is an increase of 13%, and should get about 50% increase. Given that this would account for half of your observed discrepancy, it certainly seem worth a try?
If I take two shots at manual settings, and one shot is brighter than the other, it's safe to assume that the brighter shot has more lumens. Or, maybe it's a secret algorithm built into my Canon to bias shots against light bulbs, right? That's what they'd say in the car forum here.
Actually, they wouldn't. They might say, as others in this thread have, and I'm about to, that for similar spectra (and yes, these should be similar enough) and radiation patterns (less clear, but probably close, and you said you were taking the conservative measurements using the bright portion of the 12V bulb's beam), a direct which-is-brighter comparison using a camera is valid; however, using a camera to determine the ratio of flux by the ratio of image brightness is not valid. The one way you could do a valid comparison is to vary exposures; if you use half the exposure time for the brighter one, and the image is still brighter, then that's a valid demonstration that it's more than twice the flux. Since you
did this, I really doubt you'd find any credible people claiming those results are wrong. (If you read what semiman wrote instead of knee-jerk reacting, I think you'll find that he said the same thing -- that gamma prevents ratio measurements, and that the spectra
you're using here are probably close enough for reasonable over/under results.)
Also, any variable you applied to the 12volt bulb I can apply to the 120volt bulb. Natually though only these discrepencies apply to the Phillips.
No, not really, because mains lighting isn't driven off an alternator at 144V and isn't known to be tested at either 132V or 128V depending on regulatory regime. So your fundamental lack of knowledge on the automotive side of things, which is what led you to the erroneous conclusion that these headlights claim 32lm/W in the first place, isn't really a factor with the 120V bulb (BTW, I'd somehow been operating on the assumption you were trying this vs. a 12V 100W halogen -- now you say 120V bulb. I guess I'm not seeing a clear statement of 12V now, so maybe I'm just confused...)
But since you mention it, some points do apply -- you measured the voltage you're feeding the automotive bulb, what about the other bulb? Line voltage is typically specced to +/- 10%, so if it's a 120V bulb running direct, or a 12V bulb running on a transformer, similar variation is possible; OTOH, if it's a 12V running from the same PSU as the automotive bulb was, it probably sagged even more under the higher load.
If it's overdriven, that (in conjunction with the known underdrive on the auto bulb) could explain the factor of 2 difference in brightness.
If it's similarly underdriven (which would be about 10.6V), then we know something
is as mismatched as it appears here, and you would have data to argue with those who disagree, instead of straw-man accusations.
Doesn't matter. I can't convince you guys that the Phillips was putting out less than 1/2 the lumens at 11.7 volts, so there's no base reference.
If you read posts a little more carefully, you might find that most of us
simply aren't disputing that it's less than half the output -- at 11.7V. We just realize that underdriving a high-output bulb horribly, comparing it to other bulbs, and concluding it's junk is ridiculous.
Even if I measured the current, excuses would be made that the device was broken or not polarized in the horizontal plane or something :wave: Actually, measuring resistance during running would accomplish the same thing.
Yes. Of course, I'm not aware of any way to measure the resistance without disrupting the bulb's operation other than measuring the voltage and current -- either there's you know some bit of metrology I've missed (in which case, please share!) or your suggestion is rather useless.
As for the rest, yes. Absolutely. Because we're all on Phillips's payroll or something, so we're just going to sit here concocting rubbish excuses until you sit down and shut up. (Except not really -- do you realize how childish it sounds to claim we and/or the automotive people would respond in all these bizarre ways?)
My tests confirmed the Phillips is no more efficient than any other 12volt halogen bulb, nor brighter, nor uses some magic technology.
Your tests confirmed that, when horribly underdriven vs. 13.2V spec, the Phillips is not more efficient than another bulb presumably driven at 12V spec. Which makes your tests a waste of time, because anyone could have told you to expect that. What you've "confirmed" is what everyone else knew -- there's no magic technologies involved, just good ol' driving the filament so hot it doesn't last long. If you do that to a long-life bulb, it's overdriving; if you build it into your bulb design, it's not. But the physics are the same, and it's
exactly the expected outcome.
Also, if you get an adjustable power supply, and crank the phillips bulb to 13.2V, then crank the other bulb to the same 13.2V, it'll still be twice as bright. As you've observed, no magic, just
all halogens being more efficient when driven harder. Again, no tests needed -- this was common knowledge.
The only "magic technology" that does exist is IRC; it's real, it works, and will improve efficiency at the same drive point. But that's not used in the Phillips Xtreme Power bulbs, and nobody said it was.
