The $10 Million Light Bulb

[Al Combs]

Please forgive the title. I thought it was catchy enough to commit a little plagiarism. I was doing a Google search to find out what the term BBL used in the correlated color temperature charts meant. I accidentally stumble across a very interesting article. Apparently the DOE has sponsored a competition to develop a replacement for the common 60 watt light bulb. Well it was news to me anyway. And here I thought that SSC and Cree were just competing with each other for the market share of us flash light geeks.

Apart from the $10M prize, think of all the money one of these companies will net from selling government approved light bulbs. Some of the requirements of this $10M bulb will be >900 lumen output, use <10 watts and have an efficiency > 90lm/watt. Does any of this sound familiar? Another interesting point is the general requirement for both of these new bulbs will be a CRI of >90. Here is the complete Bright Tomorrow Lighting Competition (L-Prize).

I'm thinking the future of LED's will be very bright (pardon the pun).

 

[shomie911]

Now that LEDs are being assimilated into the mass market, with an emphasis on high lumens and high efficiency it's only a short time before we get massive jumps in both sectors.

 

[orcinus]

The problem here would be that >90 CRI.

High CRI = more warms in the spectrum = more phosphor = less efficiency.

 

[Jarl]

Hence why 90 lumens/watt at 90 CRI is an awesome target

 

[shomie911]

Hence why 90 lumens/watt at 90 CRI is an awesome target

Exactly, even if it is less efficient now, the technology will catch up and it will still put out high CRI with higher efficiency than todays emitters.

I'm looking forward to the advances that await us in the years ahead, heck just look at LEDs a few years ago compared to now.

 

[Nubo]

oops, nvrmind

 

[R33E8]

Well it is possible to make the winning bulb today.. Too bad it's patented..

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/4/11/32

 

[Al Combs]

Well it is possible to make the winning bulb today.. Too bad it's patented..

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/4/11/32

Too bad it's not >900 lumens. The whole point of being patented is that you can sell it. So that's not really the issue. They are very close on everything except CRI>90. Well if anyone actually read the DOE sponsored competition specs, there are other hurdles like backwards compatibility with existing dimmer circuitry.

 

[Chrontius]

Patented isn't bad. Patented means it's going to come to market as it's worth a mint in the modern market. Either that or someone with a vested interest in America burning megatons of oil a day is sitting on it... methinks it'll be coming out soon.

Edit: Holy crap, Cree bought them.

 

[matrixshaman]

Patented isn't bad. Patented means it's going to come to market as it's worth a mint in the modern market. Either that or someone with a vested interest in America burning megatons of oil a day is sitting on it... methinks it'll be coming out soon.

Edit: Holy crap, Cree bought them.

:laughing: Cool - I'm not up to speed on that - any other details concerning Cree buying this? Sounds great - I like the figures quoted : "would use less than 9% and 30% of the energy consumed by incandescent and fluorescent sources, respectively."

 

[eyeeatingfish]

What is CRI???

 

[LED_Thrift]

CRI = Color Rendering Index - how well a light source lets you see the "true" colors of different objects. IIRC, it compares a light source to sunlight regarding this ability.

One interesting thing about the "bulb" mentioned in the Ledsmagazine article is that it uses both Cree LEDs and Osram LEDs to achieve a balanced spectrum. That could be duplicated in a flashlight.

 

[R33E8]

Too bad it's not >900 lumens. The whole point of being patented is that you can sell it. So that's not really the issue. They are very close on everything except CRI>90. Well if anyone actually read the DOE sponsored competition specs, there are other hurdles like backwards compatibility with existing dimmer circuitry.

Well it shouldn't be too hard to just add a few more LEDs to reach that goal of 900lm's.. The only reason I don't think it's a good thing that it's patented is the products might be sold at a premium since there are no other companies that can compete(at least for now without licensing).. In my opinion, patents are only good for the company, not the consumer...

 

[Chrontius]

The alternative is trade secrets, black boxes potted in epoxy designed to resist analysis and intrusion.

Patented products are moddable.

 

[marschw]

CRI = Color Rendering Index - how well a light source lets you see the "true" colors of different objects. IIRC, it compares a light source to sunlight regarding this ability.

I think it actually compares it to an incandescent bulb, not sunlight.

 

[Mike Painter]

In my opinion, patents are only good for the company, not the consumer...

So I spend a million dollars to develop something for the consumer.

I want to sell it for $3.00 and get my money back by selling a million of them.

No patent means that somebody can take my design and sell it for $2.00 and make the same profit.

I don't get my money back and go out of business.
The next company that wants to develop something realizes that they can never get their money back, so they can the project.
Naturally no bank will loan on such projects.

The solid state industry would be about the first to fold as the first chip off a line can easily have 10 million dollars behind it.

 

[Jarl]

I think it actually compares it to an incandescent bulb, not sunlight.

Nope, sunlight. Incan's are very weak in blue, whereas sunlight has a pretty even spectrum.