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New GE Incandescent Lamp Technology

P

Paul M. Eldridge

There are certain venues where it's better to keep tungsten for colour
rendering and use the CFL's as fill lights in less visually critical
areas. The entertainment and food industries come to mind.

Hi Clive,

I agree. I was describing the lobby/public areas of Roy Thompson Hall
(Toronto) to my brother earlier this week. Light grey carpet, grey
concrete walls, an impressive amount of glass, polished steel
handrails and bright white ceilings. Nothing out of the ordinary, but
the recessed halogen lighting makes this place truly sparkle -- what
you would fully expect to be cold and austere is literally transformed
into something very warm, rich and rather elegant.

Cheers,
Paul
 
P

Paul M. Eldridge

I suspect they used the wrong color temperature and perhaps
increased the light level. Another case where bad design
has perhaps lead to making many people believe that CFLs
cannot replace incandescent lamps.

With the help of a qualified lighting designer they should
have been able to find CFLs which would have provided the
same atmosphere. (Perhaps customers also need to convince
the industry to make lower CCT CFLs to match low power
incandescent lamp applications.)

Hi Victor,

I'm pretty sure these new CFL lamps are 3,000 K, so colour temperature
is similar and with respect to light levels, I would guess they would
reasonably close in this regard as well. I know the new lamps are
23-watt/1,200 lumens and the previous halogens were probably in the
range of 90-watt to 120-watts (i.e., upwards of 1,500 lumens).

I think the real difference is that the new light is very soft and
diffuse (you might say bland), whereas the original halogens offered
lots of punch and sparkle, and the much higher contrast ratios created
considerable visual interest as people moved about.

Cheers,
Paul
 
A

Andrew Gabriel

I agree with your general point, but I would argue one difference.
The issue of lamps is all about providing incentive for efficiency,
full stop. There is an advantage to incandescents over CFLs in that
they don't contain mercury,

Burning fossel fuel to power them releases more mercury into
the air than an equivalent CFL contains.
 
P

Paul M. Eldridge

Burning fossel fuel to power them releases more mercury into
the air than an equivalent CFL contains.

Hi Andrew,

Very true. According to the EPA, when one factors in the source of
generation, the amount of mercury pollution produced by an
incandescent lamp is two and a half times that of a comparable CFL.
The actual ratio may be even higher today, given that service life has
been on the rise in recent years (now up to 15,000 hours in the case
of Philip's Marathon Universal) and with efforts to reduce mercury
dosing. Also, a growing number of jurisdictions now provide consumers
with the opportunity to recycle or otherwise properly dispose of CFLs,
so hopefully this will further minimize their impact on our
environment as well.

Cheers,
Paul
 
P

Paul M. Eldridge

Not on my watch. We use carbon offsetting and clean power in our
office and are working with at least 50% of our clients to go green
and only purchase renewable electricity. That said, even with "dirty"
electricity, the fact is that power stations are under pressure to
become cleaner, both new-build and in operation, so that path of
development is not a dead end. I have the same problem with electric
cars, for now....

Hi Thomas,

Thank you for championing this and congratulations on your tremendous
success. Well done!

I've vacationed at some very nice resorts in Cancún and Punta Cana and
in at least two cases, I had the impression some or all of their power
was generated onsite by way of diesel generators (I actually saw them
running with my own eyes). In any event, CFLs were used extensively
in each of these resorts, but 4,100 and 5,000 K seemed to dominate and
in this type of setting, it didn't seem out of place.

With respect to the U.S., I understand one-half of all electricity is
coal-fired and much of this would be considered as "dirty". In 2005,
U.S. power generation resulted in the release of over 2,5 billion
metric tonnes of CO2, over 10 million metric tonnes of SO2 and almost
4 million metric tonnes of NOx. In 1999, mercury emissions stood at
48 metric tonnes. While pollution abatement certainly makes good
sense and there has been some movement recently in that direction, one
sure-fire way to lessen these emissions is demand reduction.

Also worth noting that each new kW of demand represents, on average, a
capital investment of $2,500.00 in new plant and related T&D and that
these capital costs (and increased O&M costs) are ultimately passed on
to consumers in the form of higher rates. Thus, replacing even a
small percentage of the hundreds of millions of incandescent lamps now
in service could potentially save the utility industry (and, in turn,
consumers) several hundreds of billions of dollars.

Cheers,
Paul
 
V

Victor Roberts

Paul M. Eldridge wrote:
A local movie complex recently replaced
the halogen PAR38 lamps in its main lobby and hallways with CFL PARs.
What was once a
warm, friendly and visually inviting place took on a dreary, almost
lifeless quality, and [...] these are good quality lamps
with a CRI of 86. [...] a halogen lamp at the same
efficiency as a CFL would provide us with all the warmth and charm of
incandescent lighting without any of the guilt and shame.
I suspect they used the wrong color temperature and perhaps
increased the light level. Another case where bad design
has perhaps lead to making many people believe that CFLs
cannot replace incandescent lamps.

Arrgh.

VR, despite the appearance I may be creating by responding with
contrary opinion to a fair number of your posts lately, I don't have
it in for you. Nevertheless, this what you've said sounds an awful lot
like the reaction I frequently get upon announcing I don't care for
sushi. Someone's *always* gotta take on a patronising tone and say
"It's not _all_ raw fish; you probably just don't like _sashimi_".
Typically they ramble on at length about quality and freshness of
ingredients, variety of non-fish-containing types of sushi, widespread
existence of poor-quality sushi on the local market and so forth
before I interrupt them to explain that I dislike the taste and
texture of the nori (seaweed) wrappers and the granular rice used in
most all sushi. Gee...turns out I do know the difference between sushi
and sashimi, do know the difference between good and poor quality, and
really, actually, genuinely dislike sushi *per se*.

With the help of a qualified lighting designer they should
have been able to find CFLs which would have provided the
same atmosphere. (Perhaps customers also need to convince
the industry to make lower CCT CFLs to match low power
incandescent lamp applications.)

It is quite likely there are many CFLs with which I have no direct
experience, but I have observed a great many different ones, and the
ones I find disagreeable outnumber those I find *tolerable* by at
least one order of magnitude, probably two. The CFLs I've encountered
that I genuinely like, I can count on one hand and still have enough
fingers left to eat a sandwich without making a mess. One is a Thorn
(now G-E) Double-D, which is one heck of a good product. The other is
a Type-A replacement glass-encased unit by Panasonic. Maddeningly slow
startup, but almost a dead ringer for a standard Type-A soft white
once it's up to temp. I suppose I could include a couple of higher-CCT
units I find agreeable for certain applications (but then I'd have to
eat my sandwich with the other hand!). I find most of the lower-CCT
CFLs emit a pinkish-yellow light I find severely annoying. The
manufacturers are just going to have to do much better than they
presently are.

When I was at the LRC we once ran a focus group using
"normal" people who were not associated with lighting
technology. We set up four table lamps (portable fixtures
to be correct) in a room. Three had CFLs of different color
temperature and one had an incandescent lamp that produced
just about the same light output. The participants had no
idea what types of lamps were in the portable fixtures.

The lamp chosen by the majority of the people was not the
incandescent. If I remember correctly, it was the 3000K
CFL.

I wonder if you could really detect which fixture had a CFL
if you didn't know from the start and didn't see it start
up. Have you ever participated in a blind lamp test?

--
Vic Roberts
http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com
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replace xxx with vdr in the Reply to: address
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S

Simon Waldman

Thomas said:
On Mar 3, 2:37 pm, [email protected] (Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

Not on my watch. We use carbon offsetting and clean power in our
office and are working with at least 50% of our clients to go green
and only purchase renewable electricity.

Carbon offsetting is irrelevant to mercury omissions. Of course, if the
offsetting is in the form of funding for clean energy generation schemes
then it may incidentally reduce future mercury release, but this
certainly isn't, er, certain. Only using renewable electricity is
another matter, and something that I must applaud... although everybody
doing this isn't really a large-scale solution to the planet's problems.

I was also told once that a significant amount of mercury is released in
the *production* of a tungsten lamp. However I don't have any source to
back this up, and personally I find it doubtful, as for economic reasons
the producers would want to recycle as much of the expensive materials
used in production as possible.
That said, even with "dirty"
electricity, the fact is that power stations are under pressure to
become cleaner, both new-build and in operation, so that path of
development is not a dead end. I have the same problem with electric
cars, for now.

What problem? Sorry if I'm not reading clearly...
I'm out in the Caribbean this weekend working with a client to
implement cleaner practices and to maintain the standards of
lighting. The truth is that they can't have both without tradeoffs,
but we're really pushing the performance limits. Their engineers have
done a superb job over the past two years to switch over nearly twenty
properties to 2700K integrated CFLs. They have a way to go on dealing
with certain circumstances where CFLs just don't cut it. Of
particular note are applications which need strong accenting, such as
where a PAR38 is typically used for landscape lighting. The PAR38
CFLs are miserable. We're working through each of these cases one by
one (a big call in an organization with over 100,000 lamps in
operation).

I'm greatly impressed. Not just at your work, but at the fact that what
is presumably an operator in the tourism industry is prepared to put
energy efficiency ahead of (presumably some) impact in aesthetics.
 
J

James Hooker

Victor,

There is a third option - higher temperature emitters. There is a nice
review of this in Milan Vukcevich's book "The Science of Incandescence". He
talks about GE's research on ceramic filament materials, especially the
carbides of tantalum and hafnium. Efficacy figures of 40 lm/W for a long
life incandescent lamp are quoted. But he ends up stating such problems as
the brittleness of the filaments, and that the scale of industrial research
required to develop and manufacture such a lamp outweighed the commercial
benefits, so the project lost the interest of the GE managers. However that
work was all 15-20 years ago.

Last month I received a proposal from the authorities in California
outlining their proposals to ban certain types of incandescent lamps by
2012, accounting for the bulk of the incandescent business. Perhaps with
such prospects looming, it now becomes more interesting for GE to think
about finishing off the old projects on ceramic filament technology. After
all, the press release does specifically talk about research on new
materials. Something as simple as an HIR lamp with a step-down transformer
in the base has already been commercialised in Europe by Philips (and only
achieves at best around 20-25 lm/W).

James.
 
V

Victor Roberts

Victor,

There is a third option - higher temperature emitters.

Good point. I had neglected this option.


--
Vic Roberts
http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com
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V

Victor Roberts

On 4 Mar 2007 11:07:11 -0800, "Thomas Paterson"

[snip]
I'd assume that mercury would be re-extracted and reused from whatever
waste products it's in.

Mercury is very inexpensive and the amount in each CFL is
very small. The value of the mercury in each CFL is far less
than $0.01 and it has to be cleaned by triple distillation
before it can be reused in lamps. If the mercury is
recovered at all it is probably just sequestered to prevent
contamination of ground water.

[snip]

--
Vic Roberts
http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com
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C

Clive Mitchell

Victor Roberts said:
Mercury is very inexpensive and the amount in each CFL is very small.
The value of the mercury in each CFL is far less than $0.01 and it has
to be cleaned by triple distillation before it can be reused in lamps.
If the mercury is recovered at all it is probably just sequestered to
prevent contamination of ground water.

It can be used in fountains...

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/bar/miro/Almaden1.html
 
V

Victor Roberts


Is this fountain and pool open? It's not the liquid
mercury that is dangerous, its mercury vapor.

--
Vic Roberts
http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com
To reply via e-mail:
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site without written permission.
 
D

Don Klipstein

Daniel J. Stern said:
On Mar 3, 7:13 pm, Victor Roberts wrote: [snip]
I wonder if you could really detect which fixture had a CFL
if you didn't know from the start and didn't see it start
up. Have you ever participated in a blind lamp test?

I frequently play this game when encountering lighting devices in
which upon first glance the light source cannot be seen directly: Can
I correctly identify the type of source, CFL vs. incandescent? I make
up my mind what I think it is, then I go check. I don't keep formal
track of my results, but it seems like I am right about 75 to 80
percent of the time.

Based on the above description, I can immediately infer that either you don't
wear glasses of any sort or if you do, you haven't learned how to use them to
your benefit :)

Those of us who have been blessed with myopia, have two additional tools at
our disposal:

1) Eyeglasses, which show a mini copy of the spectrum of any source when one
looks around the edge of the lens,
2) Unfocused vision, which allows the eye to make a pretty safe guess on the
color temperature of the source.

Using my glasses I can almost immediately tell whether the source is a CFL vs
incandescent. The gap between the Europeum red fluorescence and the Terbium
green bands around the green Mercury line in CFL's is usually resolvable with
glasses of around 4.0-4.5 diopters, so it actually manifests as a mini gap
consisting of two identical narrow copies of the source, one red and one
green. That's an immediate giveaway for CFL's.

I am hyperopic, with my left eye more so requiring +3.5 diopters. I
like glasses with larger size lenses, and I can easily see this effect
through the upper left and lower left corners of my left lens. Sometimes
I can see this effect through the outer corners of my right lens at +2.75
diopters. Lens material is polycarbonate.

There are some CFLs with color that is "adequately incandescent" (not
excessively greenish nor the more-likely excessively pinkish-purplish and
with suitable CCT), and in fixtures that hide the lamp type well enough I
can only tell by this spectral analysis trickthrough my glasses.

As for what CFLs have a higher rate of "matching incandescent color" in
my experience, I would say:

1) I largely find more favorable non-Sylvania-3000K spirals of wattage
23 watts or less and not of any special whiter color. However, I find the
CCT generally a bit on the low side, and I prefer CCT into the 3,000's
when illumination level is "nice and adequate" and the overall color is
not significantly on the purplish side. (For 3500K or anything else
other than 3000K compact fluorescents, I do not find Sylvania worse than
most others.)

2) I have sensed some trend for electronic ballasts being better than
"magnetic" ballasts. I suspect that the current waveform crests with
magnetic ballasts have reduced efficiency of producing
phosphor-stimulating UV but not a similar efficiency reduction in
producing bluish mercury light, so I suspect that explains why I find some
trend of 2700K CFLs with magnetic ballasts to be slightly more
pinkish-purplish than 2700K CFLs with magnetic ballasts.
I do want to note exceptions to this trend, a little more significantly:

a) 2700K Osram/Sylvania F13DTT from the early 1990's I find more
incandescent-like.

b) GE FLB15 and FLG15 (early 1990's, probably obsolete now) I found more
incandescent-like.

c) 3000K Sylvania CFLs with electronic ballasts I found a bit on the
purplish side.

d) Electronic-ballasted 2700K CFLs of higher wattage (generally 24 watts
or more) or of especially compact bulb size for their wattage I find likely
to be at least a little slightly purplish, although no worse than most
magnetic-ballasted 2700K CFLs.

===============================================

One more thing: If there is a room where some lamps are more-greenish
and some are more-purplish and they all have the same CCT and apparent
brightness, it appears to me that the more-greenish ones appear "uglier"
unless known to be incandescent sharing the room with CFLs. I sense that
this has made erring slightly towards pinkish-purplish more tolerable than
erring towards greenish for "warm color" fluorescents.

Any comments on this one?

==================================

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])
 
D

Don Klipstein

...and some interesting modifications of the familiar old Tungsten
filament. For example, Dave Dayton did some very interesting research
some years ago, with positive results, on increasing the efficacy of
filament lamps by doping the filaments with welsbach mantle material.

Is there any data on such a lamp maintaining lumens and color for a
decent amount of time? How much was overall luminous efficacy increased?

If such data exists and is favorable, did the lamp run into problems for
being greenish?
Not that I would mind lamps with a "green cheese shade of lunar white"
(CCT mid or middish-upper 3000's and CIE y coordinate maybe .02 or even
maybe .025 or so higher than is on the blackbody locus for same CCT). But
I sure think my mother would, especially in a room with a mixture of such
lamps and more ordinary tungsten lamps.

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])
 
V

Victor Roberts

I frequently play this game when encountering lighting devices in
which upon first glance the light source cannot be seen directly: Can
I correctly identify the type of source, CFL vs. incandescent? I make
up my mind what I think it is, then I go check. I don't keep formal
track of my results, but it seems like I am right about 75 to 80
percent of the time. Now, I am particularly attuned to qualitative
aspects of light that many people seem not to notice or mind, so I am
probably going to wind up creating outliers in the dataset of any
blind lamp preference study in which I might participate (I have never
done so, BTW). Nevertheless, my apparently particularly keen
sensitivity to light quality implies there are others -- maybe plenty
of others -- with similarly-keen sensitivity.

I would like to read the writeup of the study you mention. Having seen
a huge range of light quality from different CFLs sold as "3000K", my
initial reaction based on what you've told me of the parameters of the
study is that different results could easily be obtained with
different "3000K" CFLs.

Regards,

DS

The test I mentioned was a very small part of a study
conducted for a client while I was at the LRC. I don't
believe the study was ever published. I don't have access
to the final report and could not publish it without the
clients permission even if I did. However, I don't think
revealing this one small piece of the large study reveals
any proprietary information.

I believe I can also tell you this about the lamps used,
since it may shed some light on your color quality issue. In
order to get the three different CCTs, we used pin-base CFLs
mounted in special sockets in table lamps with external high
frequency ballasts. These were commercial-grade lamps from
one of the "big three" lamp manufacturers.


--
Vic Roberts
http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com
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V

Victor Roberts

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 21:26:22 +0200, "Ioannis"

[snip]
We should find a server to place mugshots of all the members of s.e.l. A most
valuable resource.

I'm setting up a new web site for CFL Q&A. see
cflfacts.com. We can set up a subdomain off there for
photos of s.e.l members :)

--
Vic Roberts
http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com
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T

TKM

Don Klipstein said:
Daniel J. Stern said:
On Mar 3, 7:13 pm, Victor Roberts wrote: [snip]

I wonder if you could really detect which fixture had a CFL
if you didn't know from the start and didn't see it start
up. Have you ever participated in a blind lamp test?

I frequently play this game when encountering lighting devices in
which upon first glance the light source cannot be seen directly: Can
I correctly identify the type of source, CFL vs. incandescent? I make
up my mind what I think it is, then I go check. I don't keep formal
track of my results, but it seems like I am right about 75 to 80
percent of the time.

===============================================

One more thing: If there is a room where some lamps are more-greenish
and some are more-purplish and they all have the same CCT and apparent
brightness, it appears to me that the more-greenish ones appear "uglier"
unless known to be incandescent sharing the room with CFLs. I sense that
this has made erring slightly towards pinkish-purplish more tolerable than
erring towards greenish for "warm color" fluorescents.

Any comments on this one?

==================================

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

The greenish --- purplish effect, from what I understand, has to do with the
lamp chromaticity point being above or below the black body line (BBL). If
you plot the lamp chromaticity on the CIE x, y chromaticity diagram and then
draw the line that represents the chromaticity value in Kelvins, those lamps
of a given Kelvin value above the black body line will appear greenish;
those below the line will appear purplish. Those on the line are judged
most natural (whatever that means).

So, the lamps judged most acceptable are on, or close to, the BBL. Lamps
below the line have sometimes been called "cosmetic looking" since they make
complexion colors, for example, look better than say, under incandescent.
Few like the look of lamps above the BBL as few people seem to like green
light.

Some years ago, one fluorescent lamp manufacturer hoping to win a
competitive "lumen ratings race" moved their cool white lamp chromaticity
well above the BBL. Lumens did indeed go up; but it was easy to sell
against by setting up a side-by-side color comparison. No one in any group
of those that I saw make the comparison liked the look of the greenish lamp.

Terry McGowan
 
S

Simon Waldman

Thomas said:
The problem that they are inherently using dirty power currently. The
offset to the problem is that all parts of the problem may be
addressed, unlike more efficient petrol engines, which will always be
a a problem.

Ah, OK. As I understand it, electricity generation benefits greatly from
scale - power stations are a lot more efficient than small generators.
Whether this is offset again by losses in teh batteries, motors, etc., I
don't know. I imagine not, or the whole concept of electric and/or
hydrogen-fueled cars would be pointless.
 
P

Paul M. Eldridge

Just as an update to our previous conversation, Philips will be
introducing their Halogená® Energy Advantage lamps in Q3. These lamps
produce roughly 1.5 more light, per watt, than a standard Halogená.
The 70-watt version is rated at 1,600 lumens, or just a hair under 23
lumens per watt; not too shabby, IMO.

For more information, see page 27 of their new products guide:
http://www.nam.lighting.philips.com...df?PHPSESSID=7d975baf52845708c9da224191dd8edd

The new MasterColour Elite line of ceramic metal halide lamps is
pretty darn impressive as well. Their 70-watt T4 offers significantly
higher lumen output (7,300 lumens versus 6,400 for their standard
offering), longer service life (12,000 hours versus 9,000), a CRI of
90+ (versus 83) and better than 80 per cent lumen maintenance at end
of life (versus 60 to 70 per cent). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I
don't think there's anything else out there that approaches this level
of performance.

Cheers,
Paul
 
J

James D. Hooker

The CDM Elite is indeed a most impressive lamp. I tried out a few samples
back in May 2005 when they were first launched in Europe and what's
especially impressive is how they slowed the rate of lumen depreciation.
Ceramic MH normally suffers a very rapid lumen drop, but even at end of
life, the Elite lamps are said to deliver higher luminous flux than brand
new lamps of the standard design.

The way they seem to have boosted the efficacy and CRI was simply to
increase the wall loading. The 70W samples had PCA burners roughly the same
dimensions as standard 35W types. Interestingly the outer jackets were
gas-filled instead of the usual vacuum - presumably to solve issues of
thermal stress in the PCA.

Other lamps on the market can reproduce the CRI and efficacy of Elite, many
of the Japanese firms already achieve this with formed body PCA like the
Powerball. But I still think the real smart thing with Elite is being able
to do this while also improving lumen maintenance.

Unfortunately the Elite of 2 years ago was only on sale for a few months.
The one thing that did suffer was lamp life - which was presumably OK in the
laboratory test racks, but turned out to be only 2000 hours or so when used
in real fixtures, where the lamps burn hotter. Clearly also using a
gas-filled outer jacket means that the arc tube temperature is much more
under the influence of the individual fixture design. Probably performance
was much worse in some fixtures than others, preventing the lamp from being
sold as a true retrofit. After 2 years back in the labs, hopefully it will
do better this time around!

The Halogená® Energy Advantage also seems like a simple but smart idea. It
looks like they just took the burners from their IRC-PAR lamps and mounted
it in a regular T60 bulb. But the efficacy seems remarkably high. The
50W/120V lamp is achieving 22lm/W in a white-coated bulb, so the burner
itself will be putting out about 5% more light and must be around 23lm/W.
This compares extremely favourably with the 24lm/W of the 50W 12-volt IRC
capsules, which is surprising because the 12V lamps are generally much more
efficient than 120V.

James
 
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