Soldering irons: made in America but designed in Russia?

[Andrew Gabriel]

Regardless of brand I still find the light quality is not as advertised - a
20W CFL does NOT produce the same light as a 100W incandescent.

At least in Europe, the filament lamp equivalance is completely
misleading. (It's comparing against a softone bulb, which has
a painted coating to give a lower colour temperature, and almost
no one uses those, and they're much less efficient than the
commonly used filament lamps.)

In the UK, just use a 4:1 ratio, so 100W replacement will be a
25W CFL. You can get away with slightly less (e.g. 23W) if the
CFL has an exposed tube (no outer bulb) with well-spaced limbs
(minimum self-shadowing), but this also implies significantly
more bulky than the lamp it replaced, and it might not fit.

Generally, 18W CFLs here are marked as 100W equivalent, and
it's very clear to anyone who's tried them that they don't come
close. For those just trying CFLs for the first time, it gives
a very poor first impression, which in many cases is also the
last impression.

In the case of CFL reflector lamps, the ratio to use needs
reducing to 3:1 or even 2:1 for small ones. (A CFL light source
is particularly inappropriate for use in small reflector lamps.)

In countries with different mains voltage, the ratio may need
adjusting, as filament lamp efficiency varies with the design
voltage. (The most efficient voltage to design a 100W lamp is
about 55V, given a reasonable life requirement, and as you move
the design voltage away from 55V in either direction, the lamp
efficiency drops.)

 

[Andrew Gabriel]

Interesting. I can see it dropping due to conduction losses when the
voltage gets too low (so that the wire gets too fat) but what's the
mechanism for the drop-off at high voltages?

Designing a full range of filament lamps to operate over a
wide range of voltages is a challenge rather like trying to
solve a set of simultaneous equations when there aren't
enough variables, so you end up with compromises, such as
lower efficiency.

To make a 240V filament, you need a very long thin wire.
It has far too much surface area to get to the 2700K operating
temperature without radiating 100W away at a lower temperature.
The way 240V filament lamps are made to work is to double
coil the filament, so that much of the filament is radiating
heat back onto itself, and the effective surface area for
radiating heat away from the filament is significantly
less than the filament's real surface area. This isn't as
effective as using an optimum thickness filament in the first
place, i.e. you have just the right surface area to radiate
100W when it's reached 2700K, and you still have a larger
surface area for filament evaporation and thinning.

And yes, you're right about heat loss by conduction down the
lead-in wires becoming increasingly significant at low
voltages/high currents. With longer fragile filaments, the loss
from the ends is proportionally less, but you may also require
filament supports, which are additional routes to lose heat,
and you lose more by convection to the gas-fill.

 

[KR]

All this talk about soldering irons makes me think how crummy too
much American industrial design is.

Some US industrial design looks great but some looks downright,
well, Russian.

Sure you can see crap-looking design in western Europe too but
there's a lot less of it than in the US.

Take soldering irons for example.  An ordinary soldering iron in
the US with unregulated temperature still has great big mofo screws
holding the tip.

By comparison, my 30 year old British-made basic Antex is a sleek
looking baby and those Antexes are not particularly expensive.

Don't start me on the looks of cars!

------------------

Oh, but the Russians do have some interesting products


http://www.artlebedev.ru/everything/vilcus/


"its for people who like connecting electricity with own fingers"

"there are many curious people trying to get their fingers in plug,
and
this is an easy way to do it"



and at bottom under the power board
"our perfectly designed network port will match group sessions"