The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
(OP)
Had to include the smirk in the title considering the number of posts we've had in the past about eco-friendly bulbs (i.e., LEDs and CFLs) from crackpots, tree huggers without facts, etc. I figured this would be easy enough to point to if any more show up.
It's a short little article about some of the not quite false, not quite true advertising the lighting industry and politicos use to push their agenda. It doesn't say eco-bulbs aren't eco-friendly, just that their not as friendly as many want them to be (or claim):
http: //news.bbc .co.uk/2/h i/uk_news/ magazine/8 406923.stm
It's a short little article about some of the not quite false, not quite true advertising the lighting industry and politicos use to push their agenda. It doesn't say eco-bulbs aren't eco-friendly, just that their not as friendly as many want them to be (or claim):
http:
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com 





RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
If you check the DOE site for CALiPER test results, the DOE states that most of the bulbs they test do not meet the manufacturers specs. The lousy products on the market will taint the perception of high efficiency bulbs making high quality products more difficult to sell considering the initial cost difference.
Some of the people pushing low quality product do so knowingly. That can be said for many industries. Many people that have jumped on the idea of higher efficiencies for lighting have good intentions but may not have the technical background to discern the good product from the bad. That doesn't make them a "crackpot" (although I will conceed that there are plenty of crackpots to go around!).
LED bulbs are coming. Making them high quality AND affordable to the consumer will be enough of a challenge without having to overcome the impression that they are junk.
Harold
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RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
The "crackpots" I'm referring to are like the guy who keeps posting on here (and getting kicked off) while getting his facts mixed up (such as LEDs use mercury, not CFLs, and therefore are dangerous to humans, etc.). I'm all for LEDs over CFLs, and I know the better units out there win in the energy efficiency race alone (not to mention light spectrum quality, directionality, etc.), but the main issue for me is the manufacturers lofty claims that simply cannot be verified in a real-world environment. Sure, a CFL may be five times more efficient than an incandescent, but as the article points out, that's only true if you're comparing a frosted envelope "soft-white" incandescent in a "room temp" area... move to a clear envelope on the incandescent and put the CFL in a fixture, suddenly you're at three to one. Bulb lifetime is another big one for me (particularly with LEDs, where now everyone and their uncle specifies a 50k or 100k hours lifetime with no understanding of what that figure means.
Anyway, just thought the 10,000-foot view article would be of interest to some...
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
I know who you are refering to. I had a "discussion" with him deleted from the forum not that long ago! The 50 - 100K hours is another area of contention. The DOE tests point out several products that didn't survive initial burn in. To some extent I feel for the engineers that have to deal with the marketers when it comes to pegging numbers on the box. Quantifying lighting performance is rarely straight forward.
I book marked the article for reference. Thanks for posting it.
Harold
SW2010 SP1.0 OPW2010 SP1.0 Win XP Pro 2002 SP3
Dell 690, Xeon 5160 @3.00GHz, 3.25GB RAM
nVidia Quadro FX4600
www.lumenflow.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
An amusing anecdote: about 30 yrs ago, I worked for an aerospace company with a semiconductor lab. One day, the facilities guys come rushing into the lab, asking everyone what we put down our drains; it turned out that our drain pipes had pretty much corroded into nothingness. "Well, we have some sulphuric, nitric, phosphoric, hydrifluoric, etc., acids, but they're all very small quantities." Needless to say, that started off a major expenditure and effort to replumb all our drains into a neutralizer system.
Nowadays, we probably would have gotten our asses canned, and our company fined.
And let's not forget the erstwhile Fairchild Semiconductor plant in south San Jose that required building a slurry moat around the entire plant to contain the carbon tet that seeped into the ground water.
So, yes, that guy might be wrong about mercury, but LEDs are probably not better, overall.
TTFN
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RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
During processing, controlling the chemicals used (and their runoffs) is a significantly easier job... you know exactly what's being used and where, so even if LED-based processing used nastier materials, their not released into the environment (unless the company you worked for had a hand in it
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
Their safety will usually splutter and smoke and say that they didn't really mean "any," and so, I then ask for exemptions, which are then granted.
Ditto the requirement for lead-free solder...
TTFN
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RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
I remember reading papers about tin whiskers, but by the time I started working, the problem had been mostly solved, so I'm actually a bit excited about possibly seeing them for real...
TTFN
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RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
It gos like this, plants respond better to some light frequencys better than others. With an LED, you can tailer the color to the most responcive frequencys. With an incondecent, or floresent, the tailoring of color frequencys is difficult, so the common method is to blast the plants with an almost full spectrum of light.
Note: I recently noted plants growing mostly in the direction of a floresent black light. It's not very efficent, and the life is short, but it does work, or grow.
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
TTFN
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RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
Plant growth is a given, not a bubble-burster. LEDs are typically considered "more efficient" because of their directionality and wavelength selectability, and grow lights are an ideal problem to be solved with them.
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
In general the HPS looks like the more efficent light source, but it as most has drawbacks.
The problem I've seen with floresent, and LED's is finding the color frequencys that I want (Back to the general lighting). The problem being is I want the near UV, and near IR frequencies.
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
I've confirmed this myself. I have an LED bulb in a bedside table lamp (an 'early adopter' experiment). The LED bulb has an obvious afterglow after the power is cut (turned off, lamp unplugged, bulb unscrewed).
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
I won't pass on the "tin whiskers" comment. A huge German-named electrical conglomerate sold my employer some medium-voltage variable frequency drives with (you guessed it) tin-plated copper bus interconnects in what I (an old electrical power guy) considered to be a very close proximity.
We had two catastrophic failures, both covered under warranty. The manufacturer's root cause failure analysis for the failures was tin whiskers. The bus connectors are now nickel plated.
Fortunately I laid back a supply of real Pb-Sn solder that should last me until I'm too decrepit to use it for my hobbies.
old field guy
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
TTFN
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RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
Sleepless night?
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
LOL. Discovery, confirmation, then just pure entertainment.
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
VE1, most white LEDs are phosphor based. They use a blue die with a yellow-emitting phosphor, which blends to white. Some of the more "advanced" phosphor LEDs use multiple phosphors to cover the spectrum a little better... these are typically used where color rendering is more important, such as in displays, museums, etc.
IR, California has taken to sippin' the RoHS Kool-Aid in a hard way.
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
TTFN
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RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
I was thinking a good name for one of the cats living in my barn could be "tin whiskers".
LEDs will only make sense when they come way down in price. I bought one on a lark at Wally World. It was around $35 and had much less output than the flood light that it replaced. I tried it out only because I kept breaking the flood light with vibration/shock, and thought the LED would not be as susceptable. But $35 vs. $4? Not gonna happen in the real world!
www.MaguffinMicrowave.com
Maguffin Microwave wireless design consulting
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
You purchased it at Wally World... 'nuff said...
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
ht
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
You mean you've given up the whale oil lamps? ;)
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
RE: The "truth" about eco bulbs ;-)
At least tin whiskers in a data center environment do not usually end with clouds of black smoke, scorched insulation, twisted bus bars and 9000 horsepower enjoying some serious (and fairly long-term) quiet.
However, MY failure point was pretty easy to locate. (Uh, it's right there, in the middle of the big black smudgy spot, where you see the shiny bits from the arc.)
We play with some fun stuff...
old field guy