Hi Victor,

Thanks for sharing this remarkable news and for your additional
analysis/insight. In a word, this is AWESOME.

For more information on this announcement, see:
http://www.huliq.com/12464/ge-announces-advancement-in-incandescent-technology

and
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070224/BUSINESS/702240399

The fact that these lamps could potentially offer the same lumen
performance as today's CFLs (without all the various drawbacks) AND at
a lower cost is nothing short of revolutionary. Can't wait.

Cheers,
Paul

Thanks for sharing this remarkable news and for your additional
analysis/insight. In a word, this is AWESOME.

Unfortunately it's not the first time we've had this "perfect filament"
hype. It's a bit like electroluminescent technology. Lots of spin and
no significant result.

Talking of which... How are the quantum emitters doing?

The fact that these lamps could potentially offer the same lumen
performance as today's CFLs (without all the various drawbacks) AND at
a lower cost is nothing short of revolutionary. Can't wait.

The first is IR reflecting films, a technology that is
already in commercial use. Considering that 90% to 95% of
the energy generated by an incandescent filament is radiated
away as IR (depending upon where you define the long
wavelength end of the visible spectrum), using IR films to
raise the efficacy of incandescent lamps by a factor of 3 or
even 4 is possible. Low-voltage IR-halogen filament tubes
may already meet the initial goal of 30 lm/W. (Most
IR-halogen lamps are reflector lamps so I don't have ready
access to data on bare filament tubes, but this is what we
suspect Osram is doing with their e-Pro lamp.)

The second technology area is selective emitters.

It is exciting... but bear in mind that by the time these lamps become
available, CFLs will probably be far more efficient than they are at
present :-)

And perhaps there will be competition from usefully-dimmable low-power
metal halide and/or LED as well. Time to wait and see

BTW, I have a Philips self-ballasted ceramic metal halide lamp in my
home (non-dimmable, of course).

http://server4.pictiger.com/img/937222/other/philips-self-ballast-cmh.jpg

This is truly an engineering marvel and you can't help but be
impressed by its technical elegance. Unfortunately, high initial cost
and fairly significant lumen depreciation make it a tough sell
vis-à-vis its CFL counterparts outside a narrow range of applications.

Cheers,
Paul
--

It is exciting... but bear in mind that by the time these lamps become
available, CFLs will probably be far more efficient than they are at
present

BTW, I have a Philips self-ballasted ceramic metal halide lamp in my
home (non-dimmable, of course).

http://server4.pictiger.com/img/937222/other/philips-self-ballast-cmh.jp
g

This is truly an engineering marvel and you can't help but be impressed
by its technical elegance. Unfortunately, high initial cost and fairly
significant lumen depreciation make it a tough sell vis-à-vis its CFL
counterparts outside a narrow range of applications.

Victor Roberts wrote:

The first is IR reflecting films, a technology that is
already in commercial use. Considering that 90% to 95% of
the energy generated by an incandescent filament is radiated
away as IR (depending upon where you define the long
wavelength end of the visible spectrum), using IR films to
raise the efficacy of incandescent lamps by a factor of 3 or
even 4 is possible. Low-voltage IR-halogen filament tubes
may already meet the initial goal of 30 lm/W. (Most
IR-halogen lamps are reflector lamps so I don't have ready
access to data on bare filament tubes, but this is what we
suspect Osram is doing with their e-Pro lamp.)

FWIW, Osram in Europe do sell an IR halogen capsule under the name of
Halostar IRC. I don't have a catalogue to hand so I can't quote
efficacies, but IIRC their 35W version has approximately the output of
their standard 50W.

Could you open it and post a picture of the ballast please? :)

(Only kidding.... Don't do what I did to my first and only Genura
lamp.... "Pop!")

FWIW, Osram in Europe do sell an IR halogen capsule under the name of
Halostar IRC. I don't have a catalogue to hand so I can't quote
efficacies, but IIRC their 35W version has approximately the output of
their standard 50W.

Thanks for the tip. Here's the data I just found for one of
their IR halogen lamps:

Model : 64447 IRC 65W 12V GY6,35 FS1
Voltage : 12 volts
Power: 65 watts
Output: 1700 lm ==> 26.2 lm/W
Life : 4000 hours

The wall-plug efficacy will drop by at least 10% due to
losses in the transformer, but considering that the life is
4000 hours this is a very respectable efficacy.

Victor Roberts <xxx@lighting-research.com> wrote:
snip
FWIW, Osram in Europe do sell an IR halogen capsule under the name of
Halostar IRC. I don't have a catalogue to hand so I can't quote
efficacies, but IIRC their 35W version has approximately the output of
their standard 50W.

Thanks for the tip. Here's the data I just found for one of
their IR halogen lamps:

Model : 64447 IRC 65W 12V GY6,35 FS1
Voltage : 12 volts
Power: 65 watts
Output: 1700 lm ==> 26.2 lm/W
Life : 4000 hours

The wall-plug efficacy will drop by at least 10% due to
losses in the transformer, but considering that the life is
4000 hours this is a very respectable efficacy.

I have some doubts that 10% is reasonable.
For these reasons.

The bulb is a lovely integrator, it doesn't care what waveform you feed
it, or even the ripple.

So, you can do things that you can't with fluorescant tubes - for
example, completely omit the resovoir capacitor - a major source of
failure, connect the bulb directly across the switching transistor, in
series with the inductor, hooked directly up to the output of a fullwave
bridge.

No output rectifier losses, no losses in the input capacitor -
especially as it ages, no losses in the output capacitor, no losses in
snubber networks.

The major source of losses are those in the inductor, and a percent or
two in the input rectifier.