Hacking the Fluorescent Light

DynaSoar writes "MSNBC reports on an elegant hack performed on the common fluorescent tube. By mixing phosphorescent material with the usual white fluorescent material, American Environmental Products has developed a tube that continues to glow when shut off. Originally intended for submarines, and then used in places where terrorists could disrupt services, they are also perfect for power outages, providing some light so you don't have to thrash around in the dark looking for your candles and flashlights. Since the 'hack' is inside the tube, they can also be removed from their fixtures and carried around, as well as provide light even if they're shattered."

Comments

Not to be nitpicky...

[Exsam]

but how is this a hack? I mean its not something we could do ourselves at home and while its really nifty I don't see its overall usefulness to the everyday person for the cost. Wouldn't it just be cheaper to install glow in the dark plastic strips along the hallways and such? Just my $0.02.

Bleh

[LearnToSpell]

...used in places where terrorists could disrupt services, they are also perfect for power outages...

Because we all know that terrorist attacks are way more common than power outages. I hate this "War on Terror." It's the major reason for doing anything at this point, and it's not a particularly good one.

Erm..

[Jicksta]

Guys, I think the big reason this hasn't caught on already is that it would mean your lights could never be turned off instantly.

Your room would remain lit up for the few hours it takes for the glowing substance to completely discharge.

As neat as this feature is, I certainly wouldn't want it in my house.

Re:Erm..

[Staplerh]

As neat as this feature is, I certainly wouldn't want it in my house.

Correct, it'd be a horrible addition to a standard house. In some circumstances, where the lights never turn off, this adds another level of safety.

For example, I work in a bizzare housing complex near a Canadian public university. There are no windows, few doors and in many hallways absolutely zero sources of external light. While we do have emergency lights for power outages, tubes like these would certainly be useful to give confidence that one could count on a very low level of light to navigate within the first hour or so of a blackout.

Extra UV

[jfengel]

There's a serious lack of actual data in the articles, but my suspicion is that by putting glow-in-the-dark stuff on the inside of the tube it benefits from all the extra UV that you get inside the tube.

A fluorescent lamp glows by discharging electricity into a gas which then gives off UV. The phosphorescent coating inside the tube takes the UV and turns it into light.

The glow-in-the-dark strips also respond to UV light, but in a way that stores and releases the energy later. You could just put up strips, but only a tiny percentage of the UV light from the tubes would hit them; the rest would leak out into the room. (And they're designed to give off as little UV as possible, since it's unhealthy and wasteful; you want it as visible light.)

So by effectively putting the UV strips inside the tube, you charge them up when the light is on. You'd have to cover the walls with UV strips to get the same effect outside the lamp.

For everyday people? Probably not. Not in your home, at least, where you probably want it dark when you turn off the lights. But in office buildings, these could be a nice alternative to the emergency lights that are required in most places. No extra wiring; you just fit fancy bulbs into the existing fluorescent fixtures.

And this is a hack... how?

[durandal61]

A company produces an interesting variation of a product that has been mass-produced for decades, and it's called a hack? And how did you manage to get your shiny new favourite word, "terrorist" in a summary on flourescent tubes? Let me read that again. Interesting story, puerile summary.