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Nanotech Could Make Incandescent Light Bulbs As Efficient As LEDs (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Thomas Edison would be pleased. Researchers have come up with a way to dramatically improve the efficiency of his signature invention, the incandescent light bulb. The approach uses nanoengineered mirrors to recycle much of the heat produced by the filament and convert it into additional visible light. The new-age incandescents are still far from a commercial product, but their efficiency is already nearly as good as commercial LED bulbs, while still maintaining a warm old-fashioned glow.
I can't wait to get back to the days of changing each light bulb in my house a couple of times each year.
What's the lifetime of the new incandescent bulb? Do they still burn out as fast as they used to? Or does recycling the heat cause them to take longer to burn out. The major advantage I find in LEDs is that they last a long time. And with the plummeting prices (picked some up for $3.50 a piece at Walmart last week), It's going to be hard for incandescent bulbs to compete. If this was such a good solution, it could probably be used for LED lights as well, since they throw off a non-negligible amount of heat as well.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
They mean warm in the sense of color temperature (yellowish).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They did legislate efficiencies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So if they can make an incandescent that meets those requirements, who cares. Now go make another grievously uninformed post.
Aside from questions of longevity, I honestly much prefer the availability of light color options that LEDs provide. After getting several LEDs that are substantially cooler in color than normally available incandescents/CFLs, I never want to go back. Add to that the fact that I can GET warmer colored LEDs if I desire, and the fact that I can use LED lights that package other abilities into their package (like wireless speakers), and I just don't see the consumer draw other than some rose colored glasses. (Maybe for dimmable bulbs, which I know LEDs struggled with for awhile but they seem to have overcome that also... This also ignores the brightness of the lightbulb, as LEDs have just generally been brighter [a good thing imo] than comparable incandescents and CFLs in my experience. Maybe the new tech solves that, but still probably not worth it as a consumer is my feeling.)
There are some crazy innovations happening in LED lighting. To the point where stock on shelves is becoming obsolete in a matter of months.
All white LEDs are essentially florescent lamps. - A blue-range LED excites a phosphor that makes white light. You can tune the phosphor mix to get whatever color range you want. "Warm" Led lights are completely indistinguishable from incandescent, and in may cases can be "Warmer"
So basically you have an emitter with a glob on tob.
In the past everyone was focusing on getting the emitter more powerful, and putting one or two in a light.
That approach is completely obsolete - Too much heat in a tiny space, extremely high drive current requiring more expensive power supplies, light comes from a single point source. (Single emitter is good for some applications but for home lighting its not great)
Now they've developed chip-on-glass techniques that lay down lots of tiny LEDs on a strip of glass which are all then wired in serries, then are covered in a soft polymer that contains the phosphor. The polymer both protects the chips and their wiring while providing a large surface area to emit white light.
The strip arrays are cheap to make (completely automated) and guess what happens when you power a bunch of strips in series (About 80-200 chips at a time)? You can drive it at like 60-100 volts. At that voltage the power supplies are CHEAP because you're only drawing a few hundred ma. Everything gets cheaper and more efficient.
In every case I know, you can still get the incandescents - they just can't be 'general use' bulbs. 40W appliance bulbs are still available for environments like your oven. Short of halogen bulbs(which are actually a variation on incandescent), no other lighting technology can withstand the heat well enough.
Otherwise, you'd have to get fancy with a light pipe or something in order to keep the light generator cool enough, and even then you might have problems during things like self-clean cycles. In the end, it's just not worth it, the light isn't on that much, and most of the time you're heating the inside with electricity anyways, so it's not like bulb efficiency really matters.
I don't read AC A human right
Thomas Edison didn't invent much of anything...he just patented the inventions that his staff came up with.
He would only be pleased by this technology if he could get a patent on it. Otherwise, he would probably campaign to squash it, as he did with many of Tesla's awesome inventions.
I'd go urinate on Edison's grave, but that asshole isn't worth the trip out.
He didn't invent the light bulb, and he didn't invent that, either.
He and his team invented a long-lived, high-impedance, incandescent lamp that could be wired in parallel --
as well as developing a complete and commercially viable system for safely electrifying your home our shop. Including the training of a new generation of electricians.
Name names! Some companies make complete junk products, others don't.
Lights of America make complete and utter junk.
Cree (in addition to being huge in the actual LED elements) makes bulbs in a very nice form factor, and they do put off a very nice color (for emulating incandescent) and I think a comparable amount of light. Unfortunately they seem to be the golden child of tech reviews that circle jerk about how great they are. Downsides? I see higher than average failures from real-world reports, yes they have a 10 year warranty, but you have to pay shipping, and they buzz like a mofo on a dimmer.
Phillips. I still have a Phillips CFL from 15 years ago (with three arch tubes) that hasn't died yet. Well I doubt their new product line has the same longevity, I'm reasonably satisfied with them as a brand. The Philips "SlimStyle" seems to be a good low end LED light. It looks strange but has decent light distribution, OK color, fewer failures than Cree from field reports, and a good price. Downside is they buzz in dimmers too (though not as bad as the Cree), but seem silent in normal lamps.
LED bulbs are superior to everything else, prove me wrong. (you can't)
I put an LED bulb in my Lava Lamp. Now the goo just sits there on the bottom.
Have gnu, will travel.
Depends on the state and/or country. Many states/countries banned incandescent bulbs. California almost did, until they were excoriated by environmentalists and economists, saying that only efficiency levels should be regulated.
No, California banned the Edison socket. More precisely, any light with an Edison socket is treated as low-efficiency lighting, presumably on the theory that someone could screw a low-efficiency light bulb in such a socket. It's really stupid to have done so, because now many people are stuck with lighting that only accepts compact fluorescent and the like, while those who have Edison sockets can easily upgrade to the latest and greatest LEDs. There's a loophole, as Edison-socketed lighting is permitted in rooms other than the kitchen, so long as a dimmer switch is in the circuit. This can be even worse, because many high-efficiency lights that fit in Edison sockets are damaged by poorly-designed dimmers.
Phillips. I still have a Phillips CFL from 15 years ago (with three arch tubes) that hasn't died yet.
They would probably like to buy it from you so they can figure out what went wrong with it not dying, so they can prevent it happening again...
If this was such a good solution, it could probably be used for LED lights as well
No. Incandescent filaments have to be hot to produce light, but with its entirely different mechanism, reflecting infrared back onto a light-emitting diode will not help it produce more light. Heat is NOT good for the diode. LED bulb designs actively do the opposite of these nanomirrors: they transfer heat away from the diode. (You may have noticed the fins on some LED bulbs. Their purpose is to radiate heat and keep the diode cooler.)
That that is is that that that that is not is not.