Wednesday, August 10, 2016

INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULBS LIVE!

I was in a supermarket and accidentally started looking at the light bulb display.  Much to my surprise , they had incandescent light bulbs.  As one always suspected, the light bulb industry could jack up their standards to meet the new standard.  What they came up with is the "halogen bulb" which is described as:

Halogen light bulbs utilize a fused quartz envelope (“capsule”) allowing for higher temperatures. Inside the quartz envelope is a vapor, originally iodine, now usually bromine. The tungsten filament evaporates as usual but the higher temperatures are sufficient to cause the tungsten to mix with the vapor instead of depositing on the envelope. Some of the evaporated tungsten is re-deposited on the filament. The combination of this “regenerative cycle” and higher filament temperature results in a bulb that has a longer life and slightly higher efficiency than standard incandescent bulbs. The higher temperature filament also produces the “white” light often associated with halogen bulbs.*

The result of all this is that a 43 watt incandescent bulb is equal to a watt tungsten bulb.  I bought a 3-way bulb for a table lamp.

Except for some tungsten maniacs (and maybe tungsten miners), everyone can relax.


* http://insights.regencylighting.com/was-there-actually-an-incandescent-light-bulb-ban

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