LED Evolution Could Spell The End For Bulbs 482
An anonymous reader writes "USA Today is running a story discussing how LED lamps were unthinkable until the technology cleared a major hurdle just a dozen years ago. Since then, LEDs have evolved quickly and are being adapted for many uses, including pool illumination and reading lights, as evidenced at the Lightfair trade show here this week. More widespread use could lead to big energy savings and a minor revolution in the way we think about lighting."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this true? (Score:3, Interesting)
LEDs are definitely becoming more powerful (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I got my newest computer. This thing has a single blue LED backlighting an area the size of a dime, behind the power button on the case. When I turn off all the lights, after a minute or so of my eyes adapting, the single blue LED gives off enough light to illuminate half the room. For the first week or so, I had trouble getting to sleep because of the light... From one blue LED.
As the technology gets better I can imagine LED lamps coming in vogue. I seriously doubt that the end of the bulb will come anytime soon, though. Probably not in my lifetime.
Not new (Score:5, Interesting)
As an example, some of the weapon-mounted lights being used by the military are also going to LEDs. Some of the regular incandescent bulbs just don't hold up as well to the punishing recoil of most weapons... you were forever changing bulbs. The higher end incandescent lights like the Sure-Fire lights [surefire.com] could take the shock, but forget mounting anything like a mag-lite [maglite.com] on a weapon.
Best thing about them: they're easy on the batteries. Batteries are heavy, and there's nothing worse than having to carry too many spares. Every ounce counts when you're carrying it on your back.
Re:Bought some today! (Score:3, Interesting)
"Q: I want to use white LEDs for photographing or videotaping insects, plants, electronic parts, and other close-up subjects, but all of the white LEDs I've tried have this blue circle in them that ruins the picture. Any suggestions?
A: Try using Nichia's rectangular white model, NSPWF50S. This LED has a very wide, even beam that doesn't have that obnoxious blue ring in its beam. Since all white LEDs tend to have a bluish cast on film or videotape, you may need to adjust your camera's white balance or even use an orange-tinted filter to compensate.
The beam angle is very wide, around 140 by 120 degrees, so they won't be very good much over 1-2 feet away from the subject. They should work great for close-ups (a foot or less) though.
You will probably have to buy these directly from Nichia, since electronics places don't seem to carry them yet. I have some info on my Where To Buy LEDs page. "
Thats from the led musem (find it through google if you want or here ya go
http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/reserved.htm#q7
http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/ (the led museum homepage.. very cool stuff, he's been around for a long time. check out his rigged up wheelchair.)
Someone else here can probably provide an explanation for why there's a bluish tone to some white leds.
Future of Lighting Design (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, like the article says, the first cost is still prohibitive in a lot of cases, although the savings in energy would seem to make it worthwhile. LEDs also tend to get very, very hot in large quantities if they're used for a long period of time, so air circulation is a common problem as well.
Hopefully some of you computer engineers and programers can come up with a cheap way to produce and control LED arrays so I can start using them in practice! Building owners would be extremely happy if power consumption in buildings would go down significantly and if they had the ability to control the color and brightness (they are easily and cheaply dimmable, unlike flourescents) of any room individually.
Hrm... (Score:5, Interesting)
The adapter for my iBook puts out more heat then the iBook. More of the heat from my AMD64 is from the power supply vs. the CPU and Gfx.
Almost nothing I own needs over 12V anymore. When will I be able to just have one nice 120->12V spaceheater and run everything else in the room off 12V?
Re:Marketing is pushing it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Starbucks use warm lighting because it makes you want to stay there, especially if it's raining outside.
Been there... (Score:2, Interesting)
A few years ago (actually, a lot) when fluorescent lamps were invented someone said that regular lamps would be dead in 10 years. Fluorescent lamps where invented still in 19th century, so I guess it didn't come true.
I'd hope it gets through this time, but people still by those energy consuming lamps, so I'll just wait and see...
Re:Hrm... (Score:4, Interesting)
At that time, LED based illumination was not possible. Now if light can be produced efficiently from 12V the list of devices that really need 220V is not that large: mostly cleaning machines and kitchen appliances. Of course rewiring houses is the real problem...
Re:50000 hours lifetime? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bought some today! (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone notice that a blue LED has a 'haze' around it when looked at from the side (i.e. not looking at where the light comes out)? This is even more pronounced in purple LEDs (which are still expensive and not ready for commercial use). Wonder if this haze has anything to do with the blue circle appearing on recordings...
Re:Legal on bicycles? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not entirely true. LED lights are fully legal if they don't flash, that's all there is to it. There are laws that predate LEDs on having flashing lights on vehicles. This was a minor news article when flashers first appeared, but many prominent figures came out and said they would pay for any fines should someone get in bother for having something that clearly improved their safety.
I don't think anyone has actually been prosecuted for it. So, what we are basically seeing what is a new "stupid law" that never gets enforced. Kinda like the one that states that taxi drivers must always carry a bale of hay, and that they can legally urinate in a public street provided they pee on their back wheel!
Re:Bought some today! (Score:5, Interesting)
Mostly true. When viewed directly, the eye perceives any color in the color space defined by the three LED colors. But the actual light is still trichromatic, so it won't light up the objects in the room the way you expect them to. A beautiful yellow light might make an object of that same beautiful yellow look like a dingy brown, becuse there's no actual light of that color to reflect off the object.
Try it yourself: Tonight, set your screen background to various colors, turn off the other lights in the room, and see what things look like when lit only by the monitor. The effect isn't as pronounced, but it's still observable.
girls and color sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Need to fit normal lamp-sockets. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But it's warmer.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Paints under fluorescent lighting will be muchg duller than under daylight. Most people don't care though. They only get depressed after a while, and don't know why.
The big breakthrough: automobile headlights. (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine the same color temperature as xenon high-intensity discharge headlamps but with far less hardware and power requirements, not to mention far longer usable life! It could mean lighter automobiles because there will be less need for a high-capacity automotive electrical system and also we eliminate the weight of the xenon HID headlamp electrical hardware in the first place.
21st Century Slowly Arriving (Score:5, Interesting)
It will be some years before we reach this tipping point in price however as current costs are about $100-$200 a bulb for 65watt equivalent LED bulbs [ledtronics.com]
10 years after most bulbs are LED conventional bulbs will seem anachronistic and stone age. One of the few things in the last 100 years to just be out and out replaced by a new technology. Granted we have lots of bright shining new things in our modern world, but they general have been added to what we already have or evolved slowly from what came before. The switch to transistors from tubes is about the only other thing that comes to mind where this has happened, and perhaps this should just be seen as one of the last hold outs of filaments in tube to be displaced by solid state. All that is left to go are CRTs and this too will happen relatively soon.
In need of a similar revolution: Cars that run without gas - this is a hard one, but we are finally starting to make some progress; Energy production from other than Oil, Gas, Coal, and Uranium. Fusion is about the only way to go here, but it isn't doable at any price today. None of the other energy alternatives have a chance of displacing the big 3 fossil fuels or remaining conventional nuclear plants; Getting to Space without conventional rocket technology. Do all these things and we will have finally arrived in the 21 Century.
Re:I like the color-mixing aspect.. (Score:2, Interesting)
LED chromatic sprectra (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You jest, however (Score:4, Interesting)
It is exactly a function of the temperature of the white.. in fact, it's exactly function of the temperature of the filament. (minus a few absorption bands)
The function is given by Planck, Planck's Law of Blackbody Radiation [wolfram.com]
The 'temperature' in your presets is an approximation to the Blackbody spectrum at those temperatures. Warmer and Cooler are, however, reversed when people discuss the whites of pictures etc. I suspect it's because for much of our history light would be either the sun or a fire - and everyone knows a fire is warm. (even though it is much cooler than the sun)
Regardless, given enough complexity, leds could surely approximate a solar spectrum, but it would be very difficult for incandescents to reach the temperature required to actually emit a solar spectrum. (first you have to find a filament material that won't melt/vaporize at solar temperature.)
As Bad As Fission? Where do you get your facts??? (Score:3, Interesting)
There is virtually no scenario where a commercial plant could pose a threat to a surrounding population. BUT because there is still some waste, so there are some environmentalists that would oppose its pursuit.
Again getting back to the gasses issue. Because the percentage weight difference is so huge between isotopes of helium and hydrogen, you can much more easily separate out the radioactive byproducts. What's left can be used industrially, or more likely just released back into the environment. Remember that burning coal releases all sorts of more dangerous radioactive isotopes into the air, ones more readily absorbed into the body. Conventional fission reactors (accidents aside) put far less radiation into the environment than coal, and with fusion we're talking generating thousands of times less waste again. I don't believe there are any remaining radioactive direct fusion byproducts that cannot be recycled. As for being dangerous because they are gasses, should they need to be contained they can just be made part of a chemical that is not a gas. Should there be unusable Helium isotopes (helium won't bind chemically to other elements easily), which I don't believe there are any unusable ones, but should you want to permanently get rid of Helium isotopes, they could be released at any suitable altitude to drift into the far upper atmosphere where solar wind will eventually strip them away from Earth completely. This is why we have to mine Helium from deep underground; it doesn't stay in the atmosphere.
Fusion can be used to generate Tritium or convert abundant Thorium to Uranium and Plutonium, thus could escalate proliferation of atomic weapons, but that would be an abuse of the technology not an inherent byproduct of normal operation. But this is no doubt this is where radical environmentalists will hang their hats in opposition. Of course this kind of Ludite thinking only works if you can get every nation in the world to avoid Fusion.
I predict the next 5 to 10 years will see breakthroughs in fusion. My reasoning is that Oil prices will probably fluctuate wildly over the next 5-10 years seldom getting below $40 and often above $60. While I don't think there has been a conspiracy to keep fusion down, nothing focuses the mind quite so clearly as a crisis. $60 dollar a barrel oil will motivate research into all sorts of energy research. Unlike the '70s I don't believe truly cheap oil is returning, oh and there is that Global Warming thing to think about.
Re:Even perfect RGB cannot cover all colours (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, that is my permanent sig below
Re:You jest, however (Score:3, Interesting)
LED flashlights were my latest toy. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Without power, many people seem to turn into hopeless wrecks.
People burn their entire supply of toxic paraffin candles in about two days, (if they have them), they run out of food, and they start to freeze. If the power had gone out for more than a couple of weeks without emergency help or without a shift in how people arranged their lives, I think we'd have seen some serious Darwinism in effect. --Luckily, when people get motivated, they also tend to be quite resilient; two weeks without power is like getting kicked out of bed. "Okaaay. Fine. I'll go do something about the situation rather than gripe and eat all the easy food."
But anyway. .
I found myself hurting for a decent lighting solution. With no power, and time to kill, people like to read and they play social games like D&D! Except, without reliable lighting, these things are possible only during the daylight hours, (which in the winter time are in shorter supply, plus if you have your windows covered up with blankets for extra warmth, the lighting situation isn't so good). --And a room filled with paraffin wax smoke gets toxic and trippy in a bad way after about half an hour. Yuck. --Bees wax burns non-toxic and smells really nice, but those kind of candles are usually expensive and in short supply.
Enter the LED flashlight! After the power out-age I ordered a 'Lightwave 4000'. It runs on 3 D-cells, and you can expect about 900 hours of solid run time. (2000 hours, if you believe the packaging, which I don't.) Still, 900 hours is 37.5 days of solid 'On.' Cut that in half for night time use only, and you're looking at over two months of lighting on 3 batteries. That's 9 batteries to last you all through winter. Not bad!
Then just toss in a few of those small, $10 Dorcy single-LED lights which run on AAA cells for 200 hours or so. --Keep those in supply, and you're fine. --For a social setting, just set up a Bee's wax candle to throw a little nice color, and you're surviving in style.
Wrap up in blankets, get an alcohol burner for teas and soups, or better, a wood stove, and you're laughing. Life is fun when you're prepared!
-FL