In alt.engineering.electrical Don Klipstein wrote:
| In article , Joseph Meehan wrote:
|
| So you are saying that in 10 years, I can still buy incandescent bulbs for
| the few places I actually need them?
|
| Who knows, a new technology may have come along and no one may be making
|them due to lack of a market.
|
| I expect CFLs to advance a little more, especially with gains in dimming
| and maybe some models with CRI in the low-mid 90's rather than 82 (with a
| compromise in light output).

What about spectral continuity? Are they going to even recognize the issue?


| I expect LEDs to continue their pace of advancement, increment by
| increment in performance, cost, and new varieties. But as LED technology
| has been incrementing itself along increment by increment, I expect that
| to remain the story for the next 10-15 years.
| LED technology appears to me to only be advancing about half as fast as
| computer technology, maybe a little slower.

As CPU performance is forced to move to multiple process cores, software
has a lot of catching up to do to make effective use of it. We'll be
seeing a slowdown of what computers can do for several years.


| There are also metal halide lamps, another technology that has been
| advancing somewhat and is still advancing, though not as fast as LEDs are
| advancing.

How do they compare to FL/CFL?


| One area where LEDs (and to some extent in recent years other
| technologies) are displacing incandescents is nightlights.

All my nightlights are red in color. I just use Christmas tree lights in
them to achieve that. Red is nicer on the night vision, which is what I
want the nightlights for. Once they start making LED nightlights in red,
then I will buy (when I need more or need to replace).


| The old traditional model used a 7 watt incandescent, and often a shade
| because 7 watt incandescents are rather bright for this job, and it takes
| more effort to make an 120V incandescent of wattage much lower than 7
| watts - or at least it used to.
| Past 15 years or so, 4 watt incandescent nightlight "bulbs" have been
| common - still bright enough to usually deserve a shade.

I have the 4 watt ones. The nightlights are also the sensor type that cut
off when there is light in the area.


| Now, there are many LED night lights available. With ineffeciencies of
| safe voltage dropping at low cost, most current models of 120V LED night
| lights are not more efficient than incandescents in photometric terms -
| but they still achieve efficiency gains by having a spectrum more
| favorable to making use of night vision when the lighting is dim (higher
| "s/p ratio"), along with being dim enough to not need a shade. Power
| consumption of these is mostly around 1/3 watt to 1 watt.
| Better are green and blue models and the Feit Electric white C7 "bulb".
| Most other LED light models using white LEDs will have light output
| degrading significantly year-by-year or even a bit faster.

I want the red ones.

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