Tuesday Twitter Trivia – Lamp Life
Welcome to another Tuesday Twitter Trivia Question. This week I am back on lamps. Their is a lot of buzz in the industry right now about energy efficiency with LEDs. Ad to that the economical situation that the United States is in, everyone is looking ways to save money. Purchasing almost any type of LED fixture right now is a huge investment up front, but can pay off over time. Since most of us have trouble with that initial investment, how can we extend out budgets with our current lights.
So this weeks Tuesday Twitter Trivia question is about tungsten lamps and how to extend them past the lamp hour rating set forth by the manufacture.
Name a way to extend the lamp hour rating of a tungsten lamp.
This week I am going to change it up and ask that you provide your answer in the comment section of this article rather then direct message through twitter. I will accept both methods, but leaving a comment here, everyone will benefit from your response.
Tags: Contest, Lamps Tungsten, Tuesday Twitter Trivia
9 Comments
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By: Chris Flood
if you run that lights at slight below full it will give an exponential increase in lamp life.
By: 2Henchmen
Profile tungsten lights to a proportion of 85%, which offers the sweet spot in terms of brightness and energy savings.
Also, run the lights to full for a few minutes at the end of each run. The full intensity helps along the tungsten-halogen cycle, thereby redepositing more tungsten back onto the filament. A little scrub can save time over the long run.
And, if you’re crazy… when the lamp blows, keep it plugged in and tap the envelope until the filament fuses back together (I’ve heard stories -_-)
By: Chris Flood
Here’s the Equation to find out how reducing the volts can increase the life
life/LIFE = (VOLTS/volts)^13
(i.e. reduce the volts to 90% and the life increases by 393%!)
Got this from Mike woods of
http://www.mikewoodconsulting.com/
By: Todd Proffitt
Run it through a sine wave dimmer and it will decrease the filament vibration and increase the lamp life.
By: 2Henchmen
@Chris Flood
That’s the page I was looking for!
By: Beth Weinstein
Reducing the voltage applied to a light bulb will reduce the filament temperature, resulting in a dramatic increase in life expectancy.
There is a device sold to do this is an ordinary silicon diode built into a cap that is made to stick to the base of a light bulb. A diode lets current through in only one direction, causing the bulb to get power only 50 percent of the time if it is operated on AC. This effectively reduces the applied voltage by about 30 percent. (Reducing the voltage to its original value times the square root of .5 results in the same power consumption as applying full voltage half the time.) The life expectancy is increased very dramatically. However, the power consumption is reduced by about 40 percent (not 50 since the cooler filament has less resistance) and light output is reduced by reduced by about 70 percent (cooler filaments are less efficient at radiating visible light). (source http://members.misty.com/don/bulb1.html)
Or you could avoid tungsten and LEDs entirely and go with a Plasma light source like the SeaChanger Nemo, CTE or Nautilus
By: Michael Kohler
You could add a pyramid shaped cap onto the end of the fixture. The power of the pyramid is widely known to increase the life of things that ordinarily go bad so there is accurate evidence that this could be applied to lamp life. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_power Such a device could be constructed out of gaffers tape and blackwrap if you are in a bind and need such a device NOW, although i’m sure city theatrical could make you some.
Alternatively, you could consider flying the battens in before each show and walk along the electric gently whispering to each of the lamps, assuring them of how bright they are and how beautiful their color rendering indexes are and how you are absolutely not going to replace them with LEDs.
By: Tom Hull
Never turn it on… Okay somebody had to give the obvious goof-ball answer.
By: Nick Van Houten
If you’re in an architecturally controlled (such as Unison or others) or very specific theatre setting, ensure your fade times are set to at least 10 seconds. This will ensure that whenever the lamps are active, they will have nice slow build to peak voltage, and plenty of cool down time. I have a church running their S4s and S4PARS with the same lamps since the install in 2001 using this “method.”