Luxim's plasma lightbulb

[flanque]

Hi folks,

This is a bit old by a few days, but still worth sharing.. it's a new bulb that produces 140 lum/w and reaches 6000 kelvin at its core from 250w of power.

Here's a video: Plasma Light Bulb

I'd imagine this is quite expensive when it eventually becomes commercially available. I wonder however what impact this would have on the temperatures of the tanks.

I don't have any MH.. what lum/w do they produce?

[Sadielynn]

I dont own MH either but wouldnt that be the new wave for reefs not sure how "hot" they run either so it may be viable right next to the new LED lights

[flanque]

I'm gathering these might be a bit expensive at first, but then you would only need two of them to get excellent coverage, depending on the width of your tank.

I do wonder if the full range of the spectrum it good for our tanks.

I'd love to see these in action.

[patryuji]

I doubt there is much heat (compared to other types of lighting) if the claims prove out in a production version.

Incandescents at around 15 lumens per watt convert energy to light at around 5% efficiency. Standard flourescent with 70 lumens per watt is pushing about 25% efficiency. If this is pushing 140lumens per watt then it is close to 50% efficient...so 50% given off as heat = 125W of heat out of a 250W bulb versus a flourescent at 500W (to get the same total lumens) = 375W of heat. Or stated a different way you could say the heat load is similar to a 166W flourescent lamp with this 250W bulb.

[ccCapt]

This isn't new technology. It was tried in the 90's and failed. I read a little on it and I think I remember the problem is the ballast needed to fire the bulbs used lots of power and didn't last long.

[patryuji]

Originally Posted by cccapt

This isn't new technology. It was tried in the 90's and failed. I read a little on it and I think I remember the problem is the ballast needed to fire the bulbs used lots of power and didn't last long.

There seldom is "new" technology anymore but most discoveries are not commercially possible until materials and manufacturing catches up.

BTW - if it was only first discovered/developed in the 90s I would say that it is new technology.

[flanque]

There has to be something different here. The news article I originally read which lead me to search YouTube was recent within this week or two. Perhaps it's now more commercially affordable or more advanced? I haven't known of light bulbs that have a temperature that is close to that of the surface of the sun and these efficiencies.

Not sure, maybe it wasn't as advanced previously?

[ccCapt]

Do a Google search for "sulphur lamp".