The AM Forum

How long now before NOS GE lightbulbs hit EBAY at exorbitant prices? 


Full story at
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_699116.html

At least I can order my heavy duty incandescents on line still...

That's not far from here.

I should probably go down with a film camera and photograph the place.

Similar problem happening with replacement sealed-beam headlights. It's been a few years since ANY automobile used round quad set. So I've been stocking up.

Just like vacuum tubes.

That article was pretty interesting. Did anyone catch the figures there?

The Chinese engineer stated that for his operation to come to America and manufacture, the bulbs would rise in cost about 10% ... 50 to 60 cents a piece.

G.E. did a study to retrofit an existing American plant to manufacture them, but the cost would be that bulb prices would rise 50% higher. So manufacturing would take place overseas for cost effectiveness.

Hmmmm...

Let's assume that G.E., being one small facet of good 'ole American big business, is already charging what the market will bear for their CFL's now. That means someone is putting a healthy 40% in their pocket.

Pretty interesting indeed!

No small wonder our economy is in the tank.

73, Phil

And the gloomy part, according to some experts, is that it will take about 10 yrs to recover. Third World status here we come

Fred

We here in Michigan are enjoying a 13.1% unemployment rate. That doesn’t include people that have run out of unemployment benefits. We in Macomb County have a higher rate of 14.4%. Is everybody happy here in Michigan? With wages down and high unemployment the tax roles have shrunk. So those of us whom are left get our taxes raised.  I know it’s hard to believe but crime is up go figure. And guess what is the fastest growing business in Mi. is?  “Medical Marijuana” I don’t think that’s going to create a lot of jobs. Or a motivated work force is that those green jobs their talking about? I didn't mean to hijack the thread.

73 N8QPC

think about it next time you are in wallmart saving money after the ride in your imported car that you bought to save money

You won't ever find me in Walmart. I live right behind them and the only thing i get from them is QRM. And I only drive American cars I buy what i build.
John

I think that what we "build" here today are in reality sub-assemblies and components mostly manufactured out of country.  It's no longer the method Henry Ford used.  The first Fords were assembled from components actually manufactured on site.  The concept of raw materials entering on one end of the plant and the finished product exiting out of final assembly is a thing of the past.

John, you may pass.
Many people think they can be well paid then spend their money on cheap imported junk. Then wonder why everyone is out of work.

I'm still using incandescent bulbs but running out. Tried the new ones. I didn't see much difference off hand. I thought they wud have a ghoulish fluorescent look, but seem OK. What do others think?

Are they generally more expensive than the old incandescents?

T

Most things are cheap imported junk. Anyone who says they don't buy the stuff is FOS.

I try not to buy import stuff but there is no such thing as an American TV, or electronic component. But one thing I don't buy is imported food. With the exception of Bananas, I don't need any Salmonella with my vegetables thank you.

John

Four vehicles here:

Daughter drives a 2008 Flex-Fuel Chevy Malibu. Made in USA and runs on on $2.15/gallon 85% American Made Ethanol.

I drive a Ford F-250 diesel and usually B-20 Biodiesel fuel. Truck made in Louisville, KY. Fuel is usually from Iowa. 190,000 miles.

Wife drives a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Made in Ohio, USA.

Son drives a Ford Focus. 30-35 MPG gasser and manufactured in Detroit.

My wife grew up in a manufacturing town in Ohio her brother was a lifer at Timken, and we both have always made an effort to buy products that directly support American business. It's not so difficult. Now, Timken's gone. Hoover is gone. Canton Ohio is another Detroit.

The problem is that most folks talk the talk but don't walk the walk. I will pay 10% more for a product made here in the USA of comparable quality.

Am I stupid? You betcha.

I once bought a new Toyota. I loved that car. It rusted through and even the rear axle gears wore out after 100,000 miles. Junked it. Why would I buy another?

I don't have a problem with free trade. As long as it's fair and bilateral.  But we need to support our neighbors and American manufacturers if given a chance or it'll end up costing us a whole lot more (unemployment, loss of tax revenue, standard of living) in the long run. Pay now or pay later.

 " Made in USA and runs on on $2.15/gallon 85% American Made Ethanol."


'cource, the per gallon ethanol subsidies total $1.95.....
(http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/01/rice_university_analysis_quest.html)

The 10% ethanol fuel is subsidized by $.045 a gallon.   I can't buy 'regular' gas here in the Empire State.


My made in America Ford Ranger had the Mazda transmission in it...... The Canadians have the toilet paper market sewn up.

 It's tough buying made in america stuff. I went to harbor freight; almost all of the stuff I picked up was from China.  I went to a  Army/Navy store (not walley worl). I bought a pair of work boots, made in America, for $132. The other stuff was crap made in China, at about $99 a boot.


klc

I buy American if I have a choice and pick that over price.
We do not have free trade. It isn't even trade. It is dumping.
We just keep dropping the value of the dollar and send it away.

Isn't Canada in America?

Well, yes. But I'd buy ethanol fuel at a higher price without the government subsidy.

Look at it this way..Where does the money for the subsidies come from? Everyone that pays taxes. So you're paying for it, whether or not you use it. They might as well not subsidize it; I'd buy E85 anyway as a personal one-finger gesture to our friends in Venezuela and the Middle East.  Again, the problem is that the public doesn't care about buying American, all they want is the cheapest gas, even if it came from the Devil himself, they'd still buy it. We will go to war to protect our petroleum supplies. Remember Kuwait? What's that cost? Without any oil, they aren't a pimple on America's derriere. With tax breaks and all, petroleum is actually quite heavily subsidized by taxpayers as well.

Everyone talks the talk but they don't walk the walk.

my next truck will be E85 but my finger is up now to the blood suckers. Drill deep water but do it right.

  " Isn't Canada in America? "

Yes it is .....

 so is France.... .. Saint Pierre and Miquelon


klc

Well, if the US is ever going to get out of this mess, we have GOT to STOP electing "social engineers" to run the government.

The current regulatory and tax policies that small business have to deal with are counter to any sort of job creation or investment.  The big businesses have the congress and the laws pretty much on their side... but they don't create the most jobs, the small businesses do.

The current tax policies and tax policies that are going to kick in next year and the year after that, are targeting the small business owners the hardest.  Where does this idea come from that small business owners are "rich"??  Then the class envy kicks in, and the notion comes about that these "rich" don't pay enough in taxes - absolutely foolhardy. 

The actual rich (who you never see because they live in places you can't afford to even visit) pay a much smaller percentage in taxes than the so-called "rich" small business owner who probably lives next door to you and to me and works 80 or more hours a week !!

The current tax policies punish work.  On the other hand, they reward passive income and/or playing the government's game.  Figure that??!!??
If we really want to get out economy working, we have GOT to get the government OUT OF THE WAY of small business.  I could go on about all the control we have systematically handed over the the federal government, but that's another discussion.

The US has some of the highest business taxes in the world.  Do we really want this?  All it does is drive business away.

Really, why tax businesses at all?  It just doesn't make sense.  Businesses either pay out their profits to individuals (who eventually pay taxes on the money), or they REINVEST IT BACK INTO THE BUSINESS TO CREATE MORE JOBS !!!!!!  Every dollar the government takes from a business or business owner is one more dollar that is not available to be reinvested back on the business and/or the economy.

The ONLY fair tax is a flat consumption (sales) tax on everything, collected at the end point when the sale is made to the final end user.  Everyone pays it and everyone pays the same percentage.  The wealthy pay, the illegal aliens pay, the criminals pay, the middle class pays.  And yes, even the poorest would pay something.  I used to believe in an income "threshold", below which you would not have to pay the sales tax, but I have come to understand that in creating such a threshold, we then create a whole class of people who are completely disinterested in what is going on in Washington because it doesn't cost them anything.  By having everyone participate in the supply side - everyone has a vested interested in participating in the system.

With such a tax, if Washington wants more money, EVERYONE is going to notice it and everyone will pay it - and believe me, things would change radically in our systsem if this were the case !!

When Ronald Reagan took power in 1981, Americans lived completely different lives. Downsizing - the concept of mass layoffs in order to boost a CEO's bonus - hadn't entered the vocabulary. Neither had outsourcing….. When Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers in 1981, the air controller's union broke - and so did a whole way of life. From then on it was open season on the American worker. This was only the beginning of the demise of the middle class. When Mr. Clinton signed NAFTA he must have had Monica on his mind. Ross Perrot was right when he said all you will hear is a sucking sound. To compound matters we have had one expensive war after another in an attempt to police the world.  I think we should close our borders and screw the rest of them.  Other countries kill people when they violate their borders. This country needs to grow some balls or it will cease to exist. When the common man in this country can no longer afford to feed his family, or put a roof over their heads something will have to give.

Capitalized profits, socialized losses.

And the supreme court just declared that corporations are persons, who are free to buy elections.

all the CFLs that I put into this house about 7 years ago, they've all pretty much fried.  Had one let go about a week ago.  Can't stand that electronic burn smell.  I'm back to incandescent bulbs for the most part.   I've been hoarding incandescent bulbs.  The day they are outlawed here in the states isn't very far away.  They're banned in some Euro countries now and we always seem to have a reason to follow Europe like they're smarter or something.  Ten years after they'll be money in the bank.

I have a small hoard.  But I don't buy the dinky, flimsy things the "normal" product has become.  They burn out after a few weeks, and you can't bump them or drop them more than 4 inches without destroying the filament.  I hoard those wonderfully inefficient "long life" bulbs with a rugged filament, the ones you can  drop onto a concrete floor and they keep on burning.

Most of them are NOT made in USA. They mostly come from former communist countries in eastern Europe. I suspect there is nothing special about them; they are simply normal bulbs used in those countries before they began courting the EU. Many countries use 220 volts at the mains, and their bulbs have a bayonet base instead of screw-in, but some of the east Europeans use 110 volts and screw-in bases.  That's where our "long life" bulbs come from.

And they still come with real brass bases.

I think I'd better give up my incandescent bulbs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k

Love it

It would be funnier if it wasn't a satire of a real situation. 

My daughters science classes are no longer teaching real sciences, but enviro-speak rubbish.  The scientific method has fallen completely out of the realm of the class room, since it flies in the face of accepting something based on common thought or convention, since neither require actual proof, and benefit from lack of independent thought.

No one teaches real chemistry or physics because they have to spend so much time on environmental studies ( or how chemistry is tied into the environment) and yet we all decry the lack of performance of those subjects in American schools.

The same mentality as the anti-AM "spectrum conservation" bullshit we endured from the late 50s through the mid 90s. 

Instead of worrying about incandescent  lamps, why not something to curtail the unnecessary light pollution that covers every square inch of every urban area in the entire world? Those who run things have now become afraid of the dark, so every street, house and business has to be artificially lit up throughout the hours of darkness, whether there is anyone there or not.

It is supposed to get dark outside at night.
(http://darkskyinstitute.org/images/CITYLITE2.gif)

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/light-pollution/richardson-photography

There is a push by those in favor of energy efficient lighting to do away with so-called edison socketing in new lighing fixtures.

The claim is that edison-socket fixtures would not be efficient with light due to the proposed shapes of new LED and fluorescent lamps, particularly the LED lamps which naturally emit light in only one direction. It adds cost and complexity to make an omnidirectional LED light bulb.

There is already a war brewing between fluorescent and LED factions because of similar conversion efficiencies over incandescent lamps.

For use in situations other than omnidirectional table lamps, It is in the interest of LED faction to promote, even mandate all new (primarily ceiling) fixtures that are not designed to use the all-direction emission of fluorescent (and incandescent) lamps.

They see the installed base and the traditional use of edison sockets as well as the popular edison-base CFL, as a huge block to their business plans to dominate the industry because it would allow any type of lamp to be used, not only the more costly LED.

The only real issue with a screw-in unidirectional LED lamp designed to replace an edison bulb or CFL is base indexing so that the light goes in the correct direction. They also seek to have the ballast not in the replaceable lamp, but in the fixture, further restricting product technology choices.

This will eventually force people away from traditional lamps and CFLs towards the new technology.

It is also likely that it will cause a limitation on the choices of wattage, similar to the way a 40 watt fluorescent fixture cannot accept any other wattage of lamp.

For example, in the ceiling of a typical cookie-cutter house, the owner will only be able to install a 20 watt LED lamp that fits that standardized fixture and its "ballast", instead of choosing from 7.5 to 150W incandescent or equivalent CFL lamps and just screwing them in according to their own wishes.

It is a scheme with the result of removing choices from people without regard for the individual lighting intensity desired, all under the flying flag of eco-nonsense.

LED manufacturers are quick to slap the green label on, but underneath that label is the hidden environmental costs of a semiconductor manufacturing plant. And it does not matter how many "carbon credits" such a plant buys, the waste is the same. We all live with semiconductor devices, and whether nor not we care about, or are willing to pay for, the chemcial process impact, we have to acknowledge its cost when choosing a light. So, when you see a LED lamp label touting "no mercury", please remember the thousands of gallons of really nasty chemicals used in a semiconductor manufacturing process. It's a wash (punintended)

There are choices for the end user. In a lab at work, where lighting of a constant color temperature is required, and the light level is to be variable, it was accomplished with a bank of ten 32 watt T8 fluorescent lamps, and they can be turned on one at a time. It required ten electronic ballasts to do that. just a little ingenuity.

Hopefully, as new lighting technology becomes commonplace, manufacturers will give consideration to the use of multiple-lamp fixtures and dimmable ballasts in order to meet the requirements of users. If not. we will just have to make our own, as we do with more complex electronic equipment every day.

if you can't win by marketing a superior product, then win by legislation and litigation... and to hell with what people want.

Don,
I couldn't agree more.  As one like many here who enjoy sitting outside in the dark looking at the stars, light pollution is a big bugaboo of mine. Night is supposed to be night.  Even out here in rural CT we are plagued by skyglow from the 2 casinos, the capital city which are about 20mi away and the center of our dinky town.  There's so much waste on lighting up stuff that does not need to be lit up.

Those two casinos produce a lot more polution than light . It is a low life magnet to attract dirt bags to SE Ct.

Makes you wonder who the real terrorists are.

Don't you know it!  That's a completely different subject. Don't get me started ;)

But many of the parts are made outside the USA.

The computer you typed your message on is made outside the USA, as where the routers, switches and most everything else connected to it.

We're fooling ourselves with the I Buy American BS.

LOL. So now they're on equal footing with unions which have been buying elections for decades.

So, you hate Native American tribes, eh?

They can move to your town any time you want Steve. Dirt bags come free.

Oh,  and real Indians are beautiful people

Start hoarding.  I have a special place reserved in my new attic.   Anyone done business with these folks? You can buy by the case - that's 120 bulbs @ $48 for the brass base long life ones

http://www.bulbs.com/Incandescent_Bulbs/results.aspx

I'm getting ready to place my first order.

Al

I have about 100 bulbs in my stash. LEDS should be cheap by the time I run out. I bought some 1 watt LED night lights with 3 leds with photo sensors.
They throw off lots of light.

The white man trashed up the entire state of CT and you're complaining about a little casino for the Indians.  ::)

Steve said:
You are absolutly right, Steve! Look on the new car "sticker" and you will see the breakdown of what is made where.
I think we ought to adopt the same philosophy as the EU does with pharmaceuticals: " X% of it must be made in the EU in order for it to be sold in the EU."

Thanks for the link Al.
I have been getting 130V Chinese lamps for the ceiling lights and the footcandles aren't as high as the Phillips 130V they replace.  Will try your vendor.

And as a slight aside...

For those with Collins Broadcast rigs in 20 V2/ 300J/ 21E range,  the GE Lumiline lamps are still avaiable,  and if one is not going to retrofit to LED or flourescent,  then the following may be of some interest:

GE Lumiline Lamps:
http://www.elightbulbs.com/library/general_electric_lumiline_light_bulbs.cfm

Lumiline Lamp End Clips:
http://store.candlepower.com/geluendcl1.html

Note,  I have not done business with either of these companies.
But I recently broke a GE LL Lamp,  so am going to need to snag a few.  Vic

As far as I'm concerned those "energy saver (waster)" CFL bulbs stink. They are total garbage. More cheap Chinese made junk. And , as an aside, those so called "environmentally friendly" bulbs contain mercury and are  hazardous.  The environment doesn;t need us to "clean it up". The environments taken care of itself for millions of years without our help. It's pretty arrogant to think that it needs us  to keep it going.

Energy saver bulbs ? No thanks.  I'll stick with my good ol fashioned incandescent bulbs. And when they finally pry the last incandescent bulb from my hands I'll just break out the kerosene lamps  and use those instead.  Oh wait, I don;t have toi break out  the kerosene lamps, I never stopped using them to begin with.

Of course.

I have to stifle a laugh whenever I see these "Out of work yet? Just keep buying foreign" bumper stickers.

You can't build a car today without using microchips manufactured in China, Taiwan and Japan, plastics made from oil imported from the middle east and a whole host of other materials which are procured from manufacturers overseas. Same goes for a lot of other technological products, including the computer you are reading this on.

Even the vacuum tubes in your transmitter may have been manufactured in China or Russia. Definitely your transistors and microchips in your modern rig came from some overseas plant too.

Your so-called "homegrown" cars like Ford, Chevy, Chrysler are made from many parts which are available overseas at the prices which make them competitive. This is the nature of capitalism - the free unhindered flow of capital to wherever the best profit occurs.

It's funny however that Hondas and Toyotas made on the North American continent are still profitable and still just as good as those manufactured overseas.

Just my 2 cents worth. There is no such thing as "homegrown", unless you are planting and growing your own vegetables in your backyard....even then, the seeds you planted may have come from somewhere else.

The supreme court decision specifically accommodated unions along with corporations.

Do you really think the remnants of trade unions as they exist in the US, even the big ones like the Teamsters, are on anywhere near equal footing with Microsoft, ExxonMobil and JPMorgan Chase?

Considering they openly donated about 1 Billion in the last election, it would be hard to see it any other way. The under the table money is easily 10 times that amount.

It's a world economy. The "US only silliness" is a continuation of narrow-minded thinking from the 1950s. It might have made sense then, since we had bombed all other competing economies into oblivion. Those days have been gone for decades but too many Americans can't or won't understand that the world has changed. Instead of taking the time when we had no competition to position ourselves, we spent the 50-70's getting fat and dumb.

Not to mention all the dirt bags in the beltway  providing tax cuts to send middle class jobs to china.

Interesting idea - "We bombed all other competing economies into oblivion."


I had to buy a lot of hardware over the last few months for some big non-ham projects here. Most of my comparison shopping has been on the web. I am amazed at the quality of the electronics coming out of China. Their other hardware is not too shabby either, for the price - their prices can't be beat. It's all designed as throw-away products. For example, I picked up a decent quality 24 hour light timer the other day. $5.95! How the heck can they design, build, pay wages, SHIP it from China and still make a profit for the USA distributer and retailer?

I still maintain that when we eventually emerge from this deflation, China will lead the whole whirl in economic power. Cyclically, they are where the USA was after WWII - poised for expansion. As the USA staggers to get sober, China will be kicing ass over the next 20+ years.  Despite their problems they are still holding their own. The rest of the whirl will catch up much later - probably after most of us here are gone.

T  

I just read a piece in the local Carmel paper that was the usual dreary stuff about the economic forces we all know about that have sent jobs packing, trade deficits growing.  It made the continued decline of the US economy sound inevitable. 

But not all western economies are in the same boat.  Germany runs a trade surplus.  Can you imagine that?  Here's a democratic country with high wages, strong safety net, strong worker protections, universal health care for heaven's sakes, not a whole lot of natural resources, stronger environmental laws than ours not to mention lousy weather and it runs a trade surplus.

 Something about their system works.

Couldn't agree more !  The government should not be ABLE to tinker with taxes in this way and create policies such as you pointed out.  We NEED a FLAT RATE National Sales Tax.  This is a tax on consumption, not on work.  Think about that - what business would NOT want to be here in the US if the business were allowed to just be in business, buy stuff, hire people, produce stuff (or services) and do what it wants with its profits?  Since virtually all money the money made in this country is eventually spent - althought it may take a while, but it does get spent - there would be sufficient tax revenue.

Most Germans are better educated and more industrious than the average American. We get what we deserve.

I don't recall one tax cut that sent jobs anywhere. Labor is cheaper overseas than it is here. It's really that simple. Labor intensive industries in the US either adapted with automation, crapped out or moved operations out of the country. Most of the laborers here were way overpaid anyway - part of the fat and dumb syndrome.

Flat tax is just another tax. Do away with ALL Federal income tax. If you don't want the gov doing stupid stuff - de-fund them. All the rest is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

That's the way it used to be, prior to the 16th Amendment, with the exception of the emergency income tax imposed during the Civil War.  The federal government was funded primarily by tariffs imposed on imported goods. The tariffs did double duty and protected home-based manufacturing by artificially raising the prices of cheap imports so that US manufactured goods remained price competitive.

That's what I said - get rid of the income tax, do a national sales tax.

As a practical matter, we are not going to just de-fund the federal government, at least all at once and it's never going to happen in that manner.  We can and should start to systematically elminiate portions of the federal government one agency at a time if necessary, until most of it is gone.

In order to get there, the populus MUST elect constitutional conservatives who believe in this sort of thing AND they must have a supermajority in congress to override vetos.

Will we get there?  We'll see, but I am rather skeptical.  We do have someone running in our district who is a self-declared constitutional conservative.  Running against John Olver.  I recently attended a town hall style forum with this guy, and he's pretty much right on the money.  The press, of course, is trying to portray the guy as a kook, but I'm hopeful that after what's happened in the recent past, the electorate is starting to understand the lame-stream press has a generally socialist agenda.

One can hope !

The secret to saving incandescent lamp filaments is to treat them like they are boat anchors and bring them up slowly on a circuit controlled by a variac.  What pops the filament eventually is the sudden surge that comes when you snap on one of those wall switches that has a spring loaded contact, the click-bang types. 

I am not convinced the current administration is as aggressively anti-business as some people seem to think it is.   Some facts:  This administration tried to get a tax cut for small businesses and it was blocked by Republicans in the Senate.   It resuscitated General Motors so that they could issue in IPO.   The second quarter this year corporate profits were up 39.2%, the best results in 3 years.  The auto industry bailout is now expected to cost less than $24B, far less than was originally predicted.  In September, consumer sales were up 29%.  The Dow and NASDAQ in September posted the best gains in 71 years for that month.   

America is a powerful economy and I think we are going to recover more quickly than expected.   

Rob

Tie congress life long benefits to SS and everything will get fixed fast.
Tie congress health care to the rest of us and that will get fixed fast also.
We have a ruler class now

No child left behind is a friggen joke. My kids tell me it is just an excuse to stop teaching. All kids do now is prepare for a test.
Homeland security another joke give the money to the FBI and park the Army
at the border.
 

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

- - Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835

That's a fact HUZ.
We pay to get screwed more.
We pay taxes to reward outsourced jobs.

The problem is, although "jobless" is probably an exaggeration and a scare-word, it's going to be a job-deficient recovery.  Where are the jobs to come from, when  so much of our production has moved overseas, and more is still moving? The kind of employment we had a generation ago is never coming back.  Many of the jobs that do appear will be low paying. Ross Perot proved correct when he talked about that huge "sucking sound" made by jobs moving out of the country. "Sucking" can be interpreted two ways.

I'm afraid our standard of living has taken a plunge, better termed a permanent readjustment. The myth of "American Exceptionalism" has finally crashed and burned. We are now competing with the rest of the world for resources of world-wide provenance. Not just oil, but the rare-earths essential for producing high-tech hardware like solar panels, IC chips, catalytic converters, batteries, etc.

All the hype we hear about government (at all levels, local to federal) spending beyond its means with borrowed money it doesn't have, is only part of the picture.  The other half: we as "consumers" (I hate that word) are equally to blame.  Our whole "consumer economy" is based on two things: (1) waste and (2) credit (buying stuff  with money we don't have).

Congress and politics have been completely ineffective in dealing  with  the new reality. Politicians to-day of all stripes have turned out to be a bunch of spineless wimps looking no further into the future than the next election. Instead of attempting to realistically deal with the issues at hand, political debate in this country has become stalled in knee-jerk politico-religious dogma.

Politicians talk a lot of nonsense: vague statements, contradictory claims and overly general answers. For example, practically every candidate for every office claims to advocate "smaller government" in Washington.  But what exactly do they mean? Should we cut the defence budget? The budget for the US Dept of Education? Funding for highway construction and maintenance? NASA? FCC enforcement? Doesn't this really mean cutting well-loved services that everyone has come to expect and take for granted? Most of us are all for reducing the size of government and cutting services EXCEPT for the ones that benefit us most directly. Sort of a not-in-my-backyard mentality.

The tragedy of it all is that we saw this coming decades ago.  I recall hearing predictions in 1974 of an eminent collapse of the economic system, pretty much describing exactly what happened two years ago. It just took longer than anticipated. One problem is that existing policy has been a victim of its own success.  For example, the recent stimulus package and bank bailouts probably saved us from a second Great Depression, but has left us drowning in even more debt that we'll never be able to pay off. We averted a full-blown economic crisis, but that placated the population enough to ward off 1930s and 1960s style protests in the street and popular demand for reform - whatever  that would have ultimately meant.  In this country, public intolerance is crisis-oriented. Little meaningful reform ever gets done until the faecal matter physically comes in contact with the fan blades.

Hopefully, the pressure won't build up to the exploding point as it did in the US in 1861, Russia in 1917 or Germany in 1936. In the meantime, I'll keep on hoarding my long-life incandescent lamps, and continue run my QRO tube-type transmitters built out of flea-market scrap that nobody else wanted, without griping too much about the extra pennies added to my electric bill every month because of the measures taken by the power company to reduce the sulphur content spewed out of the nearby coal-burning power plant that has been causing my tower to rust away.  And while I am at it, I am looking at wood burning heating systems, and wishing I could eradicate the poison ivy that creeps all over the unlimited supply of firewood growing on my property.

I agree with that.

There is something else, though. No matter how motivated or educated a worker might be, it's meaningless if your employer is mismanaged. Dilbert was started by an ex-phone company employee.. based on personal experience.

If you think about it, from pharmaceuticals to automotive to manufacturing, it's obvious that many German companies are better run than their American counterparts. Not all, but a good many.

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
- Ben Franklin

“I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
- Thomas Jefferson

I wrote: Most Germans are better educated and more industrious than the average American. We get what we deserve.

My statement includes ALL, not just workers (an anachronistic term), but management, leadership (or whatever you choose to call it) and government too.

I have begun hoarding some incandescent bulbs in several wattage categories.

Has anyone done any studies of the visible light spectrum of available CFL's?  I wonder if they produce several specific "frequencies" that appear to our eyes as white (or whatever color temperature you choose)?   Is the spectrum "spread out" like incandescents, or concentrated on several wavelengths to look like "white"?   To my aging eyes, I find that a 2700 degree K tungsten glow is "yellowish" looking, and 3200 degree K looks "white". 

Also, has anyone done any studies on the 60Hz "flicker" rate?   I remember years ago while I was visiting London, UK, that even the 220 volt @ 50Hz incandescents had a perceptible "flicker".  When I was there in 1989, the British TVs that used a 50Hz vertical scan rate were hard to watch due to the flicker.

I haven't tried any LED bulbs on 60 Hz.  What if we ran LED lamps on pure DC to eliminate all the flicker?  Or has anyone heard of longer persistence phosphers on the CFL's to minimize flicker?   Or can CFL's run on pure DC?

Meanwhile, I am stocking up on incandescents, and a few fixtures to hold them....to keep me going for the next 10 or more years that I may be around.  Hmmmm, maybe I could use some of my older 12 volt DC power supplies to run some small incandescent bulbs in the shack, or for reading?  I am pretty sure that 12 volt incandescents will be available for some time yet due to the automobile market. 

You just don't know.....He who controls the gold etc......

73
Ted W8IXY

This Wiki article is interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp

...  In the past,  have seen graphic spectrum of different flourescent lamps,  but googleing around now,  cannot seem to find it.

I have no problems using CFLs..  Seem to me to work fine.  Have used an 8-ish inch circular flourescent swing-arm  liamp at the computer desk/OP position,  with very good results.

I see NO flicker in almost any flour lamp,  unless the tubes are cold,  and it is not of the HO or VHO variety (those designs start and run well at low temps).

Incandescent light is more pleasant,  but with our electric rates in CA (as high $0.75/KWh , IIRC, on Time-of-use plan),  I usually use flour.

BUT,  I,  too have been collecting incandescent bulbs.  In CA,  with great wisdom,  our State legislature has mandated that the standard incandescent bulb power ratings be reduced.  So now the "Standard 100 w" bulb is 87,  or 90W IIRC.  There may even a power step-down table vs time.  Some day,  the 100 W bulb may be 20 Watts !

To me,  it is like the low flo toilets.  For those who collect their own water,  and have their own septic systems,  there should be the option to flush with 5 gallons if so desired,   BUT for me,  we still need some government,  and definitely some REGULATION on the mega corporations ... OOOPPPSS too political !   73     Vic

It's not only incandescent lamps, but the socket bases that are being taken off the market.  A couple of years ago I tried to buy a ceiling fan lighting fixture, and all I could find were ones with the miniature screw-in sockets that take the expensive "novelty" bulbs.  The vendor told me that new regulations allowed only the smaller bases and that the standard bases had been outlawed for lamps and light fixtures.  As I recall, he said the reasoning was that the miniature lamps are available in low wattage sizes only, and that this would prevent the customer from installing 100 watt or larger bulbs that exceed the ratings of the fixture.

I ended up finding a junk light fixture at a second-hand store and re-used the old standard sockets to repair the fixture I was going to replace. Less convenient, but I saved a few bucks in the process.

BTW, I was able to modify my toilet to flush with more water.  Just a matter of adjusting the float.  Most toilets have a tank that holds several gallons, but the float is set to allow only 1.6 gallons per flush.  Mine was on a little chain, and all I had to do was move the hook that holds  the float to a different link on the chain.  I don't think it uses a full 5 gallons per flush, but I adjusted it to the point that it gets the job done in one flush, thus saving water.  And I need to save water since I use a septic tank and the soil doesn't percolate very well, so flushing with too much water causes problems when the ground gets soggy in winter.

Flourescent lights cause my son migranes - believe it or not.  I wasn't sure but I replaced various CFLs in the house and his migrane count dropped  a bit.  they don't bother me, physically,  but I wonder if they flicker or if the light frequency is something that can affect individuals?

I used the screw on light sockets to make my dummy load, they were brown plastic, with two screw terminals for the wires, and two holes for screws to be mounted directly on a board or wall.  Worked great.  Can't find them anywhere now.

I replaced yet another one in the kitchen fixture. The LAST one I will buy.  They cost 5x an incandecent and last about as long, and when they go they overheat. This one was burnt brown along the flat part the bulb comes out of.  

At this point, even if they were as inexpensive as incandecent bulbs, I wouldn't buy them based on the hot failure mode.  

Besides, with all the wall warts and appliances with microcontrollers sitting on standby in the house, I'm sure the lighting is a fraction of the real waste of power.

I gotta find a big generator and start making my own...

When I was a kid in school, the old fashioned standard long tube fluorescent lights seemed to give me a headache. 

Blue light from the computer screen is like caffeine and keeps me awake at night if I use the computer too close to bed time.  So I bought a pair of special safety goggles with lenses that filter out blue light, and I now sleep fine even if I spend 2  hours on the computer right before I go to bed.  I am thinking maybe blue light from fluorescent lamps may have the same effect.  When I first take off the goggles after the computer screen is turned off, the CFLs seem to give out a bluish glow until my eyes become accustomed to being without the orange filters.  I don't notice the effect with incandescents.  Maybe blue light is also what causes the headaches.

I predict that sometime around the year 2025 there will be a news flash about a study of CFL's in use for the last 15 years appearing to be a leading cause of skin cancer in young adults.

don't worry, they are working on a pill for it now

The spectrum of an incandescant bulb is pretty broad and skewed towards the red, actually peaking outside the visible range at about 1100 nm. There are strong, narrow spectral lines around 540 and 600 nm in newer fluorescent bulbs. Older ones had some stronger lines even more in the blue end at around 430 and 540 nm and also a broad hump in at the red end closer to 600 nm.

FWIW, I have yet to have a CFL bulb last as long as the blown out incandesent bulb that i replaced with it. they seem to last maybe a year at best and crap out. some of the cheaper ones dont last that long. So what am I saving? ? ?

I have had pretty much enough of this bogus bend over and go green szht!! Pay more to get less.

One thing that just tickled me was on our local 6:00 news, one of the anchors was having organisms for everyone to participate in the green lawnmower trade in at our stadium. Proclaiming: "bring in your old polluting gas powered lanmower and recieve a free dowm payment on a new non polluting electric one" And you could really hear the enthusiasm in her voice. What a rip-off. But you could do the "Green" thing if you were stupid enough.

I really enjoy cutting my grass with my 2-stroke Lawn Boy mower!! I even mix double the oil with the gas so I can see it smoke!! If I ever really decide to "reduce my carbon footprint" I will start eating less gassy foods! ! ! !   ::)  ::)  :o  :o

Also, I'm just sick and tired of getting rid of an older item, only to find that the new item that I replaced it with is no where as good an the "old outdated" one that I just discarded, and then longing to have the original item back.

you hit the nail dead on the head.  Most older stuff I have is pretty rugged, and easily repaired with a little elbow grease and a few parts.  Lot's of stuff gets tossed, not because it doesn't work, but merely because it's old.   The people have been programmed by marketing that old stuff is junk and only the latest gadget will work blah blah blah...   Of course if you can't fix things yourself, the repair rates are often times close to the cost of a new crappy unit, so off they go.  Cars are a good example. Used to be you could fix your car, and keep it running. Even putting a new engine into a car was a good idea (still is in some cases). New cars today seem to be designed to have "all the parts wear out at the same time.  Kinda like the wagon in Mr Twains tale.  People have an aversion to repairing them, and would rather spend 10's of thousands on a new car, instead of a few thousand on replacing the engine/transmission.

Ed,
     Another Prime example was my old 27" Sony Trinitron tv that I had in the living room. It crapped out. It had the same problem I have fixed before- a 3A / 600v bridge rectifier shorted out and took out the internal line fuse. This TV had a fantastic picture for a CRT television.

At the behest of the war dept, I went out and bought a new flat screen and discarded a tv that a $.79 part would have fixed to "join the 21st century".
I hate that flat screen tv so bad that 3-days old, I had it in my hands to literally throw it out the front door and smash it to crumbs. the war dept and I had a huge fight over it and I came within an inch of throwing it at her!! But by now the Trinitron is allready at the landfill, and I'm longing to have it back!! (You cannot buy a CRT type tv any more because of the "Green" "reduce the carbon footprint" szht anymore! #@$%^&**^%##@#@#$$%^&%*   ::)  ::)

I recently replace two "energy star" appliances.   One Maytag refrigerator that lasted only a few years after several repairs.   One dishwasher that didn't wash dishes.   It was traded less than two years old.   I replaced both with non energy star ratings.   The refrigerator is still working and the dishes are now clean.

I have tested the spectrum of CFLs... with a spectrometer!

They use the same rare earth phosphors as do all fluorescent lamps. So, the "white" is made up of
three spectra (wide ones) that are R,G&B. One gets the different "temperature" colors by changing the mix of RGB. I am not impressed with the light in many respects.

They don't save any money that I can see. They do permit a lower load to the power company. The consumer grade bulbs certainly do not last very long at all. Read the fine print on the multi thousand hour claim printed on the package!! HA!

I did just purchase a "red" CFL, called a "party lamp" at the discount store. It radiates a neat "neon" light! Beautiful amber color, lovely. I'll have to take it over to the place where the spectrometer resides and see how much blue from the mercury plasma behind the phosphor is escaping...

But I am looking forward to LED lighting... although that has the same phosphor issues too...OLEDs or similar distributed surface light emitters might be the best thing, if they come to fruition...

Right now I have end to end 4 bulb 40w fluorescent tube fixtures, 4 of them... 160watts burn per fixture, so 640+ watts when on. It would be nice to have the same light levels with 1/3 the power.

                 _-_-bear

You forgot to add "and twice as expensive" to the "no where as good".

That's been par for the course for decades.  I can recall my parents saying the same thing about stuff they bought back in the 50s. Each generation of "consumer" stuff tends to be inferior quality, more expensive and shorter lived than the one it replaced.  That is one reason I hate to be called a "consumer" and why I keep on  repairing something as long as I can before I replace it.  Usually I end up replacing it not because it is finally irreparable, but because replacement parts are nowhere available at any price and I find it impossible to fabricate one on my own.

What really pisses me off is when they "discontinue" a replacement part just about the time the original part would be expected to start to fail. I once had a  company employee tell me that I was being unreasonable, that I shouldn't expect to find a replacement part because the product was 15 years old.  What in hell do you expect, for a brand new one to need replacement parts?  That tells me the thing wasn't worth bringing home in the first place.

I was an early adopter and I will also mention my disappointment in the life of CFLs.

Here's an idea for you inventors. Some sort of cheap clip on photo cell and hour meter.

Clip meters on to your CFLs when new. After they crap out in 500-1000 hours, you have evidence, take them back to Home Depot for a refund or exchange.

Somebody will notice.

Boy,  I have had very good luck with the life of my CFLs.  Have run them for 3-4 years,  and have never had one crap out.  They do run hot,  and putting in a fixture or lamp which does not have good ventilation will kill them very quickly.  Have run the re-lampable electronic ballast flourescents for about 10 years before the CFLs became popular,  and those,  too, were fine.

Have put CFLs in can type ceiling fixtures,  which were designed for incandescents,  and that was a great improvement in life vs the incandescents.

Our utility,  PG&E  was subsidising CFLs a couple of years ago,  so they were 25-cents ea.  I have not measured their power consumption ...  know that the CFLs have a very poor Power-Factor -- they draw 90% of their input current over very few degrees of the AC cycle.

I dunno,  am Fat Dumb and Happy!   Vic

 Back in the late 90's, I had a screw in 120 v FL that I ran fer a while. If I remember, it was a philips. Lasted for a few years......  This thing wasn't made in China. It was a a short tube,about 5 in., bent back upon itself so the tube sections were "parallel" to each other. Werked FB.


klc

My CFL's were in open can style sockets, with either no globe or an open bowl shaped globe. In either case heat shouldn't have been an issue.  The turn brown and crap out just as often as the cheap filament types did. 

I really don't have an issue with CFL's per se.  It's the fact that the idiots in DC have taken choice and market out of the equation.  If they were a really good product, that saved the boat loads of money (by saving electricity costs) you wouldn't need to outlaw incandecents. Same with the LED lights.  If a product is really good, then the market will take care of the competition.

Ah well.  Four pages on a light bulb post!!  amazing.

Slab:  go to town:  http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=sony+Trinitron+TV (http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=sony+Trinitron+TV)

Then read this:  http://kenrockwell.com/tech/everything-sucks.htm (http://kenrockwell.com/tech/everything-sucks.htm)
I thought that was a pretty cool commentary.  I don't agree with all of it but it is entertaining  :D

I am selective on what I replace.  I am using CFLs but only in fixtures where they are an advantage such as hard to get to places where their longer life is a benefit, or in lamps that stay on a long time.   I have this one overhead fixture that is way up high over my basement stairs.  Getting to it is a PITA becuse I have to haul out a ladder from the garage and angle it in through the back door and prop it up, all to change one lousy bulb.   It used to be when I used an incandescent it would pop every 12 to 14 months always in the middle of winter with snow outside.  About 5 years ago I put in my first CFL in that fixture and it's been working ever since.    

The thing that is supposed to kill them is repeated on and off use where they are only on for a few minutes.   Any flourescent lamp is made to be left on for hours which is why they work better in offices and other places where the lights are on all day or all day and night.  

But, there are some things I need old bulbs for like lamps with dimmers on them.   I have a stash of various incandescent bulbs intended to last 10 years.

It's important to remember that the incandescent lamp phase-out only applies to a few types of bulbs.  For example small ornament bulbs like 5 watt Christmas tree lamps will still be around.   Ditto for refrigerator door lamps and other specialty bulbs.   Also before 2020 bulbs of wattage below 40 and above 150 are exempt as are the "rough service" bulbs which are popular with some readers here.  Most folks have an idea that all incandescent lamps are outlawed at the start of 2012.

For the full story read this Wikipedia entry on the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act which was signed into law by the President on December 19th 2007:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs)

All my appliances are ancient.  I am keeping them until they can no longer be repaired.  I know nothing new is made as well as they are.  My microwave is a Kenmore that's 30 years old and weighs more than most ham linear amps.   My oven is a Norge gas oven that's over 60 years old.  Gas furnace is a 55 year old Luxaire.

Rob

Rob,
       Ken Rockwell sounds like a man after my own heart. Like you, I dont agree with everthing he says, but I do agree with most of it!! Kool page!!

Computers are twice the price and far less capable than they used to be.

Cars do not last nearly as long as they used to and they do not handle anywhere as good as in years past. They require far more maintenance.

I’m always replacing tubes in my new TV set, and that rotary tuner needs cleaning often.

Yes, things always get worse.

2007 Energy Independence and Security Act . Oh boy. Any time I see the words "safe" or "secure" I just know that our money is being spent wisely. I dont know about you guys, but this whole light bulb switchover thing has got me feeling much more secure about our energy troubles. After all, we wont be funding terrorists with this switch. Wait a minute, the grid uses domestic energy. Scratch that. But we will be sending more money to a Communist country to make us mercury filled light bulbs. Yep Im feeling safer already. Cmon guys, lets all feel warm and fuzzy together as we stamp out our energy troubles.

I pretty much have the same negative opinion of this whole debacle as the rest of you guys.  To put a little positive spin on things, at least the 3 way bulbs have been excluded.  Many of my floor lamps are of that variety.

I will admit to one travisty - the new pantry had two incandencent 100 watt bulbs put in place.  I immediately replaced them with two CFLs of equivalent lighting -- sorry.  I'm still planning on hoarding bulbs

If the article on Wiki is correct. The whole world effort to eliminate all those incandescent bulbs will reduce CO2 emissions by ~55 million tons.  That is 1.1 x 10^-7 (0.00000011) percent of the earths atmosphere.

Which is roughly equivalent to a mouse farting in a pro-football stadium.

 The amount of mercury now floating around in all those CFLs is 17500 TONNES (metric - based on an estimated 3.5 billion CFLs in use for 2009 at 5mg Hg per bulb). Now I NOW everyone takes their CFLs and other fluorescent lights to the proper disposal facilities, who of course reclaim the materials properly... yea right.

The world is being run by idiots...

Steve said:
Where's my "Blue Shower"????  ;D

As a counter example to old appliances were good, new ones suck, I offer my Kenmore dishwasher.

I bought it six or seven years ago when something big broke on the Kitchenaid which I'd repaired many times over a couple of decades.  The Kenmore cleans extremely well,  is quiet as a mouse, and uses damned little water.  Except for speed it works a lot better than the old Kitchenaid.   It's only six years old, but so far zero problems.

About like the amount of energy saved by extending Daylight Shifting Time to start in early March while it is still winter.


Yes, the world is indeed run by idiots...

Franklin wrote a satirical article while he was living in Paris, after noticing that Parisians tended to sleep in later in the morning.  He never suggested anything like Daylight Shifting Time. The article was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

A writer in 1947 noted, "I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday.)

http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html

I don't know about the energy savings, but I like the long summer evenings we get here in the northeast during DST. I'm not a big morning person, so what's going on at that end of the day, before I get my coffee, doesn't interest me all that much, but I like it when it's still light at 9 pm and hate it when the days start getting shorter. The switch to DST is the death knell of a number of my after work outdoor activities for the season.

Years ago I traveled on motorcycle to Alaska, and then down to San Diego. Even in September, the days were long north of 50 degree latitude. I remember it being 11 pm and still being light out (gloaming) at the harvest fair in the Matanuska valley. In contrast, a couple of weeks later down in San Diego, I remember the sun going down at 6:30 ish and commenting to my cousin how weird that was. She told me it rarely went down much after 7 because of the low latitude. I am not sure  I'd enjoy that at all.

I guess it's largely what you get used to. I don't particularly like the shift twice a year, and I have friends who are so whacked out by it that they stay on DST year round (they work at home). I'd be happy to stay DST year round myself.

YMMV. In face it most certainly will.

I stay on STANDARD time or use GMT year round.  The sun is supposed to be directly overhead at noon. I don't like to jump out of bed before the crack of dawn and I enjoy a couple of hours of darkness before bed time.

Time, as we measure it, is purely an arbitrary concept.  We need orderly scheduled lives, that are now disconnected with the natural order of things like the seasons, day and night, cycles of the moon, the passage of the stars and planets.  Once you accept an arbitrary concept as a rule, you have to accept that it can be changed arbitrarily.  Why 12 hours in a day? why 60 minutes and 60 seconds? Why not? Why not metric time of 10 hour days, 10 day weeks, and 10 month years?  We fallen into this method of time keeping because our ancestors had a need to keep fear at bay by having an understandable, orderly universe, and only had limited instrumentation to pin down that universe.

So it's all nuts.

The French tried the 10 day week following the Revolution, but it didn't go over so well because of the extended work week between weekends, for those fortunate enough to even get a day off from work on the weekend.

I went exploring in some of the higher reaches of the garage this afternoon and came up with a 6-pack of Ken-Rad bulbs.  25W, 115V, looks like a G-25 globe, standard base  The white frosting on the glass seems to be painted on the outside rather than on the inside as with newer bulbs.  A quick internet search shows the factory was torn down in 2007, and that the plant long ago was bought out. No idea what vintage these bulbs might be, then, but they look pretty cool in an old lamp.

Ken-Rad, by 1952, was already part of Westinghouse according to a magazine ad I dug up.

Don

I'm looking forward to retirement (maybe).  When I retire -- all the clocks in my house will be EST

When and if I retire there will be two times in my house. Day time and night time

  "  When and if I retire there will be two times in my house. Day time and night time "



For me, I hope its Wild Time.


klc

Don't worry about the time.  Just take a walk on the wild side.  ;D

take this, all ye green pedagogues of CFLs and LEDs!

http://www.optoiq.com/index/photonics-technologies-applications/lfw-display/lfw-article-display/1878980169/articles/optoiq2/photonics-technologies/applications-__markets/energy-__environment/lighting-and_illumination/2010/8/lighting_-tailored.html

LIGHTING: Tailored emissivity paves way for 400 lm/W incandescent lamps

Aug 1, 2010

Just when you thought incandescent light bulbs were dead, researchers at Stanley Electric Corp. (Tsukuba, Japan), Osaka University (Osaka, Japan), Shizuoka University (Shizuoka, Japan), and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Tsukuba, Japan) have modified the blackbody radiation of an incandescent bulb, demonstrating the possibility of 95% electric power to visible-light conversion and paving the way for luminous efficiencies beyond 400 lm/W.1, 2

The inherent inefficiency of traditional incandescent lamps (only 2–5% of total input electrical power is converted to visible light, translating to low luminous efficiencies of 15–20 lm/W) has brought about their demise in favor of fluorescent lamps and LEDs. Unlike these modern sources, incandescent lamps require no external regulating equipment, are inexpensive to produce, and work on either alternating or direct current over a wide range of applied voltage values. Despite the failure of previous research to modify the blackbody radiation spectrum of an incandescent bulb (using expensive lithography and deposition techniques), the research team focused on selective-emitter design using tailored and less expensive thin-film coatings to improve efficiency.

High visible and low IR emissivity

Because visible radiation is typically 10% of the output from an incandescent bulb, with the remaining 90% being infrared (IR) radiation, an emitter should be designed with high visible emissivity and low IR emissivity. Using Kirchhoff's law, modeling shows that a material with high reflectance in the IR wavelength region and low reflectance in the visible region displays a reverse trend in emissivity. By imposing a step-function-like reflectivity onto the surface of the heating material, IR radiation is reduced.

The researchers fabricated such a thin-film structure (emitter) by co-sputtering 50 nm thick chromium metal and 50 nm thick chromium oxide onto a copper substrate. After deposition, a 50 nm thick tin oxide layer was deposited onto the chromium oxide layer to act as an antireflection coating. Spectrophotometer measurements from 300 to 1500 nm and Fourier-transform IR spectrometer measurements from 1500 nm to 20 μm showed that the film reduced IR radiation at wavelengths shorter than 5.5 μm (see figure).

A thin-film reflectance coating is the basis of an emissivity-modulated layer (inset shows a cross-sectional transmission-electron-microscope image) that shifts radiation toward the visible as shown in the plot of reflectance versus wavelength. (Courtesy of Shizuoka University)

The shift to visible emission (shorter wavelengths) occurs at temperatures between 580 and 870 K. Further mathematical modeling of the thin-film structure as a function of temperature shows that an emitter constructed with a reflectance cutoff wavelength in the visible region would have no IR component in its radiation spectrum and the conversion efficiency would exceed 90% at 2800 K. Because this efficiency is high, the bulb could be operated at lower voltages (with lower filament heating temperature), extending the lifetime of the emitter and the overall source.

Professor Makoto Tomita in the Department of Physics at Shizuoka University says, "We can make efficient monochromatic light sources such as blue, green, and red lamps by designing the reflectivity of a selective emitter. Almost 200 years have passed since the creation of the first incandescent light; however, there is ample scope for new discoveries and new applications in incandescence."–Gail Overton

REFERENCES
1. T. Matsumoto and M. Tomito, Opt. Exp. 18, 102, A192–A200 (Jun. 21, 2010).
2. T. Matsumoto et al., The Science and Technol. of Light Sources 12th Intl. Symp., paper CP091, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (Jul. 13, 2010).

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Interesting experiments on good old incandescent filaments.

One of the cop car spotlight manufacturers some years ago developed and marketed a replacement light unit that had higher visible light for the same power draw.  It wasn't just a halogen variant on the traditional sealed-beam, either, but something they too, had done with the filament composition.

In your post, I love how they noted the advantages of incandescent that would remain with the improved visible light spectrum..

but will they work for a dummy load?  ;)

Or in an EZ Bake oven?

Will it keep my dogs warm in the winter.

B,
Why dont you just put your feet over one of them thar ceramic heaters?
klc

Edison invented that new bulb and suppressed its use since he made more money from power generation :o ;D

Ah the conspiracy theory... I like it.  Perhaps the government has an alien designed "Super Bulb" that generates more light than power used, but the technology was surpressed by the electric companies?

oh wait, that was cars and oil... :D

I have a Hammy Hambone Mirage wattmeter that shows more rf output than the rig is running DC input.

And you're not even running a Class-E transmitter  ;D  ;D

At least it is good for bolstering one's ego  ;D

And his lesser known cousin Fumy Edison invented the 200 MPG carburetor but was quickly bought out by sinister forces within the petrochemical industry.  It was left up to great great grandson Lodestone Edison to bring out the miraculous gas line magnets to restore the family name and win accolades from environmentalists and sleazy direct marketers from across the globe .

Ban in Europe starts now for 100W incandescents.  People are hoarding.

I was an early adopter of CFL's in some fixtures.  If someone told me I had to use them, I'd be inclined to take them out. Here's the article in IEEE Spectrum.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/standards/deutschland-devours-the-last-of-its-100watt-incandescent-bulbs

Aptly named "Mirage". Their 6M leenyar is good though.

As for the ban in EU, now we can make money black marketing our lamps and edison sockets to Europe. Throw in a diode..