Generic name or type for standard light bulbs?

Factual Questions
1

It’s gotten complicated to specify a standard lightbulb. Many alternatives have incandescent equivalents on the package, but that measurement seems to be fading from use. It is minor except that I am doing a package design for a product that needs a “75-watt light bulb.”

Other than clumsily specifying a standard-base bulb of 75W incandescent equivalent such as a 23W CFL or 15W LED (or is it 19W?)… is there a specific, not-too-technoid term for each of 100W, 75W, 60W, 40W, 25W, 15W (incandescent equivalent) bulbs?

The general type and base seems to be “A21,” but that’s all medium-base bulbs, AFAICT.

Has anyone come up with a standardized naming system for medium-base “standard household” bulbs based on simple lumen equivalence?

2

Many bulbs have the actual number of lumens written on the package.

3

IC equivalent wattage seems to be the single ‘goto’ standard. Consumers know the brightness the want in term of IC, then they go from there and compare features and price. I don’t expect that to go away anytime soon.

4

Is the need for 75 watts one of power consumption, safe amount of heat or brightness?

I have seen on packages a notation that uses a pear shaped icon for standard incandescent bulbs and a twisty bulb shape for CFLs. I have no idea what an icon for an LED “bulb” would look like.

5

Can we assume this isn’t for an EZ-Bake oven :)?

I’ll agree that IC-equivalent wattage is the way to go for non-technical users. That’s how Cree and Philips advertise their LED bulbs, at least (the other numbers are there, but IC-equivalent watts is the most prominent).

6

Very close. It’s an inexpensive art projector (remember “opaque projectors” from your elementary school days?) It uses a nominally 75-watt bulb but the manufacturer wants to recommend cooler/safer options. I can’t think of a compact way to express the relationship.

I will probably use equivalents and then nominal wattages in smaller type.

7

For a projector you want a point source of light, IC or Halogen does OK, LED can too, CF not so much.

8

Not an opaque projector - you want strong, even illumination across the art area. The best use a powerful ring of lights; this is a low-cost one.

9

“A21” refers to the size and shape of the glass globe.
In the US, a standard 40/60/75/100 watt incandescent bulb is usually an A19. A few 100 watt and most 150 watt bulbs are A21.

The base of a typical screw-in bulb is designated with “E” (Edison) followed by a number. The typical 40/60/75/100/150 medium base bulb is an E26. The European equivalent is an E27. E26 and E27 are almost identical and for all practical purposes interchangeable.

So you have to give two numbers to specify a bulb size: the globe size and the socket size. If your device has a restriction on how large a bulb will physically fit into the allocated space, say something like “requires an A21 or smaller bulb” or “requires an A19 or A21 bulb.” To tell people what base their bulb must have say something like “requires an E26/E27 (medium) base.”

Now, the brightness of the bulb is a completely separate question. Preferably give the brightness in lumens and then note the typical equivalent incandescent wattage.

10

Thanks. I knew there were nomenclature standards for this kind of stuff, but I find it weird that there’s no one term (yet evolved) for “a 100/75/60 watt bulb.”

<fx Cracked .com mode on>…because Edison stole the design from Tesla and made several inferior modifications. In a fair and just world, bulbs would have finely machined T-nnnn bases, which would allow for wireless power transmission and absolutely precise size matching across more than 100 bulb types. Also, Mark Twain.</fx>

Sorry, I have no idea where that came from. Time to knock off for the day.