Since there’s a requirement that any “general service” light bulb sold after 2020 must produce 45 lumens a watt, I was wondering if there’s any chance halogen bulbs can meet that eventually, or if I need to start stocking up over the next 8 years… Or if some company will sells “heat balls” here.
A halogen lamp is fundamentally an incandescent blackbody radiator, with its efficacy being a function of temperature. Unless some different chemical process is discovered instead of the halogen-tungsten cycle that would allow them to be driven significantly hotter, then they are pretty much at their peak.
I wouldn’t worry about not having replacements by then; I’m sure even the pickiest people (those who absolutely won’t touch a CFL or LED bulb even if that was all there was) will be able to get replacement LED bulbs (which will probably replace CFLs by then) that produce satisfactory light (I use CFLs and as far as I can tell, they might as well be incandescents, at least the better ones). Either that, or someone will lobby to lower the efficiency standards. In fact, that is what they are trying to do right now:
Either I’m a clueless idiot (I’m not ruling that out 
), or I’ve been lucky, but I really don’t have a problem with the light produced by CFLs, even for reading and such. I do like the lower heat output and the lower impact on my power bill (we tend toward the nocturnal).
Some work has been done in increasing the efficiency of tungsten filament lamps, but basically, these devices are a dead-end technology, and they are going to be replaced with LED, CFL and organic LED technology, no matter how much people whine about it. The transition to newer technology is already well underway, and even if the government takes the teeth out of the efficiency standard, it won’t really matter - the lighting industry knows which direction the future lies, and incandescent isn’t it.
I wasn’t that impressed with the “60 watt” GE halogens, I put them in my nightstand lamps which occassionaly get bumped by me or the cats, and they seemed to be sensative to vibrations. They’ed flicker if they got bumped even slightly and soon burnt out. Or maybe being halogens they didn’t like being run at about 10-20% brightness all night every night. I’m now trying out the Philips. The direct energy saving are a wash compared to the extra cost of the bulb, but I figure they’ll save on A/C. (Maybe I should have “summer” and “winter” bulbs). Except I can’t find any “75 watt” halogens, and I have a dozen of those sockets.
Vibration can certainly be an issue especially if they are subject to shocks (same goes for normal bulbs, but these may have more rugged filaments since they can’t be replenished), but another factor is the running at reduced power; halogen bulbs don’t like being put on dimmers, since the halogen cycle which redeposits tungsten onto the filament only works at high temperatures; otherwise, they will blacken and burn out very quickly (somewhat slower at reduced power, but life may initially drop sharply before the lower temperature has a bigger effect).
true that halogen need to run hot without dimming for the bulb benefit.
look for rugged service bulbs with better supported filaments. also a slightly higher voltage bulb which won’t give as much light as an undimmed bulb but the filament isn’t as hot and subject to breakage from vibration.
try LED replacement, i’ve used 40W replacements which work well.
I thought LEDs would be an ideal solution since they’re open lamps and LEDs have no filament to break. I tried a Philips and a Sylvania. The Philips the light quality was acceptable to me, (the Sylvania was way too “pinkish”), but the problem was although they were dimmable (in the sense that they didn’t die after 6 hours like the “dimmable” CFL I tried), the problem was the dimming “range” was vastly different than a filament bulb.
Imagine an incandescent lamp, as you move the dimmer from 0-10, the brightness goes
0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
The LED bulbs went like
0-0-0-2-6-10-10-10-10-10
Which caused two problems. First the lowest level they would “fire” at was too bright for overnight use. Second it was almost impossible to get them the brightness I wanted at a particular time with a “Push to dim” electronic dimmer. You’d push it waiting for it to brighten, and then it would way overshoot where you wanted it to be.They’d be fine if you wanted to set them using a mechanical dimmer an didn’t need low levels, though. I’m using them outside now where I don’t care about how they dim and it gets too cold for CFLs. My father an electric engineer (although in switching power supplies, not optoelectonics) doesn’t see why they can’t make LEDs that behave like an incandescent on a dimmer, or maybe they’ll start making special LED dimmers in the next 8 years.
I prefer the light from CFL bulbs. I think the old style incandescent bulbs produce a dirty looking light. But for those that prefer it, you can buy CFL bulbs that have an orange / yellow tinge that looks similar to incandescent bulbs.
a dedicated nightlight (4W or 7W or equivalent LED) might be useful.
i’ve seen and used some different styles in LED. can get white or blue light. different styles of diffusers. one nice style in translucent white plastic, had movable lovers for adjusting the amount of light.
IC lighting may not die:
I don’t know if the claimed efficiency gain is enough to keep it under the legal limit, but even so perhaps even greater efficiencies are possible.
Pssst… see post #5
ty
Manufacturers of LED driver chips already claim to have wide-range dimming capability; for example, Texas Instruments (“uniform wide-range flicker-free dimming”). Presumably, not all LED bulb manufacturers use these chips though and opt for a cheaper/simpler solution, although this wouldn’t have much effect on the total lamp cost, which is mostly the LEDs. Of course, some really cheap LED bulbs don’t use a driver at all; in the worst case, a simple resistor to limit current (which also causes a lot of 50/60 Hz flicker).
Although, it should be noted that incandescents and LEDs behave differently when being dimmed; connecting an incandescent to half its rated voltage (effectively, as seen with a TRIAC dimmer set to midpoint) will reduce its brightness by a much larger factor than 2, while a LED bulb would go to half-brightness, assuming it is proportional to the TRIAC conduction period. At lower brightness settings, the peak voltage will decrease (as shown here), and LED drivers have a minimum voltage at which they can work at.
Also of note, Smarthome has an LED bulb with a built Intsteon dimmer. Whether it works better than pairing a random LED bulb and a random dimmer, or if they designed them to be compatible rather than just slapping someone else’s LED and their standard triac dimmer together, I don’t know. It’s backordered so I can’t order one to play with.
7 watt nighlight- I thought of that option, but I’d need several to get the brightness I want and only have 1 clear outlet in the room.(and I’ve tried a half dozen different LED nightlights and none are close to as bright as a clear 7 watt incandescent
One of my halogens (43 watt GE brand) that I run on 1/5 brightness all night just got dimmer and dimmer till it was about half brightness all the way on, and then burned out. I busted the outer globe open and the capsule was noticiably blackened. I am trying alternative to regular bulbs, but I’m just underwhelmed at every turn.
Also of note, Home Depot always seems to have them, but Target and Walmart are always out of stock, I’ve checked six times.
Check bulbs.com for halogens. I get mine there; there are none in stock in most stores. Recently I have noticed stores restocking incandescent bulbs. Something I hadn’t noticed for quite a few years.
Bob
the longevity of halogen bulbs is that run hot.
I bought some Sylvania brand to try, if those don’t do any better I’ll need to go back to regular 60s and then stockpile them when they’re not allowed to be made anymore.