Ending incandescent bulb production: Are LED bulbs the answer?

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I got an email today from a non-tech friend with this link in it.
http://www.asiapacificnews.net/story/202667941#.TxO7Bn2Wej0.email

It gave me the opportunity to think about and compose an answer for that audience about my own major doubts about the state of LED bulb production as a successor for the ubiquitous incandescent illumination bulb. U.S. law caused the "phasing out" of all production of standard household incandescent bulbs beginning 1/1/2012.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/manufacturing/story/2011-12-28/light-bulb-rules/52256656/1

Here is my reply to him...and to you:
Thanks for bringing that up. I first have a quote for you:

Quite a bit of the GeoBulb’s light is directional. It’s very bright directly underneath it, but if you move far off to the side, it’s not producing nearly as much incidental light as the incandescent bulb. For many situations, this isn’t a problem at all – recessed lights and lamps won’t skip a beat. However, for other uses (such as a single bulb that lights a small room), you may want to wait for next generation LEDs.

That is exactly the problem with LED bulbs. The physical function of how LEDs GENERATE light is behind the problem. Incandescent bulb filaments squirt out light as if from a point source. (Imagine a point in space that emits the same light as a 100W bulb in all THREE dimensions.) You can see the shape of the light intensity in this diagram. It is the large set of lines...just extend them all the rest of the way around the bulb.

The way an LED works is that the light is instead generated out from the SURFACE of the "semiconductor junction" that creates it. So, in the same mental state, imagine the light of a 100W bulb squirting out instead from the SURFACE of a tabletop straight up from it with some spread, but mainly only UP. Now think about how many tiny LEDs it would take to accomplish sending light in all the directions we use light from a generic home light bulb to illuminate! Being drastically efficient at squirting light out of a tiny hole (too simple, I know) is NOT the same as sending it effortlessly in all directions.

Part two of the problem is that in order to WORK, incandescent bulbs have to incandesce or get hot enough to glow white hot. So heat is part of what makes 'em work and the distribution and dissipation of that has been solved over the last 120+ years. But the heat generated by the LED function is the BANE of their existence. And dissipating it is one of the major problems standing in their way of being successful. The hotter they get, the WORSE they work. That is why the bottom part of most of the LED bulbs is a metal heat radiator. Having that metal all over the base is also one of the things that means they eat up lots of resources (metal production and crafting of the heat sink) to create. See the image below. That may be partially done away with by the top developmental quote where a company has new bulbs with liquid cooling.

In order partially overcome the part one above, the makers put many, many LEDs inside the bulb to attempt to squirt light out in several directions. But it takes a whole lot of "several" to equal "all", so they compromise by only squirting light vaguely less than that above some horizontal plane surface. That is the part of the quote about not having light off to the side of straight out the end of the bulb. This is shown by the 60º beam angle shown below where the light has already dropped off to only half what it is straight out the end of the bulb. This makes the bulbs seem more like spotlights instead of general light bulbs. If you are viewing really wide items, you might have to move the item you're viewing around to stay in the bright part of the light pattern. I do not like this.

Part three of the problem is that there are several common methods out there for powering LED's. Why all the fuss? It boils down to this:
1) LED's are very sensitive to the voltage used to power them (ie, the current changes a lot with a small change in voltage)
2) The required voltage changes a bit when the LED is put in hot or cold air, and also depending on the color of the LED, and manufacturing details.
Incandescent bulbs work over a fairly wide range, but their target brightness and effective color temperature is only achieved in a few volt range of the 120 volts we have from household power. But the above numbered statements say we can't power the LED bulb the same if it is in a 140º attic as we can when it is dangling outside in -10º blizzard. The circuits have to be very careful how they arrange this, which means NO direct application of the household power: there have to be electronic control circuits containing many components built into the base of the bulbs, thus adding complexity and room for failure of one of the tiny parts to ruin your whole $30-40 bulb, as there is no replacing parts inside the bulbs. They are manufactured so the parts are NOT replaceable by the consumer.

See how hard it is to explain the idea of what the makers of the WONDER LED BULBS gloss over in their gushing rush to get ya to buy their bulbs? These makers are trying really hard to get you to buy these darned bulbs at $30-40 a pop, but THIS EE is not havin' any o' dat. They have to get mucho better-o before I bite. And they darned well better get a heap cheaper.

Hope I didn't lose you in the discussion. I tried hard to keep it on a non-EE-level basis. But feel free to ask comment.

No fade, no run, no erase, no disappear

Here is a blog post that features a set of tests for a pen with which to write your lab notes, if you plan on them being around through some sort of accident after they are written. Several different kinds of pens are tested, and the winners of permanent writing are discussed.

Comments are welcomed.

New physics rider on a dark horse

There may be a new cowboy in Physics Town, riding in on a dark horse, just as the saloon is closing down for good. Check the link, pardner.

The natural state of the human mind

Well, I won't worry about ALL of the natural state of the human mind. I will just focus on the topic of numbers. I listened to this recent podcast today of the WNYC program "Radiolab". The program starts out with exploration of the minds of babies. How does a baby experience numbers? Who knows? Who knew? How does one find this out? Well, if all this interests you, then this podcast is a really, REALLY fun way to spend an hour being exposed to scientific research and the interior workings of the human mind in a joyful, experimental way that makes one happy to experience. Try it!

Comments welcomed.

Crabs don't throw stones

The really fine dance of art and science with the natural world has just made another leap. I saw this wonderful image shown above and an accompanying article & video which show how it was done and for what reason. It is worth a visit, I think.

The Case of the Missing Sunspots

Ham radio operators and shortwave listeners have been pretty discouraged at the lack of our sun to build an appropriate number of sunspots. To the average person, this seems like either a tempest in a teapot or angels dancing on the head of a pin. But to folk who depend on the ionosphere of our planet to reflect radio waves, it is important. The number and size of sunspots on the part of the sun facing the Earth is closely tied to energy coming from the sun to energize the ionosphere's reflection regions. Here is a good discussion from NASA of why those sunspots have not been created and a good story why the folks waiting for them should not lose hope.

Comments welcome.

Run for the hills...er, uh

The article sent by an ex-Texan friend is about a Kansas spectacle: a land-based spout of debris rising far up into the lower atmosphere. It is the land-based equivalent of a waterspout. Those are frequently seen near the shore, and they are not usually associated with the radical damage we see from tornadoes. The image and article are here. The photo is this month's cover photo for the respected National Geographic magazine, so I do not have any right to display it here. I recommend viewing it, however, as it is truly magnificent, as landspouts go. [I've shown an image at the head of this post of a much less impressive spout.]

Comments welcome.

Open-minded or close-minded doubt: what is truth?

Tell me a story...
http://www.pluggd.tv/audio/channels/wnycs_radio_lab/episodes/4d06j

Comments?

Thoughts of genome and career pursuits

I was just reading a post by Bernie Latham at Brittle Hum of the Republic blog. It was this one, which describes a New York Times Magazine article by Steven Pinker, which is a really well-written discussion of where having personal knowledge of your own genome might take us as a society, once the price for reviewing and picking it apart is well within the discretionary income surround of the cognoscenti who can use the material.

He then wanders off to discuss how shaken he was when he was being interviewed and the interviewer asked him what caused him to take his particular career path. His stuttering reply then forced him to vow to himself to be better prepared the next time he was asked that question. Do YOU know the answer to your life's direction? What steered YOU to stumble or smoothly run down the path you've taken?

I am convinced my path toward getting my electrical engineering degree at UT, Austin, was finalized by the years I spent in an electronics-specialty Explorer post, sponsored mostly by the engineers at the headquarters of General Telephone of the Southwest in San Angelo, Texas. Well, that, coupled with getting my ham license at 16. Both of those things led me to spend my time with tubes and transistors, capacitors and transformers. My friends were mainly geeky electronics-speaking souls who might just as well mumble things in spoken Morse code as much as they might talk about the advantages of the Williamson amplifier.

Once I had all that firmly in mind, with the viewpoint of what the engineers told us they did for a living, and how we teens viewed their casual ability with the technical details of the electronics we loved so much, I was certain that electrical engineering was for me. Never mind that we were dirt poor, that there were no engineers in my family, that I had to run a morning paper route just to make it through high school. THAT was my goal. [It took a wavering path, with spots of poor performance due to lack of focus, and years of striving to make it all happen.]

Race: a concept of the past

This podcast is one of the most fascinating of a long series by radio station WNYC in New York, NY. Race has been debated, hated, folded INTO hate, taken for granted for human life and discourse. The show/podcast takes the subject through the UNIQUE flow of how shows work on RADIO LAB to present an engaging search that is based on DNA findings that we're all human and race cannot be determined by that test...and, indeed, cannot be talked about from this most basic of deep looks into our building blocks. Whether you have feelings for this subject or want most to avoid it, this show may educate and shock, as well as change what you think you know about it.

Comments welcomed.

Mirror, mirror, on the...sky?

We're only about 5 years away from launch, so work is in full swing on creation of NASA's next "big eye" in the sky, the James Webb Space Telescope, set to gather infrared light from oh, so far away, keeping it all straight and pure until it is digitized and stored away for scientists to talk about for years to come. Each image will be carefully examined and compared to existing knowledge.

Meanwhile, the mirror will travel hither, thither and yon about the country, getting each of its segments made, polished, checked, and finally plated with gold and checked again. The story of all this preparation is worth a read. The final device will be precious beyond compare.

Texas outlawed the Erlenmeyer flask!

I was reading a blog today, when I got a serious shock to the system. I read:

Kits Today: Wimpified

Compared to their robust ancestors, chemistry sets today are wimpy. They revolve around low-energy reactions and the quiet creation of crystals and polymers. The average set from the mall has no burner to provide a flame, no chemicals that go bang. It’ll let you prepare solutions that change colors or glow like a light stick, but that’s about it for excitement.

Why? It’s common sense to delete highly toxic compounds, and we’re certainly more focused these days on insulating kids from risk.

But mostly it’s fear: of liability, of terrorists, of the neighbors. Overreacting to methamphetamine trafficking, Texas has outlawed the Ehrlenmeyer flask. In August, panicky Massachusetts police ransacked the basement lab of retired chemist Victor Deeb, who was simply fiddling with experiments in his home.

(emphasis is mine)

The post concerned making your own chemistry set in this modern age, where the chemistry sets of yore do not appear in stores before Christmas like they did back in the 50's. I got my large, Gilbert set for my November birthday in 1958, just in time for a parental divorce and in time to become familiar with it before entering the halls of high school chemistry lab. After a sulfur smell came from it, my mother banned me to a tiny outbuilding reminiscent of an outhouse in shape, but a trifle larger. I built in a shelf for a lab table, put a lock on it to protect my set, and poured a bag of ready-mix concrete in front of the door to solidify to keep it from getting mired in mud. It was all the way on the back of the property, so it was far away from danger to the house. Since there was no electricity, all the experiments had to be done during light hours. That was probably a good thing.

I replicated almost all the high school lab experiments at home, where I had more time to appreciate them and think about how they worked. But I did not have access to sodium, nor did I want that. I was in rapture over the "spinthariscope" that showed me some evidence of "atomic energy". Woo-hoo! What adventure.

Well, back to the shock of Texas law and the (almost) death of the chemistry set. The Texas Department of Public Safety (state troopers/state police) entered into a memorandum of understanding with higher education folks in the state to prevent glassware of chemistry nature from coming into the hands of the public, some of whom might use it for nefarious and illegal purposes.

Who knew that we would come to the situation of failing our kids by incapacity to provide them with chemistry sets to stimulate their science leanings because of laws to "prevent" folks from creating illegal drugs. Whew. I'll have to think about that for a while.

Zero-G coffee cup!

Miles Abernathy, N5KOB, sends this news along:

This is remarkable! Watch the 2-minute video of the zero-G coffee cup for astronauts, invented by an astronaut.

More explanation is here.

All this brings to mind the interesting sociological aspects of how folks will live their lives away from the heavy dose of planetary gravity grip in the International Space Station and future orbital environments. Will they overwhelmingly adapt their environments to mirror the life below or will they choose the opportunity to come up with new ones, changing social situations along the way?

Comments?

Solar magnetic headlights shine on Earth

When you think you have everything in some arena thought out and there isn't much to discover, something else is discovered or uncovered to turn your head straight around.

Just in from a correspondent...

Magnetic Portals Connect Sun And Earth (November 2, 2008) -- During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn't believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page. ...

The full article is here.

Picturing the orbits and paths of all the vehicles and sensors that it took to solidify that background for that news release is fairly boggling. The foresight of folks who created the vehicles, convinced governments to pay for the launch vehicles, provided test budgets to make sure they would work for lengthy periods in the wild and wooly reaches of interplanetary space, provided the design expertise for the communications that gets the information gathered back safely to earthbound scientists is well deserving of praise and positive thoughts. It also deserves our continued support through conversations with elected officials who may be wondering if spending money in space is something our country needs to be doing.