Text only version of the Edison Tech Center Tour E L. For use with VoiceOver and other Screen Readers.
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Tour E L
Learn about the world of the Electric Light
Welcome to the incredible world of the electric light!
When most people think of early electric light they think of Edison, however
the story of the electric light is much more deep and involves many interesting
people in many nations working with interesting technologies and materials.
No technology has changed humanity more than the electric light. Due to the importance of this area of engineering we offer a full course of web pages, videos, and educational tools to communicate to you the world of of the electric light and the engineers and inventors who made it possible. Lets start exploring!
Begin Here:
There are three parts to the tour:
Module 1: Basics
Module 2: The types of lights
Module 3: Test and games
Let us begin Module 1:
At the bottom of this page follow the "Next" button to go on.
In order to understand how lights work, it would be helpful to learn a little about what is light, and how we measure it.
There are two ways of creating light with electricity:
1.) Incandescence - heating a material until it emits light
2.) Electric Arcs - Sending electricity through air or a gas which excites
atoms and emits photons
Below is a list of lamp types according to each method. Don't worry about memorizing them, you will learn about each one later.
Lamps that use Incandescence:
1.The Incandescent Lamp - 1802 - today
2.The Nernst Lamp (Ceramic Glower)
3.Halogen Lamp - 1959 - today
Semiconductors create light using incandescence but function very differently.
Light Emitting Diodes (LED) and Organic LEDs use semiconductors to create light.
The lamps that use the electric arc passing through a gas or other medium include:
A. Traditional Arc Lamps, they use the light of the arc directly to make
light, these are:
1. Carbon Arc Lamps, - main period of use 1800 -1920s
2. Xenon Arc Lamps - Late 20th century until today
3. Mercury Vapor Lamp 1932 - today
4. Sodium Lamp - High Pressure (HPS)
5. Sodium Lamp - Low Pressure (LPS)
6. Neon and Argon Glow Lamps
B. Fluorescent Lamps are different, they use UV light striking a phosphor,
and the phosphor creates light:
1. Fluorescent Lamp - Cold Cathode
2. Fluorescent Lamp - Hot Cathode
3. Electroluminescent Lamps (These do not use UV light, they have electricity
passing directly through the phosphor)
4. Induction Lamps
5. Some kinds of neon lamps that use phosphor coatings
What is light & how we rate lamps
The goal of engineers working on the electric lamp is to create light using available AC or DC power, but what is light in the first place?
Light comes from particles called photons, and photons are released from electrons which surround an atom. Each electron around an atom contains a different level of energy. Electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom the way the earth rotates around the sun. An orbit pattern (called an "orbital") which is more distant from the nucleus has more energy. You can increase the energy of the electrons by bombarding the atom with particles, this is called exciting the atom. This will change the orbital for a short instant. The orbital will grow outward, then return inward again. When the orbital returns inward, it will emit a light photon.
Exciting Electrons!
Pioneers of lighting technology often had to find new ways to excite atoms.
There are several ways to excite and atom:
a.- Heat up atoms in Tungsten or other material (used in incandescent
and gas non-electric lamps(ex: camping lantern))
b.- Use a chemical reaction, such as in portable light sticks
c.- Use current flow (moving electrons) in a tube to collide with mercury (in
a gas form) which creates UV light, UV light can be converted into useful visible
light by exciting atoms in phosphor (fluorescent light). A similar process can
be used to create light from sodium (LPS Lamp) and Neon or Argon Gas (Neon Lamp)
Wavelength and Color
Light comes in different colors, the color is determined by wavelength, and the wavelength is determined by how much energy a photon has. If an electron is in a more "powerful" orbital, and it shrinks to a lower orbital, it will emit a photon with more energy and higher wavelength. We measure wavelength by using frequency (Hertz) or wavelength in meters.
When dealing with lamps we can measure color using Color Temperature which uses degrees in Kelvin, simplified as "K".
Color Temperature
Color temperature is extremely important in analyzing the performance of your electric lamp. Lower color temperatures rated 1000 K - 3000 K are considered "warm". Cool or whiter light is found from 3000 K - 10,000 K. Most incandescent lamps have a color temperature around 3000 K.
An engineer must design his/her lamp to work at a color temperature which is ideal for the use of the light. Most people prefer warmer color temperatures of the incandescent light in their home. At work places a cooler or whiter light is usually preferred since it is less likely to induce sleepiness or comfort.
Color Rendering Index and usefulness:
A light's ability to accurately show color is rated by the CRI or Color Rendering
Index. You can compare CRI between two different lamps as long as you
are dealing with given color temperature like 4000 Kelvin for example. A CRI
of 100 is the best, in other words the human eye can tell the difference between
all colors with the maximum accuracy.
Incandescent Lamp: 2700 K and 100 CRI
High Pressure Sodium Lamp: 2100 K and 25 CRI
A high pressure sodium lamp which is usually used in street lighting, it is
difficult to see the difference between a dark red car and a black car under
this lamp.
The gases, elements and materials you use in a lamp, along with their unique properties will limit your performance. Sodium Lamps, first developed in 1920s-30s provided great energy efficiency and large light output, however the yellowish color (1800-2700 K) and limited spectrum that it emits makes everything monochromatic. It is not so important for a good CRI in streetlights or general yard lighting, however factory lighting is usually Mercury Vapor, Halogen, Metal Halide, or Fluorescent (4000+ K).
Light Ratings
Besides using the color temperature and the Color Rendering Index we will also use a few forms of measurement:
Lumen - Measures the total amount of visible light emitted by the light
source. Visible light is a key term since Lumens are used in applications where
the human perception of light is important, like in most uses of the electric
lamp. The human eye does not see all frequencies of light with the same intensity,
therefore when measuring lumens you are not simply measuring the energy of all
wavelengths emitted by the light source. The human eye happens to see the green
spectrum with the most intensity.
Lux - A measurement of amount of light over a given area. 1 lx = 1 lumen
per sq meter
Candlepower
Lumens per Watt - How well a light source converts energy into visible
light. This is very important for measuring efficiency of a light type. Lumens
per watt (lm/W) ratings will vary even within one light type due to materials
used and slight design differences. Lumens per Watt ratings on light packaging
is almost always wrong. Companies test products in ideal circumstances, not
in the average home or work setting. They also may not take into account inefficiencies
created by the aging of the ballast materials. The common CFL typically never
lasts the full life on the box due to electronic ballast failure, not because
of the light source failure.
Candlepower - The older unit in which they measured the
intensity of light emitted from a source using the standard of a candle of a
certain type, size, and weight. Over the years scientific institutions tried
to make it more precise by changing the standard to a lightbulb type and later
a blackbody at the freezing point of liquid platinum. Now we use lumens.
Candela - Another term for rating light intensity created in 1948. 1
candela is = 0.981 candlepower.
Reliability of a Lamp Type
Lamps can fail due to the way it makes light (tungsten burns up over time) or the exterior apparatus that helps run the lamp (like a ballast). LEDs have reliability problems in outdoor settings because of extreme temperature variations in the environment, this is because semiconductors in the design are sensitive to heat. Or If a cooling fan (mechanical failure) on a large LED fails, it may result in the overheating and destruction of the device. Fluorescent lights can be very reliable if the ballast is build solid, however many companies today use cheap, light materials in ballast design to make the product intentionally fail prematurely. This is done to sell more lamps. If you look at early General Electric and Philips fluorescents from the 1940s the ballasts were made with a lot of copper and heavy materials. Many of these lamps are still in operation today in older facilities.
Now that you have finished learning the basics its time to dive into the inventions of the lamps themselves! Begin Module 2 below.