DearbornBedard402
The incandescent light bulb was invented and continued to progress from the early 1800s. Prior to this, simple candles and oil lamps, along with other simple lighting was utilized in everyday life. The journey of the incandescent lamp began in 1809 when Humphrey Davy created the first arc lamp by inducing current in between two charcoal strips using a high powered battery. This was followed up throughout to the 1880s, with various incandescent light bulbs becoming produced by various groups and people. All had the same idea of making a light bulb which contained an element having a high melting point, such as platinum, inside an evacuated chamber.
Various high melting point elements had been used to try to produce a practical, cost effective incandescent lamp with a long life. The theory was, the higher the temperature, the brighter the light. Therefore the higher the melting point of the material, the much more effectively the lamp would work at high temperatures, resulting in the emission of a brighter ligh. The element would also have less gas particles to react with inside an evacuated chamber resulting in a longer life span. Numerous people produced light bulbs in this way, however the struggle was to create 1 which lasted for substantial periods of time. The first incandescent lamp which lasted a practical length of time was developed by Edison and Swan in 1879, which lasted around 13 5 hours. Nevertheless, in 1880 Edison produced a filament which lasted for up to 1200 hours - the best life-span by far.
An incandescent lamps efficiency is focused upon reaching high filament temperatures, but with a minimal amount of heat loss and degrading. The more heat which is lost and the quicker the filament degrades, the less effective the light bulb is. Edison used carbon filaments inside his early incandescent light bulbs as this has the highest melting temperature, however it evaporates at a rapid rate, resulting in a shorter life span. The life span was improved by the filament starting to be operated in a lower temperate, although the brightness of the lamp also decreased.
In the early 1900s, the more modern tungsten filament incandescent lightbulb was devised by William Coolidge and the General Electric Company. This is the light bulb we know today used for indoor or outdoor lighting. This element truly enhanced performance of light bulbs due to its strength, pliability, workability, high melting point and low evaporation rate. The high melting point of tungsten resulted in a very bright light, even though it still evaporate fairly quickly. Numerous inert gases such as nitrogen had been added to the light bulbs which decreased the rate of evaporation to improve filament life, nevertheless, this also affected the temperature of the filament, resulting in a dimmer light. Making a coil from the filament was confirmed to have success in sustaining a higher temperature, therefore sustaining a brighter light. Coiled filaments are still used in incandescent lamps nowadays.
Incandescent light bulbs even now lose a lot of heat, with only 4-6% of the power which is supplied to bulbs actually being converted to light, up to 96% is wasted as heat. Therefore energy saving light bulbs, also known as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were produced.
The original fluorescent lamp was invented in the late 1890s. Since, various businesses and people have developed on this thought to create practical fluorescent lamps which had been originally sold in 1938. The shape of the fluorescent lamp started as a long fixture, which then progressed into circular and u-shaped lamps and then into the three-dimensional spiral (helical). Although the helical lamp was developed in the 1970s, the design never go ahead, and was later copied by others in the mid 90s when is was sold commercially. Eco light bulbs had been introduced by large businesses such as Philips and Osram in the 80s, which included the first successful replacement for screw-in incandescent lamps with an integral ballast, and the initial CFL to consist of an electronic ballast.
Original eco lamps frequently weredull and flickered as the technologies were continuing being developed. Nowadays they truly are a brand new generation. They're incredibly efficient, saving as much as 80% of power, very bright and have a really long life span, lasting about 8x longer than tradition incandescent lamps.
The journey of incandescent light bulbs used for indoor or garden lights has now come to an end, with all wattages soon to be banned within the United Kingdom, however the journey for energy saving light bulbs and LEDs is only just beginning !
