Becnhmarks of Innovation

[tw]

About 1975, a Lockheed Jumbo L-1011 circled Miami with no 'front landing wheel locked' indication. So busy were the cockpit crew that a slow decent crashed into the Everglades. The landing gear was OK; just a burned out 327(?) light bulb. 300+ lives lost for the want of a light bulb.

However, by the mid 1960s, Red LEDs had already been developed. At about $100+ per bulb, all cockpit indicator lamps were replaced with plug-in LED equivalents. Of course America had enterd a 'we fear to innovate' period. By 1984, in another job of fixing failed designs, I replaced all indicator lamps with LED equivalants at about $6 per bulb. But even in the 1990s, people still replaced incandescent indictor bulbs. Why?

Semiconductors operate on 'holes' and 'charges'. Holes are atoms missing an electron. Charges are atoms with an extra electron in their shell. When a hole combines with a charge, then light is emitted. This is how advanced digital semiconductor manufacturers can debug complex digital circuits. Infared light is emitted when the transistor turns on. It is also how LEDs and their cousins, semicondutor lasers, operate.

One problem is that if holes and charges combine inside the semiconductor, then the light does not escape. Only 10% would escape. Hewlett Packard recently demonstrated a phenomenal 55% efficiency. IOW there is plenty of room for innovation and the west coast attitude of advancing mankind appears to be alive and healthy.

Red LEDs achieved incandescent efficiency (18 lumens per watt) in 1990. Yellow and Green did same before 1995. White LEDs, which did not even exist in 1995, have already exceeded incandescent lamps.

Halogen lamps, at about 25 lumens per watt, were surpassed by red, yellow, and green LEDs by late 1990. So why do so many traffic lights still require human service? Eventually even MBA spread sheets will realize these advantages in innovation.

Today, CA is doing anything to reduce electric waste and useless human labor. LED equivalents to incandescent bulbs only consume about 1/10th the power and don't require replacement service. Innovation marches on, especially in regions that chose to be innovative rather than cost control.

Long before Edision created his light bulb, experimenter were creating light from electricity in mid 1800s, using low pressure inert gases. Of course other innovations, such as electric generators, were necessary to make these flourescent lamps commercially feasible which is why Edison got so much credit. Edison's incandescent lamp has now been obsoleted by everything except cost controls. However the flourescent lamp still remains superior for interior lighting - 80 lumens per watt. Other superior technologies are Mercury Vapor and low pressure Sodium lighting (100 lumens per watt).

For those not experienced in concepts of innovation, the continuing existance of incadescent lamps will be a perfect example of anti-innovation forces in today's society.

In Time Square are large outdoor displays such as the Nasdaq display that uses 18,677,760 LEDs. In 1960, the moving message TickerTape on the Allied Chemical building represented advance technology. Then America went into a 'we fear all innovation' mentality created mostly by concepts taught in business schools. Technology in Time Square was a big Sony TV. Today's innovation revival has stopped recessions, increased wealth, reduced poverty, created full employment, and rebuilt Time Square. Watch the LED and its future replacement. It may be the benchmark to measure innovation in America.

Long before they were major news stories, many in The Cellar had read of the Human Genone project, prions of Mad Cow Disease, a man name Milosevik, the hybrid electric car, etc. In this tradition, watch the LED.

[Dagnabit]

At <a href="http://www.thinkgeek.com/">Thinkgeek</a> you can get little LED flashlights, one LED burning brightly enough to light up a walkway so you can walk, or a keyhole, etc. It's powered by a button battery so the whole thing is tiny and goes on your keychain. It's really cool, except for hearing everyone around you express how much of a geek you are when you use it. (But I don't care. I AM a geek.)

There's another website that reviews LED flashlights and they are really coming on (sorry for the pun). Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the site. But it also talks about a new light to be used in theatre and displays, that uses an array of different color LEDs to shine ANY color. (It's about $500.)

As far as the high efficiency lamps, a friend of mine uses the high pressure sodium lamps to grow marijuana. I've seen it.. it's a miniature sun.

[Griff]

Actually its a innovative hybrid of kentucky bluegrass-California sensimilla, makes a durable golf turf but kinda harse after 36 holes. It may not catch on since its still pretty expensive and tends to slow rounds by upwards of 50%.


That LED info is pretty interesting, is someone working on a home fixture? Assuming its a direct current device, do you think AC to DC conversion will be at the breaker box or at the fixture? It seems like this could have a positive impact on home generation/storage by taking invertors out of the loop...

[tw]

Originally posted by Griff
...
That LED info is pretty interesting, is someone working on a home fixture? Assuming its a direct current device, do you think AC to DC conversion will be at the breaker box or at the fixture? It seems like this could have a positive impact on home generation/storage by taking invertors out of the loop...

The 1985 LED I had used was a socket exact replacement for a 24V AC lamp. IOW the LED assembly includes current regulator and retifier - and so reduced heat generation that lamp fixtures never again needed replacement even 15 years later. IOW LED replacements for AC power are standard in all those CA traffic lights that previously used 120V 60 and 100 watt incadescent light bulbs.

[Svartalf]

Originally posted by tw
About 1975, a Lockheed Jumbo L-1011 circled Miami with no 'front landing wheel locked' indication. So busy were the cockpit crew that a slow decent crashed into the Everglades. The landing gear was OK; just a burned out 327(?) light bulb. 300+ lives lost for the want of a light bulb.

Tragic, isn't it?

However, by the mid 1960s, Red LEDs had already been developed. At about $100+ per bulb, all cockpit indicator lamps were replaced with plug-in LED equivalents. Of course America had enterd a 'we fear to innovate' period. By 1984, in another job of fixing failed designs, I replaced all indicator lamps with LED equivalants at about $6 per bulb. But even in the 1990s, people still replaced incandescent indictor bulbs. Why?

Combination of expense and efficiency as you've pointed out. Don't blame it on lack of innovation- blame it on pure unrestrained greed.

In 1975, LED's were moderately expensive things and needed some extra circuitry (that wasn't small) to drive them to usable brightnesses as indicators. Combine this with a philosophy of, "that's $20 and this bulb over here is only $.50 and lasts quite a while- we'll use that..." because managers and businessmen are worrying about bottom lines. That's not to say that they shouldn't be worrying about that- it's just that many of our tragedies (The Challenger shuttle catastrophe is offered as another example, here...) occur because of worrying too much about "the bottom line".

Replacing them with somewhat costly, but dramatically more efficient LEDs at the time you did made sense. And I think you'll find that many modern planes, etc. use the LEDs in just about everything now- they're cheap and last "forever".

Semiconductors operate on 'holes' and 'charges'. Holes are atoms missing an electron. Charges are atoms with an extra electron in their shell. When a hole combines with a charge, then light is emitted. This is how advanced digital semiconductor manufacturers can debug complex digital circuits. Infared light is emitted when the transistor turns on. It is also how LEDs and their cousins, semicondutor lasers, operate.

Nice layperson description there.

One problem is that if holes and charges combine inside the semiconductor, then the light does not escape. Only 10% would escape. Hewlett Packard recently demonstrated a phenomenal 55% efficiency. IOW there is plenty of room for innovation and the west coast attitude of advancing mankind appears to be alive and healthy.

Seems to be the same way with the southwest. The people in Austin, Dallas, and Sillicon Valley are striving for replacing all of regular light sources (not counting things like high-pressure sodium, etc.) with LED type sources. I suspect a breakthrough soon. They, along with the Japanese, Taiwanese, and Koreans are looking for that "holy grail" of lighting where all but the largest lighting tasks (extreme luminous levels, etc.) will be handled by LED type emitters of light.

Red LEDs achieved incandescent efficiency (18 lumens per watt) in 1990. Yellow and Green did same before 1995. White LEDs, which did not even exist in 1995, have already exceeded incandescent lamps.

Depends on the application. For replacing something like an indicator or a small flashlight, yes. For replacing something like a 40-75 watt incandescant or a 13-25 watt fluorescent- they're not quite there yet. You've got to count total lumens generated along with the actual efficiency.

[quote]

Halogen lamps, at about 25 lumens per watt, were surpassed by red, yellow, and green LEDs by late 1990. So why do so many traffic lights still require human service?
Eventually even MBA spread sheets will realize these advantages in innovation.

[quote]

Total cost of the units is the reason. They've dropped to the point where they're cheap and the efficiency is actually in excess of the tungsten lamp with minimal power loading. The RED units are the only types right now with the luminous output to be able to do this. The yellow and green units didn't quite make the cut year before last, but towards the middle of last year, they came up with units that will work well in this sort of application. Right now, all the cities in the DFW area are replacing the red tungsten lights with LED units as the tungsten units fail. The LED units are slowly showing and with new light installations they're going in first off.

Today, CA is doing anything to reduce electric waste and useless human labor. LED equivalents to incandescent bulbs only consume about 1/10th the power and don't require replacement service. Innovation marches on, especially in regions that chose to be innovative rather than cost control.

The people in charge are looking at short-term costs not long-term benefits. It will cost more to replace all of the lamps with LED units than the costs of the wasted power- and blackout/brownout problems weren't considered into that figure.

Long before Edision created his light bulb, experimenter were creating light from electricity in mid 1800s, using low pressure inert gases. Of course other innovations, such as electric generators, were necessary to make these flourescent lamps commercially feasible which is why Edison got so much credit. Edison's incandescent lamp has now been obsoleted by everything except cost controls. However the flourescent lamp still remains superior for interior lighting - 80 lumens per watt. Other superior technologies are Mercury Vapor and low pressure Sodium lighting (100 lumens per watt).

I do believe that businesses are already availing themselves of fluorescent lamps (which are low-pressure mercury vapor lamps...) and many consumers are too. Unfortunately, there's drawbacks that up until recently presented problems for health, etc. with the extensive use of fluoresent and other ionized gas lighting.

1) Fluoresent lamps generally flicker at 400hz. This can cause a beat frequency with some computer monitors that can induce headaches, etc. The 400hz. flicker can also do this by itself in some people.

2) Color. Until recently, most flouresent lamps were relatively pure white light (Definitely more "white" than sunlight, even...). Health-wise, you're better off (and less stressed) with light that is more "yellow"- more like the light that the sun gives off. Furthermore, while high-pressure sodium produces more yellow-orange light than anything else (which is also as bad as the "pure-white" light of the fluoresent lamp...).

3) It used to take a while for the lamp to "warm-up" and produce useful/pleasing light.

Recently, the makers of fluoresent lamps have been working the flicker, color, and start-up times. The light from a modern incandescent replacement is nearly identical to that of an incandesent in every way- except that it takes about 1/5 the electricity to produce it.

However, the cost of that sort of lighting hasn't gone down much- it can cost as much as 10-15 times what it costs to put a single incandesent into service to put a "replacement" fluoresent into service. Don't count long-term savings of the fluoresent into this reasoning- the people buying the incandesents are looking at the short-term, not the long-term.

For those not experienced in concepts of innovation, the continuing existance of incadescent lamps will be a perfect example of anti-innovation forces in today's society.

Anti-innovation or merely not thinking about alternatives for reasons of up-front costs of the alternatives? I'm inclined to think the second of the two there.

In Time Square are large outdoor displays such as the Nasdaq display that uses 18,677,760 LEDs. In 1960, the moving message TickerTape on the Allied Chemical building represented advance technology. Then America went into a 'we fear all innovation' mentality created mostly by concepts taught in business schools. Technology in Time Square was a big Sony TV. Today's innovation revival has stopped recessions, increased wealth, reduced poverty, created full employment, and rebuilt Time Square. Watch the LED and its future replacement. It may be the benchmark to measure innovation in America.

Actually, I don't think so as far as it being a benchmark... We've had innovation- but it's uses with regards to Times Square aren't a litmus test. The usages there and elsewhere lag behind the actual curve. They're just now coming up with bulb assemblies that do replace incandesents in lighting applications- interesting things.

How about a screw-in replacement for a 20 or 40 watt flood?
How about a "can" light that's used for architechtural and stage lighting that can be set to any of over 16 million colors.

These things will last for decades without needing replacement and operate instantly upon demand. The cost, however, for them right now is astronomical. It's something like $90-150 per bulb for the white-light LED lamp replacements and a 40w can will set you back $750-1000 dollars.

Long before they were major news stories, many in The Cellar had read of the Human Genone project, prions of Mad Cow Disease, a man name Milosevik, the hybrid electric car, etc. In this tradition, watch the LED.

Been watching it for years. The LED's about to take off- but it's just really in it's infancy proper right now.

[tw]

Originally posted by Svartalf
Been watching it for years. The LED's about to take off- but it's just really in it's infancy proper right now.

LEDs for all but white indicator lamps were cost effective by 1990. LEDs for red traffic lights were cost effective by 1995 - especially when you consider cost of replacing incandescent bulbs, and moreso when considering losses associated with a burned out red traffic lights.

White LED room lighting is not yet practical. However either is room lighting using incandescent bulbs. Even Halogen bulbs were more cost effective in most situations.

The point is that LEDs have been a practical alternative to most indicator lamps and yet five years later still were not in all products. Also white LEDs were duplicated by combinations of red, green, and yellow leds. The cost of building LED replacements for any indicator were quite low even in the 1990s - especially if maintenance, energy costs, and reliability were taken into account.

For those not familiar with suppliers of these products for almost twenty years, see LEDtronics and (if I remember the name correctly - his brother) Diallight.

[russotto]

There are a few misconceptions in this thread.

1) LEDs have an effectively unlimited lifetime.

Nope. Ain't so. While the little indicator LEDs used in most of our appliances will last long after the rest of the appliance has failed, the superbright oversized LEDs used for traffic signals are another thing entirely. In order for them to produce enough light, they are run over their optimum voltage, which shortens their lifetime considerably. They do last longer than incandescents, and they are more efficient, but not overwhelmingly so.


2) Fluorescent lamps. They never did produce pure white light, and they don't now. The cheapest varieties (like those used in most offices) produce very poor quality light deficient in the red part of the spectrum. This is regardless of whether it is "warm white" (low color temperature) or "cool white" (high color temperature). The flicker from a cheap ballast (nothing but a simple inductor in a 280V lighting system like those in most offices) is at 120Hz, not 400Hz. Electronic ballasts and high CRI (color rendering index) fluorescents are available, but definitely not cheap.

[tw]

Even incandescent lamps do not produce white light. They produce mostly red light.

Early LEDs used power to obtain bright light. Those 24 VAC LEDs installed in 1985 and running 24/7 since then are still working today. Compare that to the incandescent bulbs they replaced - that were replaced every 3 to 4 months.

[russotto]

Originally posted by tw
Even incandescent lamps do not produce white light. They produce mostly red light.

This is just silly. Incandescent lamps produce white light. CRI of 100, color temperature of around 2800K. Halogens produce white light with a CRI of 100 and a color temperature of 3000K.