This lighting blog covers a wide range of lighting topics including current events, the lighting industry and product related blogs. I, Dr. Edison Bulb have 30+ years of lighting experience, my specialties include LED, commercial lighting and sports lighting. I am continuing my learning by keeping up with current lighting events and keeping track of them in this lighting blog.
With the phase-out of inefficient incandescent bulbs, even the biggest incandescent bulb in the world is converting to LED. Wait…what? After two years of renovations, the 134-foot monument dedicated to Thomas Edison in Edison, New Jersey is reopening to the public. The tower’s 14-foot glass pinnacle is meant to represent an incandescent light bulb, Edison’s most notable invention. This summer, the glass replica will no longer burn with an array of incandescent light bulbs. To save energy and reduce maintenance, the bulbs will be replaced...
read moreThe inventor of track lighting, Mr. Anthony Donato passed away on January 13, 2014. Mr. Donato was a graduate of Pratt Institute with a B.F.A in Industrial Design. He was the former Senior Product Designer at Lightolier. Mr. Donato invented track lighting, holding the first patent awarded in 1961. Throughout his career he designed lighting fixtures for the track system, obtaining an astounding 32 U.S. Patents. Mr. Donato was showered with numerous professional accolades, including being honored as a Fellow of the Illuminating Engineering...
read moreThe growth of LED lighting has impacted the world in several ways—and now it’s changing the film industry forever. With LED street lights taking over Los Angeles—and soon New York—exterior LA-shot films previous to this change will become historical artifacts of obsolete high-pressure sodium street lighting. Dave Kendricken explains in No Film School how outdated sodium vapor street lighting was the preferred look for some films. The setting of the 2004 crime thriller Collateral was moved from New York to Los Angeles, partially due to...
read moreThe headlines read “Cree Shatters Efficiency Benchmark with First 200-Lumen-Per-Watt LED Luminaire.” A 200-lumen-per-watt (LPW) is twice the efficiency of the best linear fluorescent luminaires—but is it real? Department of Energy (DOE) projections estimate this level of luminaire efficiency would not occur until after 2020. Is it possible that Cree’s latest innovation has achieved this level of efficiency six years sooner than projected? The 3,200-lumen concept luminaire delivered 200 LPW + at 80 CRI at thermal equilibrium while...
read moreIs North Korea a Game Changer for Energy-Efficient Lighting? The answer may be yes. Rare earth, a component in LED and fluorescent lights, is a highly sought after commodity. I, Dr. Bulb, discussed rare earth in a previous post when Japan found a large reserve of rare earth metals off the Pacific coast. Now, there’s a new game changer. North Korea could hold 216 million tons of rare earths, more than twice the known global despots of rare earth metals, according to a recent geological study. It is estimated that the country’s unexploited...
read moreFrom 2002 to 2012, use of electricity in the USA has grown by 0.6% every year. In the previous decade it had grown by 2.3%, which is less than the decades before that. Reduced growth is in spite of continued economic growth and an increase in the number of electronic gadgets and appliances. The Wall Street Journal reports Kilowatt-hours per dollar of GDP has fallen 1% per year over the past three decades and electricity use peaked in 2007. WOW! Hugh Wynne at Sanford C. Bernstein, a US financial research company, predicts the change from...
read moreAs you can well imagine, I, Dr. Bulb can get rather worked up when I see an elegant lamp in a luminaire. For those less luminous, that is a pretty light bulb in a light fixture. Now most people probably don’t get that excited, so I was taken aback when Slate wrote about a beautiful new energy saving bulb, the Plumen 001. The Plumen 001 is a unique lamp. Basically, the artist took the basic design of a spiral CFL lamp and changed the spiral to a free form design. The look is beautiful. The product sells. Slate raves. It is cool, but is...
read moreEven with my in-depth LED knowledge, I’m still a little unsure when researching LED products like LED troffers or LED wall packs for a new lighting project. Thankfully, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has a solution for that! With so many LED products on the market, it can be difficult to determine how a specific product will perform. What color will the light be? Is it bright enough? Is the company exaggerating the performance? To clear up confusion and increase consumer adoption of new technologies, the DOE created the LED lighting...
read moreI, Dr. Bulb, hereby admit I love LEDs and am a knowledgeable lighting specialist. That being said, sometimes we have to step aside and let the experts in their areas say their piece. This week, Arun Dutta at Osram Sylvania did just that with his article about what goes on inside an LED lamp. Thank you, Arun. Read Arun’s piece in LED...
read moreThe incandescent bulb phase-out is making a difference in 2014. Turns out that more Americans plans to switch to energy efficient lighting technologies, as a result of the legislation that is increasing efficiency standards. According to the sixth annual SYLVANIA Socket Survey, 65 percent of Americans plan to switch to more energy-efficient lighting technologies, including CFL, LED, and halogen. Fifty-nine percent of consumers are excited about the phase-out, as it will help Americans use more energy efficient lighting. The majority of...
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