Plasma light bulb?

Cool Lights

Cool Lights

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I recently saw this posted on another board and though some of you bleeding edgers like me would enjoy it:

http://news.zdnet.com/2422-13568_22-192842.html

140 lumens per watt. That's where it really starts to get interesting. I bet the price is insanely expensive though and of course these are primarily designed for street lighting so CRI may be an issue. But, they did mention that its full spectrum like daylight which indicates the CRI should be very high indeed.

On another front, we have a 100w LED available now too. 6500 lumens output or 65 lumens per watt which isn't quite up to metal halide/hmi specs but still better than the 60w high power LED I was working with last year and the price is a bit lower too (but still too high IMHO). Available in 3300k or 6000K which is acceptable for our uses. Anyway, all this means it puts out about the equivalent of a 300w tungsten fresnel but available in daylight like our 150w CDM fresnel is.

The price of such a small fresnel would be in the $600 range I think considering all the costs involved in such a fixture. The difficulty lies in creating a usable fixture though. These LEDs require a huge heat sink to keep them alive for their rated life (they don't list lifetime yet as this is such a new product that it would be an estimate in any case). Also because of the way the LED is built, its tougher to make a good and efficient reflector to put around it. After that you need an appropriate lens in front of it to help magnify it a bit. I'm betting a spot lens may be a better bet than a fresnel lens. Kind of a dedolight type unit.

CRI is not listed either so it may not be great. You have to remember, these things are created for the street light market mostly as thats much larger than anything related to studio / stage lighting which is a tiny subset of the overall lighting market.
 
Huh, pretty cool. Maybe they can build that into a maglite so it can be seen from like 100 miles away.... or so I can light up a room with my keychain.
 
If you're using superheated plasma, a dimmer might provide some interesting color effects. Using these lights, you could actually measure color temperature with a thermometer.

140 lumens per watt is amazing. And once cities and electric companies start buying them up, the price per unit should go down considerably.
 
140 lumens per watt is about as good as anything gets right now including most all LEDs I've ever seen.

That's the hope that the price per unit will go down with the street light vendors selling tons of them and we also hope the CRI will be good in the mainstream units so they don't have to make special versions which may bring us back up to more expensive cost per unit.
 
some day in the future, "remember back in the ol' days when we used HMI's ... and they HAND MADE the globes, haha"

So I assume the plasma is continuous light then? flicker free? :)

yeah, really curious about the CRI, but either way I like it!
 
Where are the Cree and Rebel LEDs currently spec'ing... for short life peak output bins versus retail bins?
 
the evolution from hot-hot, high energy/low output lights to LEDs and great fluors is reminding me of the same evolution from film to video. LEDs are the 'digital' version of those old funky bulbed 'analog' lights.

too awesome!
 
I've got a flashlight that utilizes something like a 140lm watt bulb... it came from Korea I think... anyway... the peak lumens total from 2aa batts is around 180lm. The challenge for video is controllable beam spread and quality of beam across the spread.

Within the next two years I think the world of video lighting will be fully immersed in the revolution. Just like with top level film productions... the change will be far more gradual... like how 35mm has held on so well... but for US... for "real" people working with low-budgets and limited resources... things are about to get good.
 
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