Have you ever seen the trademark amber glow of the Nixie Tube? Nixie tubes have made a bit of a comeback by Makers and tinkerers of today's tech — an old-school look with old-school innards using pretty simple technology to create some pretty spectacular results. Nixie tube clocks, signs, and even Nixie tube wrist watches, [...]
Read More anion, anode, Aston Dark Space, axiotron, cathode, cation, Faraday's Space, NIX1, Nixie tube, Nixie tube watch, Positive Column, Steve WozniakI have mixed feelings about this subject, but it's important to spread the news about what's going down and how it's gonna go down with respect to this incandescent phase-out happening in our time. Sylvania has an awesome guide to this phase-out, showing the whats and the whens of this thing. Check it out here. [...]
Read More CFLs, EISA, incandescent lamps, LEDs, light bulb legislationI love designs like this, with some sort of exposed elemental aspect – like the Edison reproduction lamps that have made their way around the world as a lamp of embellishment: Seriously, I have like seven of these. ANYWAY (apparently I am rambly today), check out these lamps from Boa Design – the series is called [...]
Read More Boa Design, Designers, luminaires, Next Generation LuminairesNow, I know what you're thinking – well, unless it's hey, I wonder where I put the remote… Switch Lighting has come out with an absolutely beautiful series of lamps that are being tested right now in "several distinct hospitality properties." This thing is absolutely beautiful, as are Switch Lighting's other LED A-lamp designs, holy [...]
Read More A-Lamp, incandescent replacement, LED, water cooledTo quote the dance performance students in my 8am Stage Lighting class, this is "jank." (I'm pretty sure that means that it's f%$#ed up.) Well, that it is. This whole thing is certainly jank. The "this" that I'm referring to is the fact that a Chinese government-linked company named Baotou Steel has been halting production of [...]
Read More Baotou Steel, china, lamps, light bulbs, light sources, Neodymium, Neodymium Oxide, rare earthYou all know me, I'm not really a "press release" kind of guy when it comes to JimOnLight.com content. When I find a press release worthy of a nod, I try to get some of the commentary in there that made me want to talk about the release in the first place. This press release [...]
Read More analysis, Cree, LED, scientific, TEMPO, testingMy master electrician brought this to me yesterday – this is the most random, coolest lamp failure I have ever seen! It looks to me to be a fingerprint failure, and once the envelope actually failed, the filament kinda puked itself out there, too! The lamp was an EHD (120V, 500W) in a Kliegl fresnel. [...]
Read More failure, lamp failure, lamps, randomIf you follow the L-Prize competition, you would have noticed an interesting entry that GE is going to be making – and is currently in development. GE (General Electric, NYSE:GE) is entering a 60W LED replacement lamp using Cree LED emitters as the light source. This is pretty awesome, if I do say so myself [...]
Read More Cree, Department of Energy, GE, General Electric, L-Prize, Lighting Prize, NASDAQ, NYSEYou know, for the most part, I've been pretty unimpressed with the designs of the A-lamp "replacement" LED lamps. I'm not shooting my mouth off saying I have a much better design, but there is something about that diffused white globe atop the heat sink, which looks like a handful of fins. I actually kinda [...]
Read More A-Lamp, incandescent replacement, lamp, light source, switchMy old (and still awesome) friend Derek Heckler sent me this video that you all have to watch – seriously, watch this video! Bill Hammack (from Engineer Guy, also a professor at the University of Illinois) made this video, and I have to say that it is one of the best videos on breaking down [...]
Read More Bill Hammack, breakdown, EngineerGuy, LCD monitors, LCDTV, liquid crystal