RE: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #320

To: "'Aquatic-Plants Digest'" <Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com>
Subject: RE: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #320
From: Marque Crozman <marquec at gastech_com.au>
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 16:25:25 +-1100
Encoding: 52 TEXT

Greetings all,

Could some of you take a look inside those parabolic reflectors and see 
what
kind of bulbs are actually installed?  I have a really BIG curiosity bump
about this.  Are there some true ARC bulbs out there for growing plants?
 Brand names and such would sure help. One cannot rely on advertisements to
be accurate.  A wide disparity between the facts as known by the 
Engineering
Section and the Ad from the Advertising Department is not at all uncommon!
  :-)

For your interest:

There is a brand new bulb that has just turned the lighting world 
upsidedown, called the fusion
lamp. It has no metal parts in the lamp at all! It is all glass and looks 
like a lollypop with a
glass sphere on a glass rod. The sphere is about the size of a golf ball.

Now for the really stunning part, its output efficiency is 135 lumens per 
watt! As a comparison,
standard filament lamps are in the order of 10-15 lpw, standard flouros 
30-40 lpw, VHO flouros,
50-60 lpw, metal halides 60-70 lpw, low pressure sodium and metal vapour 
70-80 lpw and high
pressure sodium 80-90 lpw.

So how does it work? The lamp is filled with a mixture of sulphur and argon 
gases. It is driven by a magnetron, so that the microwave energy excites 
the gas. The output is in the order of 4500k, with
a CRI index of 79 and is described as daylight (although I would not really 
agree). The spectral
distribution is pretty broad, but has a yellow peak, red and blue 
components are quite substantial,
with output falling off rapidly outside the visable spectrum.

Apparently, its being trialed on growing roses. The main aim of the lamp 
though is for use in stadium
lighting, factories etc. The actual output of the lamp is 135000 lumens, 
with a power consumption
of 1killowatt. In Aussie dollars it comes in at approx AU$3000, and is 
manufactured by a US
company by the name of Fusion Lighting Inc.

Marque Crozman  APD - ANGFA(NSW)