[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Sigh, Wonderlites
Erik Olson wrote:
<snip>
> Regarding the heat issue, *all* bulbs generate mostly heat. You just more
> than doubled your wattage; I'd expect the heat waste to go up. There's
> another article I clipped from this forum a few years back that basically
> states that most of the energy in *any* bulb goes into heat, so whether
> this be 160 watts fluorescent, incandescent, etc, only a small percentage
> is actually converted into visable light output... just that fluorescent
> and gas discharge lamps have four times as much of that small percentage.
> Any of the lighting guys have actual numbers for this? 5%? 1%? 0.1%?
> The reason you don't feel it with fluorescent tubes is that it's
> distributed across the entire tube rather than in one tiny spot like MH or
> MV bulbs.
>
> - Erik
A couple months ago I posted data on fluorescent tubes in
http://www.actwin.com/fish/aquatic-plants/month.9903/msg00462.html
The sort of calculation I did enabled me to compute true efficiencies
for all tubes for which we have both lumen output and spectrum. Typical
values range in between 20 - 30 percent. That is, 70 - 80 percent of
whatever watts you throw in, you get in the form of heat, not light.
-Ivo Busko
Baltimore, MD