incandescent light bulbs
Fluorescent Light Bulbs Over Regular Light Bulbs
A regular yellow light bulb is also known as the incandescent light bulb. These light bulbs utilize a thin layer that is made of tungsten. When the electricity passes through this layer, it heats up until it becomes fully hot. This heat produces the light coming from the bulb. Aside from the light, the bulb also produces plenty of heat. Technically, this is a waste of energy. The attempt to reduce this waste of energy resulted to the creation of the fluorescent lamp. These light bulbs are energy efficient. Unlike the regular light bulb, fluorescent lamps do not use tungsten to produce light.
A fluorescent light bulb utilizes a different process to produce light. It uses electrodes on both ends of the tube of a fluorescent bulb. A river of electrons flows in the gas from one electrode to another one. These tiny electrons collapse in the mercury atoms and ignite them. As the mercury atoms alternate from ignition to inactive state, they produce ultraviolet photons. These particles called photons bumps into the phosphor coating of the tube of the fluorescent bulb. This phosphor activity produces the visible light. A fluorescent light bulb can produce the light equivalent of four to six incandescent light bulbs. For example, a 20 watt fluorescent light bulb gives of the same amount of light as an 80 watt incandescent light bulb.
Tags: fluorescent light bulbs, incandescent light bulb, incandescent light bulbs, mercury atoms, phosphor coatingRelated posts
What is Fluorescent Lighting?
Understanding how fluorescent light tubes work begins with a basic understanding of how light is produced. The basic unit of light is the light photon, which is released by an atom when its electrons become energized. As you may know, electrons are negatively charged particles that orbit around an atom’s positively charged nucleus. Electrons have different levels of energy, and move when energy is gained or lost by the atom. When heat passes energy to an atom, electrons quickly shift to another orbital, and almost instantaneously jump back to their original positions. As the return jump takes place, extra energy can be released in the form of a light photon, thus creating light.
Tags: atoms electrons, fluorescent light bulbs, fluorescent light tubes, incandescent light bulbs, mercury atoms
Related posts
Commercial Fluorescent Lighting
For any business owner, you will need to light your workplace, but you do not want to have to pay the high costs of electric bills that can accompany the use of traditional incandescent light bulbs. One of the most cost effective methods of saving energy is to use commercial fluorescent lighting. Unlike incandescent, fluorescent lights use less energy, but they put out an equivalent amount of light. The electricity that they do use is not wasted in the production of heat as can be seen with other bulbs such as halogens or incandescent. By keeping your place of business lit without generating excess heat, which can lead to higher cooling costs, the use of commercial fluorescent lights will help to keep your bottom line down.
There might be some misconceptions which could steer you away from choosing fluorescent lights. Among these are issues that were frequently seen in older generation lights. Twenty to thirty years ago, having fluorescent lights meant having to deal with several problems. While commercial fluorescent lighting then was the most energy efficient of lights, it was still very poor in color rendering. In fact, women in the 1980s were instructed to wear more red tones in their makeup than usual if they worked under fluorescent lights all day since the yellowish coloring of the light would make them look washed out otherwise. This coloring was due to the mixture of gases used in the bulbs. This formulation has been changed, so that now, even with commercial fluorescent lights, you can have bright, white light. Another problem with fluorescents of the past was their flickering. This is due to the way that these lights illuminate. In order to turn on, a fluorescent light excites the electrons of the gases inside the tube. These then light up. The amount of power going into the lamp is controlled by a ballast. In the past, the power would drop down to zero during operation causing a flicker and or hum. Modern bulbs have electronic high frequency ballasts which more evenly regulate the power, thus ridding the light of its flickering and humming.
Tags: commercial fluorescent lighting, fact women, halogens, incandescent light bulbs, women in the 1980sRelated posts