I bet Thomas Edison never would’ve thought we’d end up making light bulbs with fans inside them when he invented the light bulb 100 years ago. That’s what I’ve been seeing more and more of lately both online and at the Las Vegas Lightfair I attended a couple months back (more on that in a future blog entry). Why? Because it’s a race right now for every manufacturer to make a brighter bulb and grab the largest share of the market possible. So why the fans?

To understand this a little better, let’s get into a little bit of LED bulb design theory. There’s three main components in an LED bulb:
1. Chip/Die – This is the LED itself
2. Heatsink – This is what keeps LED Chip/Die cool
3. Optics – This is the lens that directs the light out of the bulb – giving you a narrow/wide beam of light

CREE is the #1 US manufacturer(brightest) for LED dies right now. (See our LED Buying Guide for more information). We can pretty much assume the majority of manufacturers are using the same chip. What about the lens? As important as the lens is, you can only bend the light in so many ways, and the light output increase is only marginal using the same chip.

So what’s the solution? Pack more LED’s into one place or drive them harder by putting more electricity through them. What happens when you do either of these and what’s the #1 killer of LED’s? Heat.

So we need a way of keeping them cool. OK let’s just make a bigger heatsink:

But now the bulb won’t fit in a traditional socket. “Doh”

OK, what about a fan? “Aha!”. This will let us keep a small form factor, and keep the bulbs the same size.

Sounds like a great idea at first but aren’t LED’s rated at 50,000 hours? That’s 17 years at 8 hours a day. Ever opened up a computer after 2 years and seen the amount of gunk the fans have picked up? Imagine the amount of gunk that they will pick up after 5 or 10 years? What happens then? Fan stops > LED overheats > LED dies. There goes $50 to $100.

That’s my thoughts. I just don’t think LED bulbs with fans are the way to go. There’s no way they can possibly last 17 years unless we come up with a self-cleaning fan technology. I DID find a company that came up with a brighter bulb without a fan and am about to get samples of this bulb. Pictures to come…
Anyone think otherwise? Anyone tried an LED bulb with fans?

What I've noticed lately is there's a lack of information that can be found on the web about LED light bulbs. Now there's a ton of information online about LEDs in general, don't get me wrong. But when it comes to LED light bulbs specifically and what to look for when wanting to purchase them, the information is very sparse, and if it even IS available, it's usually in a very technical format where you practically need an engineering degree to decrypt what the figures mean.

Because of that, we've decided to create a guide of our own. It's a guide that explains :

• What LEDs are
• How they work
• Why they are better than compact fluorescents

and most importantly,

• What features you should be looking for when purchasing LED light bulbs

If you like it, Digg it, facebook it, or please let us know in the comments below!!!

The Definitive Buying Guide for LED Light Bulbs

Labels: led light bulb buying guide cfl compact fluorescent

Those crazy Chinese are at it again with another version of the Great Wall, at least from my perspective. I guess they're in it to win it when it comes to grand displays to impress the rest of the world. Maybe this time they're actually getting it right. This version is made up of LED's and dwarves anything I've seen lately. Probably not the biggest I've EVER seen, but then again, it also isn't an installation that uses half a million watts just for the sound system. No, this wall is so "great" because it is billed as a zero-energy fixture.

The LED wall contains solar panels that harvest the sun's rays during the day, and uses that energy to display a video light show at night. How completely perfect. It's like the true circle of life. In theory, you could build one of these in the middle of the desert, away from any and all civilization, and play large-than-life size movies off of it. Take that another step further and I would LOVE to play some old school Street Fighter II on a deserted island. Although GTA IV would definitely keep my attention for a little longer.

This is a one-off structure, so I don't think they're selling to the general public, but if you have to ask how much it would cost, you definitely can't afford it. The new green buzzword of 2008 is "zero energy". I'm already an adopter. I've had this solar-powered flashlight for years....

Labels: zero energy solar power led wall light china

So I was sitting at home playing jacks and I couldn't get out of my head how the Luxim bulbs can possibly be so efficient. It must be some sort of voodoo magic. So I did some more research, of what little there was, and found a little animation on the mechanism that causes this little Tic-Tac sized bit of glass to emit this enormous amount of light.

So apparently the way these things work is that it's like a cross between a halogen and a fluorescent. With halogens, the filament material heats up (much like a standard incandescent bulb) and microscopic bits evaporates into the high pressure bulb. With fluorescents, a plasma is formed that emits electrons onto a phosphor to create visible light.

Now with the Luxim, the plasma is created from the gas, and then some metal halide elements in the bulb evaporate (assuming because of the heat from the plasma) and that combination of plasma and evaporated metal halide creates a light that could blind even a deity.

You can take a look at the animation and the description of it.

It looks pretty amazing with some just as amazing claims. The heatsink and heating mechanism looks ridiculously big though, from the picture, so it seems like it may be a while till it's ready for prime time. I'd be totally interested in seeing one in real life. Though from what I read into mechanism of how the bulb gets heated up and the temperatures, I'll make sure to wear my codpiece at the viewing.

Labels: alternative light energy efficient luxim halogen

It's a brave new world! There's a new sheriff in town and he's called Luxim. If you haven't heard yet, check out the video. Pretty amazing stuff. Apparently, this single Tic-Tac sized bulb can put out the power of a 400W Halogen bulb, and using only 250W. In comparison, I think that's the ceiling of power as far as LED's go. Also, it's purported to be twice as efficient as LED's (thus 4x as efficient as CFL's)

The interest specs :
Luxim Bulbs - 140 lumens/watt
LED's - 70 lumens/watt
Incandescents - 15 lumens/watt

Inside the bulb, it forms a plasma (so says the video) at 6000 degrees Kelvin (that's one spicy-ah meatball), which is as hot as the sun. If I was a kangaroo, I'd jump on this in a second as it sounds like the next great thing. Having over $40 Million in VC funds behind it definitely helps. As great as it sounds, it seems almost too good to be true. I mean the technology seems kosher, but is it something that is commercially viable at the moment? If they can figure out the crazy heatsink issues and somehow put it into something the size of a lightbulb, I'm on the next train to LuximLand. I will be following this like a hawk and see what other info I can scrounge up in the next few days. Stay tuned!

Labels: led cfl light luxim new technology lumens efficient

Back when I was a young'un and lived in the ‘burbs, there were times when I would be walking down the street or riding my bike alone at night. Sometimes as I was passing under one of those yellow-orange sodium streetlamps, they would, without any type of warning, suddenly turn off. Now having a wild imagination, I came up with two possible hypotheses for this occurrence. The first was that I was gifted with some magical power, or subconscious sixth sense, that interacts with the electrical field generated by the light, causing it to turn off. The other explanation was that a ghost or apparition was turning it off, as though sending me a sign that something bad (ala death and/or dismemberment) was going to happen. Generally, the latter idea would take hold and I would sprint the rest of the way back home.

With these new lights, I may not have to worry about that ever again. Not only is it solar powered and using LED light output, it also works on a motion sensor. This makes a lot of sense in theory, since there’s no point in lighting up a path where there is no one walking down. My favorite feature is how it sits at 30% brightness, until something walks by and trips the motion sensor. So if all the technology can converge the right way for this to eventually become a reality, we're looking at these lights being "off the grid"! Preposterous! Imagine all the strange places you could just put these things. In a dark corner of an empty park. On the top of a cliff. In the middle of the desert. As a prank on top of a dome!

The design is very “trendy” which is always a benefit, but I’m wondering if this is still more of a proof-of-concept, than something that can be usefully implemented. From what I see, the LEDs being used are still the standard sized small LED’s that are used for keychain flashlights. Even used in an array, there isn’t enough power output to make the light as usable as it needs to be. The Eternaleds bulbs use more powerful LED circuits with energy output two orders of magnitude greater than the smaller bulbs. I worry that lights such as these will give LEDs the continuing reputation that they are not bright enough of not ready for consumer use. On the other hand, if the larger power LEDs are being used, then it's also pulling more wattage, so there needs to be a brightness vs. power balance here.

Still, it’s great to see things like these even publicized (even if it's very obvious it's still in concept stage), and I feel like this is the first step towards the golden chalice of usable energy-efficient lighting fixtures. Right now though, more realistic goals need to be made for LED application, or the technology needed to fulfill those promises need to be put in the hands of responsible designers and architects.

Via [Gizmodo]

Labels: led streetlight solar motion sensor childhood design

I attended a Green Drinks Mixer last night (get it? Mixer? Drinks?....it was funnier in my head) and overall, had a pretty good time. Spoke with and educated a few people about LEDs, made some interesting contacts, and heard some good ideas about what's going on in the green industry.

I first heard about Green Drinks about two months ago, as I was participating in my favorite pastime of surfing the internet (of which I think I'm 84% of the way through it). I stumbled upon the site as I was looking for like-minded individuals in the New York area that shared a passion for the environment, and at the same time were progressive enough to know about new technologies and advocate them. On top of that, it would be a great place to network, and an AMAZING excuse to have a drink or two so early in the week. Not that you ever need an excuse to drink, mind you, but it does justify it to people better when you have a legitimate reason and that you're not just a lush.

So I'm running late and trekking over there through the biggest snowfall (which turned later into more of an ice-fall) in NY so far this year and get to the location that I had put in my PDA a month ago. There's a narrow doorway with the correct address above it, but there is no one around, nor do I hear any people talking around the area. I'm thinking to myself "Is this one of those 'uber-exclusive' clubs that meet in non-descript locations that I keep hearing about? Well, that's trendy." I walk back and forth to confirm that the address is indeed correct. Two people come out of the locked door and I ask them "Is this where the Green Drinks meeting is?" She replies "Ummm....no. This is a residential building." I'm flummoxed as I try to determine my next course of action. Luckily, I had the number of the location so I give them a call. They say that a lot of people had been coming by with the same problem, and the correct address is about one klick northeast of here, just off Houston St.

So half-a-mile later, I get to the correct place at the Boucarou Lounge (which I realized I had been to before for a birthday party a year ago), and walk into a throng of people (easily over 200), packed like sardines, all chatting away and seemingly having a good time. I pay my $10 cover/donation, write my name on a name tag, stick it over my heart and mosey over to the bar for my first drink. I make light conversation with whoever is around me, delicately balancing the topics of interest between city life, eco-awareness, and steering clear away from anything related to politics or religion. There's no better way to ruin the mood than to butt heads with someone about who they should vote for (That's a tip for you though, if you ever want to "ruin the mood", although "I think my friend is looking for me" works too.) I met a few individuals of mention - a Go Green Expo business manager (think I'll have to pass on the booth until next year, but I'll definitely be there as a consumer), a soon-to-be restauranteur looking to build his first green restaurant, and a guy from treehugger.com. You know, Treehugger...they're like the Gizmodo of Green! I think working there, and being at a green event, makes him the automatic pseudo-celebrity of the night. It's like going to a National Lunchmeat Convention and having your name be Oscar or Meyer.

The most interesting people I met was a couple that had just bought a place in Harlem that they were renovating and making a green-certified 3 family condo. It was interesting to hear about all the criteria needed to have the building green-certified. Apparently, there's 60 different criteria, ranging from disposal of building materials, to renewable bamboo floors, to window type, to lighting, that determine if you can get the green stamp of approval. All very interesting stuff. I read a little bit about that in the research that I had done, but it is pretty overwhelming the amount of information you need to know about it. He asked me about LEDs with the preconception that they're not very bright (I dispel that myth on a daily basis) and was interested in seeing if they could be used for his house or a future project. They are looking for prospective buyers at the moment, so if you want a newly renovated green place in the city (which will no doubt save you a ton in energy costs), I can forward you their contact info. The other interesting thing about them is that they brought their daughter to the event as well (green family), and between the three of them - an architect, an author/photographer, and a graphic designer - they could start their own eco-design firm.

These are the things that I learned :

1. Wear a hat - If it's snowing outside, and you're going to be walking for an extended period, invest in some warm headgear lest you arrive at your destination with an ice helmet where your hair used to be.
2. The Green Drinks NYC chapter is the largest Green Drinks chapter in the U.S. Also, someone told me that the Xmas party had about 500 people. Yikes.
3. People are varied - there's a lot of people, both interesting, and not so much that you will meet at a networking event. Filter out the wheat from the chaff.
4. Networking is fun - especially meeting people for new ideas and activities
5. Networking is hard - I thought i would talk to the whole room, or at least 50 people. I talked to probably about 10-12, and had a proper conversation with about 1/2 of them. There's always next month.
   

Overall, I had an enjoyable time, traded someone an LED flashlight for a bag of granola, and met some interesting people. It was definitely not what I expected, but I think I will attend again next month.

Green Drinks is international, so I definitely recommend attending one in your area.

Labels: green drinks networking

I've finally gotten around to offloading and organizing all the pictures from the Eco Gift Expo at the Santa Monica Convention Center in December. It was an exciting and productive trip, and we met a lot of great people there. This was the first expo that we've done (and definitely not the last) so it was good to get out there and talk to like-minded eco-conscious individuals that were as passionate about being green as we were.

Now being that it was the first time we have had a booth at an expo, there's some things you should know if you ever decide to do one...

1. Know your stuff - There will be a ton of different people going to the expo, be it consumers, business owners, as well as media (both print and web). They will all have different levels of knowledge about your product, and your competitors, ranging from completely uneducated to Mr. (or Ms.) Know-it-All. Know what you're talking about inside and out so that you can be the trusted expert to answer any and every question that may come your way.

2. Break out your wallet - The initial cost of booth may seem like a large expense, but for all the other costs like displays, building material, tools, rentals, it will quickly add up. The final cost after all was said and done was almost the cost of two booths. My recommendation is to call up your credit card company and ask them to raise your credit limit, and at the same time lower your interest rate.

3. Drink lots of coffee - Plan on moving around quickly and talking to everyone that walks by the booth. The hardest thing about this is when it's the second day, and you haven't gotten enough sleep, and your energy is waning. Your mood reflects on what you are selling, so if you look tired, or unmotivated, people will think you're not interested in your product so why should they? If you can't stand there for 10-13 hours straight, then you probably need to hire someone to do that.

4. Expect the expected and unexpected - There were so many things that went wrong from start to finish that we basically made up as we went along. Setup ideas, broken displays, talking points were all changed on the fly. It did help a huge amount that we planned everything else down to the tee so that everything else ended up being quite manageable.

So this is the story of our experience at the Eco Gift Expo…

The booth that we had purchased had a great location right near the main entrance and we were really excited about how lucky we got. Unfortunately, luck goes both ways. We mocked up exactly how all the displays would be set up and got the visual aspect down of what people would see as they walked by. About 3 weeks before the expo, we were told that our booth location had changed. The spot that we had before had been a sponsor spot, so we were moved to a different location. It didn't look as good on paper, but the actual location ended up being just as good, a corner booth near another entrance.

About a week before the convention, and the deadline to ship the displays from New York was coming up fast. The friend that I hired to make the clear boxes, fixtures, tracks, and wooden light boxes was finishing up the final pieces. By a random stroke of luck, I saw how the "12+1" display was coming together and made a last-minute major design change to it by putting all the fixtures on the outside of the box rather than the inside. This ended up saving the display and actually making it usable, as you'll see later.

As things always seem to go, we packed up everything in boxes and shipped them to L.A. at the very last minute. And by last minute, I mean the paint was still drying and UPS was about to close in 20 minutes. If we didn’t ship it when we did, it would not have made it to the expo in time. But what is success without the looming chance of complete and utter failure? I like to live on the edge. Unfortunately, there was a casualty upon arrival of the boxes in L.A…..

Let’s see the pictures.....Go to the Picture Diary

Labels: eco gift expo convention display setup tips

Alright, so it's done. Jeff did a great job at the Green Health Live interview.

Here's the link to the blog on The GHL site. Marc did a good job of writing an overview of how LED's work using the images that we gave him for the show. Check it out.
http://thestream.tv/blog/?p=379

Here's the link to the video.
http://www.thestream.tv/watch.php?v=560

I don't quite agree with Jeff's fashion choice (I mean who wears cyan dress shirts, really?) but that didn't deter from his knowledge of the product. There was another 45 minutes of Q&A afterwards with some interesting questions, but unfortunately, that didn't get aired.

The best question that someone wrote in was "So what happens when the bulbs explode?!" The look on Jeff's face was classic. It was a cross between "Is that a real question?" and "Uhh....is anybody screening these submissions?"

The answer to that, is that LED bulbs DON'T explode. They are solid state electronics (kind of like a USB drive), meaning it's just a chip. The newer bulbs casings are made mostly from aluminum (rather than polycarbonate, a stiff plastic) which are used as a heatsink to dissipate the heat produced from the high intensity LED chips. Compact fluorescents are glass tubes that have an argon gas (or sometimes krypton gas) and a little bit of mercury inside. The old style and office fluorescents had a separate block of electronics called a ballast that's meant to "jumpstart" the lighting process. The compact fluorescents have a mini-ballast inside the base of the bulb to do this. I haven't heard of these lights exploding either, but I have heard stories of these burning out, especially when you turn the lights on and off rapidly. Apparently doing that will greatly decrease the life of a CFL. Luckily, LEDs don't have this problem. And of course you definitely don't want to be in the vicinity of a broken CFL or fluorescent due to the small mercury issue. (Just kidding, it's not a small issue...click here for the cleanup instructions.)

Incandescents and halogens are both glass "globes" that contain a metal filament that heats up to an extreme temperature, which creates light. The bulb contains no gas, but actually contains a vacuum, so the filament is less prone to oxidation from the air (and thus burning out more quickly). As you can imagine, this high heat is transferred to the thin glass bulb and dissapated through the air. Halogens are a bit more efficient that incandescents (more light for the same wattage) but they both get hot enough to burn you (and start various curtain/paper/fabric fires) if you touch them.

I remember back in my younger years, we had one of lamps with a lampshade. Nothing special, just the typical run-of-the-mill table lamps. I had one of those mist bottles, the kind you use for Windex, but it was filled with water for ironing clothes. In my infinite wisdom, I knew that such a fine mist would evaporate quickly from warm surfaces, so I thought it would be fun to see the water turn quickly into steam by spraying it on a hot light bulb. Bad idea. I was (and still am) a little scientist and thought I knew what I was doing, it seemed so simple in my head. In the same way that glass cracks when heated up and dunked in water, the light bulb did the same. Except being under pressure and being so thin, instead of cracking, it EXPLODED. Bulb shards everywhere. Luckily the lampshade was still on, which shielded me from flying slivers of broken glass to the face, or you'd be probably be calling me Patches right now. What happens is that the glass on the outside contracts due to the cooler temperature, while the glass on the inside of the bulb doesn't. This non-uniform stretching causes stress in the glass, and ultimately rupture.

I can't believe I actually made it to my age in one piece when I think about all the dumb things I did as a kid. Retrospectively of course. At the time, it was pure genius...

Labels: CFL LED incandecent halogen how its made materials exploding light bulb story

Tonight at 6PM PST, Jeff is doing an interview with Mark Ryan at Green Health Live. The URL you can see him at, AND participate with questions to ask him are :

LIVE STREAM:
http://www.thestream.tv/series.php?s=11
WEBSITE:
http://www.greenhealthlive.tv/

Green Health Live is an online talk show (which is part of a larger video and entertainment site) that does weekly segments on how to live greener and educate people on green issues that they may not be aware of. I watched a few episodes (The Fish and Recycling episodes are good) and I like the style that they use, it's not preachy or boring (as content like that *could* be in another person's hands) and actually makes it fun to learn about how to do your part for the environment. It caters towards the general public which is really nice, especially if you don't know a lot of the acronyms or technologies that are just thrown around nowadays. Personally, in this age of fast-food entertainment, if you lose my attention or go over my head for even a second, my hand is already on the back button to see the newest Youtube viral video.

Of the episodes that I saw, Mark kept it interesting with his funny quips and comments, and co-host Carrie is a good bastion of knowledge on the medical aspect of each show. I think just the fact that he sports a faux-hawk while talking and interviewing guests is entertainment enough, but then again, I just have a natural predilection towards mohawks. Jeff will talking a little bit about the industry/business, but the focus of the interview will be on more informational topics such as

• What LED stands for and how it works
• Comparing and contrasting with conventional incandscent bulbs and fluorescent lights
• Environmental impact and health implications of each
• Cost and savings of LED technology
• Interesting stories and thoughts

It should be interesting to see how well Jeff does, and if anything, this will be a great resource for people that want to find out about or want a general introduction about LEDs. I'll be posting the video up after it's finished tonight. Stay tuned! Or better yet, watch the show and submit a question!

Labels: green health live interview introduction information video led online