This product just got UL approval, expect it to show up for retail sales soon. What’s an ESL? Think of it as an unfocused Cathode Ray Tube or CRT. The definition at Wikipedia is: Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL) is light produced by accelerated electrons hitting a phosphor (fluorescent) surface in a process known as cathodoluminescence.The light generation process is similar to a cathode ray tube (CRT) but lacks magnetic or electrostatic deflection.
Just wait, somebody will figure out a yoke coil for these bad boys and a way to hack the power supply to modulate video and we’ll have little live video pictures of the sun or some other star on the phosphor screens. Or, we’ll all get to claim we have miniature particle accelerators in our ceiling. Amuse your guests with a a Geiger counter capable of recording Beta and X-rays. Don’t freak out though, we’ve been doing the same thing for half a century with bigger, badder CRT’s in TV sets. Beats having a mercury hazard around.
From the company website: Electron Stimulated Luminescence™ Lighting Technology
Overview
Electron Stimulated Luminescence™ (ESL) Lighting Technology is an entirely new, energy efficient lighting technology. It uses accelerated electrons to stimulate phosphor to create light, making the surface of the bulb “glow”. ESL technology creates the same light quality as an incandescent but is up to 70% more energy efficient, lasting up to 5 times longer than incandescent and contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. There is no use of the neurotoxin Mercury (Hg) in the lighting process.
With this technology, Vu1 has developed its first light bulb that received UL certification in October 2010: the R30 ESL bulb is specifically designed to replace the 65W incandescent R30 flood bulb is recessed light fixtures and the light quality is virtually indistinguishable from this traditional lamp it replaces and, unlike CFLs, is mercury-free.
In addition to the R30, the company is currently developing a variety of highly energy efficient, optimal light quality mercury-free light bulbs. In 2011 and 2012, Vu1 plans to introduce the classic A-type lamp for US and European consumers, the R40 for the US commercial market and the R25 in Europe.
Proven & Safe
In creating ESL Technology, Vu1 merged several existing and proven technologies then uniquely adapted them for “lighting”. The company uses commonly sourced, non-hazardous, commercial materials that are customized to our specifications.
Safe as a lighting source, the ESL technology fits neatly into classic light bulb shapes similar to those familiar to consumers everywhere. This eliminates the need to bend the technology into an unusual, twisted spiral shape (CFL) or have costly and heavy heat dissipation designed into the bulb housing (LED).
Key features of the technology and associated manufacturing processes are patent pending.
Manufacturing
Vu1 operates a wholly-owned manufacturing subsidiary, Sendio s.r.o., in the Czech Republic. This enables the company to manufacture its products directly to protect the company’s intellectual property while maintaining close control over the quality, volume and distribution of initial product production.
The 75,000 square foot facility provides Vu1 with scalable production capability. The site’s initial production capacity is up to 6.8 million bulbs annually with a planned future capacity of 30 million bulbs annually. Vu1 employs a highly skilled team that has been trained at leading manufacturers such as Philips and Sony. The facility is centrally located, enabling efficient worldwide distribution.
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Spec sheet here (PDF)
Once China gets a hold on these, the price is likely to come way down. Right now they are selling at $20.
h/t to Alan
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Now didn’t they tell us kids back in the 1950’s not to sit too close to the tv set?
Nah. A stockpile of incandescents is still way cheaper per annum of adequate lighting.
If they do as they say in the blurb then hopefully we may get rid of the hated CFL’s forced upon us by an inane EU regulations. It may even bring down the cost of LED’s a bit quicker.
“Rough service” bulbs which look just like normal ones are exempt from the 2012 ban, assuming that ban doesn’t suffer a Republican win in the same year. A Google search shows they are not currently overly expensive.
If I could irradiate my food while the refrigerator door is closed, it would stay fresher longer (turn a problem into a feature). Does this thing come in 40W appliance bulb size yet? ;->
So the US Market is wide open to anyone wanting to start up a returning industry.
The shipping and VAT for products out of the EU is going to see to that.
Didn’t GE just decide to “come home”?
70% efficiency gain is pretty pathetic though. A 20W CFL is claimed to give as much light as a 100W old-style luminescent (and observationally, I agree), i..e. a 400% efficiency increase. I may be in a minority, but I lke ’em!
The problem with all these coated bulbs is that half the light that they want to go outwards from the bulb, ends up going intowards towards the bulb. It’s even worse with these twisted fluorescent tubes, as half the time the light escaping one portion of the tube ends up going back into another part of the tube.
I’ve always wondered whether some manufacturers count the light output in a “warmist” way (i.e. much higher than reality) as in light out isany light coming off the phosphor irrespective of whether it ever goes anywhere useful.
The best is yet to come….
You’ll be able to watch re-runs in every room.
They need to take into account that in future centuries human eyesight will be much improved. I know this because in most films depicting the future everybody lives in darkened corridors and it is often difficult to tell them apart. If I didn’t know better I’d think they were making entire films in just one or two corridors. They wouldn’t do that would they?
He he, how much fun we can have with a magnet?
I wonder how good the vacuum need to be for the electrons to be efficient?
And if the vacuum is stronger, like in the CRT, how big the bang will be?
So who knew that the centre of the world is in the Czech republic?
At 50 cents an incandescent, 8 cents per kw/h for electricity including tax, and the fact the bulb helps heating my house i guess i’ll pass.
There’s no way i’m going to earn back my investment with that kind of prices.
I shall wait for the Plasma screen version.
The LED lobby is going to be very annoyed. They went through so, so much trouble getting Washington to create a captive market. Now their sure-thing income will shrink. Of course, they were never the brightest. (pun.)
Bring back the incandescent bulb. A superior emitter of light by far.
Nice if true! I always wondered at the logic of banning mercury in liquid form then demanding it’s gaseous & most toxic (mad hatters) state be installed into light bulbs with the inherent disposal problam!!
Watched yet again that wonderful film Apollo 13 at the weekend. Still gives me a lump in my throat watching it (sad, I know), seeing all the little gismos & gadgets, mini fluorescent tubes, velcro, etc, we take for granted today that were state of the art unique things for the space race. what a wonderful time that was, I was 12 years old when it happened & we were glued to the tv set every day before & after school, although Britain was shelterd from much of the clamour of the occasion in the US.
Can anyone give me the strike current for a cfl in terms of running hours, there was a website a few years back that gave this , and real world running costs, is has gone now maybe because it showed that unless left on all the time they use more power than a filament bulb, the best came out halogen on a dimmer, and lasted the longest.
As long as we’re reinventing old technology that never worked right in the first place, let’s go ahead and re-invent Davy’s carbon-arc lamp. What a fine way to consume excess evil carbon!
AGW policy has not concerned the oldest picture gardens (in the world) in Broome, regularly in the past flooded during King Spring tides, but the light bulb replacement policy has made incandescent bulbs in Broome unobtainable. The iconic lit-up sign is now a lot duller.
http://pindanpost.com/2011/05/16/sun-pictures-b…-victim-of-agw/
Sun Pictures is a victim of AGW.
As far as “hacking” these goes, we’d traditionally need both a focusing ring or two to make it into a beam and then two pairs of electric plates for steering the beam. But these are short and fat, so putting all of this outside the bulb will give poor results. Maybe what we could do would be to combine the parts: instead of the deflecting *plates*, make two different focusing rings which are asymmetrical. One would focus and deflect horizontally, the other would focus and deflect vertically. The focus would probably vary with the amount of deflection, but we’re not really trying to get TV resolution here.
“ESL technology creates the same light quality as an incandescent but is up to 70% more energy efficient, lasting up to 5 times longer.”
Translation: Ain’t no way our bulbs will achieve that level of efficiency or last that long, except for a few rare cases. So to make it sound better, we will take a lesson for CFL industry and use weasel words to make our product sound better than it really is.
Weasel words aside, what I am most interested in is what kind of light will it produce. My mom has to wear special glasses because she has a sensitivity to all fluorescent lights. Fluorescent lights give her headaches. Will the light these ESL’s produce be like CFL’s, that is to say hard on people’s eyes?
What about the bremsstrahlung?
I can get an equivalent LED bulb at the local HD for 18 or less 20 does not impress me.
I’m willing to give them a try. I have yet to find a fully dimmable, power saving PAR38 flood that looks halfway normal and works as advertised. These might just do that if the PDF specs are correct.