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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Love new technology, but am still furious at the attempted ban on incandescent light bulbs. Get Congress’s hands off our lights! Let the market decide! Repeal the ban!
/Mr Lynn
“Designed for 11,000 hour lifetime without significant color shift”
How abut light output over that lifetime?
This is probably a cold cathode design. Otherwise, it would have to have a hot filament. These things take thousands of volts to run. We’ll see if they are a fire hazard the hard way, I’m guessing.
@Tim H. – You can also move the electrons with an external magnetic field. It would be a pain, but you probably could focus with a mag. field also.
Light temperature/ quality is the deciding factor to me. If the light they emit resembles that of fluorescent in ANY way, I’ll go by candlelight, than-you.
Time to start stocking up on lots and lots of incandescents anyway- 2012 is approaching fast.
Anyone know where to get incandescents in bulk at good prices?
Does it work FAST at -40C/F
Does it dim
How long does it last
How much?
Chris Edwards wrote: “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.”
I believe MythBusters busted this myth.
I don’t mind changing from one lighting source to another, provided I get some tangible benefit from doing so. I HATE being force to do so.
Please change last sentence to read forced rather than force.
@Tim – you never worked on a CRT tv did you?
Particularly ’60s and ’70s versions. They were focused by a pair of magnets, and deflection by external coils. What you are taking about would be small oscilloscope type CRTs.
It’s (it was) the HV (High Voltage) rectifier tube (used at that time) that produced the X-rays …
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Tom, your original link did not work, but a little bit of detective work produced this one:
http://pindanpost.com/2011/05/16/sun-pictures-broome-victim-of-agw/
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To Wade,
Do televisions give your mom headaches?
I started working on Mrs. Reason this weekend with regards to LED replacement bulbs, as this week we had several of the “special” bulbs in our kitchen all go out within days of each other (speacial meaning something other than the regular globe bulb…in this case a tracklight halogen with the GU10 socket and an R30 flood on a dimmer). The selling point of 50,000 hr life vs. 1,500 hr life on the “long-life!” R30’s box was hard for her to refute.
“Do televisions give your mom headaches?”
Only when The View is on!
*rimshot!*
I would not expect these ESL bulbs to exhibit any more phosphor losses than does a CFL or an ordinary fluorescent tube. It is already true that half the flux emitted from the phosphor goes inwards, rather than outwards, so that is built into the current efficiency ratings of flurescents, and CFLs.
The phosphor coated on the bulb surface, is thin enough to be partially transparent, so flux that is back radiated, simply corsses the space to the opposite wall, where some of it will simply transmit, and escape. There will be some re-absorption by the phospher, which will be a loss.
But the technology of how to optimize the thickness of the phospher coating, for maximum efficiency, is well known to those in the industry; so ESLs should not be in any worse shape. There will be a difference in the elecron capture versus UV stimulation of CFLs, as far as the most efficient phosphor thickness. These don’t need to be kV level elctrons, so their penetration depth could be quite thin. It’s an interesting approach, and I wouldn’t dismiss it lightly (pun intended)
The weasel words “up to” are always present in ads, and I always discount them. They are a legalese approach to specifications. The FTC probably won’t allow more factual claims, without expensive experimental proof.
Something a bit fishy about this, because patent application quoted by the company’s website : “U.S. Patent Application Serial No.: 11/969,840” may well give the impression that this is a new or recent application because of the “11”. You may think that this refers to the year 2011. However reference to the US Patent Office table of serial numbers reveals that this application number was issued in 2007. #1
According to VU1, “In July 2010, we were granted a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for our lighting technology. U.S. Patent Application Serial No.: 11/969,840 is for the system and apparatus for cathodoluminescent lighting, relating to the method of operation to create light via phosphor and a cathode, a key component of Vu1′s unique Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL) clean, energy efficient lighting technology. We have 10 patents pending in the US being supported by Intellectual Property attorneys Lathrop and Gage LLP. As of October 2010, we had 3 open international applications and 3 international applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. ”
So then if they “were granted a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office”,
then why not quote the number of that patent? Still they are quoting the four year old patent application number. Could it be that somebody else already invented this technology. I mean an unfocussed cathode ray tube as a luminaire. I am thinking of Crookes, or perhaps Tesla. This isn’t really a “novel” invention, is it ?
#1 – http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/search/filingyr.jsp
LED will soon be the way to go though. Have no doubts that in 5 years LED will be cost effective with nearly everything and last much, much longer than any competition. This is interesting, but outdated even before it is available. CFL’s were a stopgap at best, but technology has outpaced this technology already.
Ah don’t know. This seems like a happy-happy-joy-joy announcement from a company that knows/fears well that their invention is soon to be swatted to the side of the highway by a much bigger, better and intrinsically indominable competitor. LEDs.
up to 600 lumens at 19.5 watts comes out to about 30 lumens a watt. Not bad, really. Lumileds consistently are achieving 1300 lumens off 19 watts of input power, or about 68 lumens per watt. They last a bazillion years, also have no mercury, can be dropped, banged around, compressed, dinged, soldered to, and so on with no ill effect. The form-factor can be incorporated into conventionally shaped bulbs made either of glass but more likely polycarbonate plastic. Cree and Luxeon also have competing product, and the Chinese in their charitable way have a whole billion-bulb-a-month industry that copies and duplicates pilfered intellectual property for domestic and export consumption. They WILL bring product to the market at prices easily competitive with CFL and even old incandescent tech.
The threat of LED notwithstanding, these electroluminescent bulbs may have some market especially for people who claim to get headaches and other maladies from anything-but-incandescent light. Maybe they should market them as Organic, and include organic hemp stabilized, cross-linked tofu protein polymer in the bases and circuit-board. Little green leaf-patterns all over blue-and-white hued base, with a double-R universal recycling stamp and mail-back coupon in each box. “A percentage of every sale is donated directly to saving the endangered species of our planet, fighting poverty in Botswana and fostering the Presidents Circle initiative for global warming education!”
It may be tongue-in-cheek, but you know full well that there’d be armies of self-taught enviro-conscious, and very well intentioned folks that’d buy em. Hell, I already see the corporate takeover or merger with the Natures Choice soap company.
Axel – “This isn’t really a “novel” invention, is it ?”
It has been around for a while. The old Jumbotron screens used individual lamps, each of which consisted of a small CRT with only one or a handful of pixels. They are now obsolete, replaced with LED based displays. One problem was a relatively short lifetime compared with LEDs. They could still have patent coverage, depending on the details of the interior design (incorporation of a cold cathode or low work-function cathode material, for example). However, I agree that publishing a patent application number (which involves no examination of patentability) rather than the issued patent number is strange.
It would be less about factual claims and more about consumer perception. Luminaire life is based on the time to 50% mortality. If the standard deviation for the lamp life isn’t fairly narrow, you’ll get a lot of consumer complaints. Hardly anyone complains when it goes for 2x or 3x the listed life ;-).
Will they work at 30 below? I did try cfl’s outside but in the middle of winter by the time they lit up I forgot what I went outside for.
Old CRT monitors are hazardous to dispose, as the TV news has told me, due to the pound or so of lead that is in the glass. I likewise wonder about old CRT televisions. Do these bulbs also have leaded glass, and will similar disposal concerns surface? Will these get caught up in the mandated electronics recycling and disposal programs, (allegedly) coming soon to Pennsylvania?
At least with them being made in the Czech Republic, we know they’re manufactured under tougher environmental and worker-safety standards than if made in China. And I am amazed that the world has changed that much.
Question: If these “are like” CRT’s but without magnetic or electrostatic deflection, then why isn’t the fixed electron beam striking a single dot? Wouldn’t there have to be a deflection system to “paint” the entire phosphor surface?
Since they do not state the efficiency, it can’t be very good. 70% over incandescent is meaningless since they vary from 10-20 lm/W. T5/T8 fluorescent are about 100 lm/W, white LED are 40-80 lm/W.
There is also an electrode-less fluorescent that is excited by microwaves, I don’t know if they are efficient. CRT are not efficient, that’s one reason we switched to LCDs.