Eternity lightbulb

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The "Ewigkeitsglühlampe" is an incandescent lamp developed by the German inventor Dieter Binninger with an integrated ballast and an (alleged) service life of up to 150,000 hours (corresponds to around 17 years). It is also called SIP lamp based on the so-called Sig lamps (long-life lamps, used in signal systems).

history

Since the Berlin clock, which he developed in 1976 on behalf of the Berlin Senate , required too much maintenance with hundreds of normal light bulbs, Binninger invented a new light bulb. Actually, this was the special operating mode of a normal incandescent lamp, which Binninger implemented with a ballast. It took from 1979 to 1984 until Binninger secured its development with several patents . He then made the lightbulbs in a small factory in Berlin-Kreuzberg with an employee. Before he wanted to take over the Narva works in the post-reunification period (and perhaps wanted to have his ballasted light bulb produced), his plane crashed in 1991 and was killed.

To date, conventional incandescent lamps for mains voltage (so-called general service lamps ) have an average life of around 1000 hours. Long-life incandescent lamps (so-called Sig lamps) such as high-voltage krypton lamps have an average life of up to 14,000 h with a light output that is around half that of general service lamps.

Functionality / technical basics

Service life and brightness of an incandescent lamp depending on the operating voltage

According to Binninger, the main difference to normal operation of an incandescent lamp is that an incandescent lamp is operated with higher power and reduced voltage (TRIAC phase control, see), which reduces the effective operating voltage and increases the service life. This extends the service life several times over - but the color temperature and the efficiency (light yield) are reduced.

Another effect claimed by Binninger with pulsed operation below about 50 Hz is: The filament temperature should then supposedly follow the pulse voltage and the light output should increase due to the exponential increase in the light output in the temperature maxima in such a way that an efficiency advantage occurs compared to pure undervoltage operation would. Binninger claimed that with this pulsed mode of operation, the enormous increase in service life, as is known to occur in low-voltage operation, would be retained (DE3213333A1). This is at least doubtful, since the evaporation rate of the filament also increases in the temperature maxima. In addition, there is presumably a disadvantageous temperature cycle stress. There is no clear evidence for these claims.

The patent text (especially DE3213333A1) contains technical fallacies (arithmetic mean value of the pulsed voltage is wrongly used as the basis for power and efficiency calculation), which has undoubtedly been recognized by potential manufacturers of such lamps.

For special applications (e.g. signaling systems ) there are special incandescent lamps with a lower filament temperature at nominal voltage (e.g. Philips Traffic 6938E / 6939E, Walter Schrickel 956005/956006). The service life of such incandescent lamps is 8 to 16 times that of normal incandescent lamps with about half the light output. The color temperature is around 2200 K. Such special incandescent lamps have been manufactured in series since the 1920s. The longest burning incandescent lamp " Centennial Light " has been burning in the Livermore (California) fire station since 1901, but it is a carbon filament incandescent lamp with extremely poor energy efficiency, which also consumes only a fraction of its original output.

Regarding the undervoltage operation of incandescent lamps, see also the service life section in the article on incandescent lamps .

economics

To replace a conventional 100 W incandescent lamp with a Binninger incandescent lamp of the same luminosity, this would have to consume 150 W of electrical power. During the service life of a normal incandescent lamp of 1000 hours, this results in an additional consumption of electrical energy of 50  kWh , at a price of € 0.26 / kWh that is € 13. Such incandescent lamps would therefore only be economical where the costs caused by a lamp defect are higher than the additional electricity costs (e.g. traffic lights or inaccessible or remote lamps).

Compared to long-life lamps or low-voltage halogen incandescent lamps, however, the Binninger process could not prevail in the form of an incandescent lamp with integrated electronics.

Alternative energy-saving lamps such as ( compact fluorescent lamps and LED filament lamps ) are also increasingly being used in these areas ; although these have higher acquisition costs, they have a significantly longer lifespan and also consume significantly less energy.

Medial consideration

The Ewigkeitsglühbirne has been worked up in several films, including Binningers Birne (1997), Bulb Fiction (2011) and The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2011).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Christoph Drösser: Right? The eternal light . DIE ZEIT No. 33, August 12, 1999.
  2. Little sun goes down: On the “total ban on lightbulbs” on September 1st in: Junge Welt from August 30th, 2012
  3. taz uncovers lightbulb conspiracy: adored, betrayed and burned out in: the daily newspaper of December 24, 2008
  4. Culture defense of the light bulb in: Tagesspiegel from June 5, 2012
  5. http://www.osram.de/osram_de/produkte/lampen/speziallampen/beispiel-und-signallampen/hochvolt-kryptonlampen-longlife-fuer-strassenverkehr/index.jsp
  6. Patent application DE2921864A1 : Device for increasing the service life of lamps, especially incandescent lamps. Released on November 27, 1980 ( Triac ballast for voltage reduction).
  7. a b Patent application DE3213333A1 : Use of general-purpose incandescent lamps and processes to extend their service life. Registered on April 7, 1982 , published on December 23, 1982 ( upstream connection of a diode for half-wave operation, pulse switching for direct current operation).
  8. Bininer's pear in the IMDb
  9. Bulb Fiction in the IMDb
  10. Mathias Bröckers on borderline journalistic methods in connection with the source of the film Bulb Fiction , known as "light bulb research" , online on his website broeckers.com (last accessed on October 11, 2018)
  11. ^ The light bulb conspiracy , borderline interview with the fiction journalist Helmut Höge , full length on Youtube (last accessed on October 11, 2018)