Moore lamp

First commercial Moore lighting system in a Newark , New Jersey store (1904)

The Moore lamp was an early gas discharge tube developed in 1895 by the American engineer Daniel McFarlan Moore and patented in 1902.

The function is based on the principle of the Geissler tube , a forerunner of today's glow lamp . With the Moore lamp, traces of certain gases in long glass tubes are excited to glow by high voltage under low pressure . The lighting tubes had lengths of 20 to 100 m, a diameter of approx. 45 mm, and were operated with an operating voltage of 10 to 30  kV .

In particular, the Moore lamp solved the problem of keeping the partially evacuated glass tube constant by means of a control valve that let gas into the tube system depending on the voltage. A yellow-pink light color was achieved through a nitrogen filling; carbon dioxide was used for white bog light . The light output was approx. 10  lumens per watt , which exceeded the carbon filament lamps commonly used at the time by a factor of three. In addition to the energy efficiency, the daylight-like light color was remarkable , and at that time it was not possible to generate completely diffuse light with any other method .

"Too small, too hot and too red."

- Moore to Thomas Edison when asked what was wrong with the Edison lamp

Lighting systems based on Moore's patents have been manufactured in Germany since around 1910 by the Moore-Licht-Gesellschaft, Berlin SW, Dessauer Str. 28/29. Due to their complex installation, they were used primarily in office and commercial buildings; especially in the electric sign they were until the 1930s used.

literature

• Moore light . In: Otto Lueger : Lexicon of the entire technology . Berlin, German publishing house 1914
• Moore light . In: Jean Clairemont (ed.): The book of the newest inventions . Berlin, published by W. Herlet, 1910

Web links

• Lighting A Revolution: D. McFarlan Moore
• Mr. Moore's Etheric Light . New York Times, October 2, 1896

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Patent US702319 : Electric-tube lamp. Registered January 2, 1902 , published June 10, 1902 , applicant: Daniel Mcfarlan Moore, inventor: Daniel Mcfarlan Moore. ‌
2. ↑ Kurt Jäger, Friedrich Heilbronner (ed.): Lexicon of electrical engineers . VDE Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8007-2903-6 , p. 296 .
3. ^ Karl Konrad Düssel: The new building of E. Breuninger AG in modern designs 9/1931