I saw this a while back. Seems to be geared more towards streetlighting/warehouse light than home lighting due to the enormous output (not that I wouldn't mind one in my workroom
). I wonder if it can be scaled down to a 20 to 50 watt size more appropriate for home lighting without losing efficiency? The best production LEDs nowadays are roughly 100 lm/W but this is with a CRI in the mid 70s to low 80s. Getting into the low 90s represents a 25% efficiency penalty, so that puts you at perhaps 75-80 lm/W. Still better than a high-CRI screw-in fluorescent, but less than a high-CRI linear tube, and somewhat less than this new lamp. Just to note one thing, I believe the 140 lm/W is for the bulb only. Once you factor in the ballast losses you're probably down to 110 lm/W or less. Still better than current LEDs, but not by as much (LED ballast losses will be somewhat less for various reasons). If the 150 lm/W lab-tested LEDs were redone with high-CRI phosphor they would be around 115 lm/W, within shouting distance of this new lamp.
Why yes, yes you did jtr...March of this year
Luxim Plasma Bulb Claims 140 Lumens/Watt
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=192936
Picture of the light engine inside a Panasonic projector in one of the posts.
Hmm, the sulphur plasma tech seems to be all the talk (well was for a while until everyone got bored) on the MJ forums. I think I read somewhere (maybe the wiki link) NASA was investigating this tech for grow lamps on the Space Station, as well as red & blue LED arrays???
From the CPF links, or search on sulphur plasma to get this site, it is mentioned:
http://www.sulfur-plasma.de/esp-systems.htm
Micro Scale Plasma (MSP) Plasma is scalable and how small you can think is your only limitation, but we have achieved plasma with less than 15W.
Remains to be seen how reliable they can make the magnetrons, IIRC they only last ~3yrs, so you have to replace them after so many hours. LED's at least in the low output form, go for 100k hrs, heat being their biggest enemy to reduce lifespan.
However, even though Samsung/LG are making the street lights in 700w versions, whether or not this becomes yet another tech like OLED, or SED...perhaps all the money is being spent in more common LED tech, the cheapest, more utilitarian source may well end up the winner...unlike the HD DVD v Blu-Ray battle. Time will tell
