Happy birthday Edison, a few days late! These bulbs broke the law in Kalifornia!
In California, brand new 2011 bulbs are still around to celebrate Edison's 164th birthday! The 90-100w bulbs are supposedly banned in Kalifornia but stores are still stocking on them. These GEs clearly are made in 2011, however with the Winchester Lamp Plant gone, they came from GE in Mexico.
On the box of the Reveal 100W lamp, are written "Full Spectrum", and i bet that this is to mislead the consumers, since the Reveals incandescents actually produces an absorption spectrum, since they are made from neodymium glass, which completely absorbs the yellow and the orange wavelengths.
Their CRI is much less then the regular incandescent lamps and even then regular triphosphors daylight fluorescents as a result, and are less efficient, but are horribly expensive.
Guys the CRI of Reveals is about 80 but the filtering of the excess yellow spectrum makes certain colors more vibrant. Some people like more vibrant colors. No the Reveals are not that expensive they cost about $3-5 for a pack of 4, soft whites are about 2/3 to 1/2 of that price.
What is the actual definition of "Full Spectrum" anyway? What specifications would describe a lamp to be "Full Spectrum"?
I myself do notice for the lights we have in the USA, the lights with "Full Spectrum" on it tend to have cooler temperature color, like less red, less yellow etc.
A source of light is considered "full spectrum" when it emits all wavelengths of the visible light spectrum, evenly as much as possible. Typical incandescents have strong IR emission with a constantly weaker radiation as the wavelength rises (to the green - blue - purple - UV). On a spectral graphic it gives a nice angled, linear wave from strong IR to little UV.
A Reveal lamp uses neodymium to give a light blue filter to the glass. It looks blue, but actually it cuts a part of the yellow - orange light! In the lamp's spectrum, this blue filter "equilibrates" the spectrum a little to give a slightly colder-looking light, making warm colours less visible and colder colours more vibrant.
Necessarily this will affect the performances of the lamp to render colours properly, hence the lower CRI. Thus the "Full spectrum" designation is technically "incorrect". The term "Colour enhancer" is correct though.
In my mother home, we have an Osram Concentra R80 Natura 60W plant growing incandescent reflector lamp, which have the same neodymium glass as the Reveals.
It spectrum isn't a full spectrum and have an absorption band in the orange and the yellow wavelengths. So it produce less light then 60W regular incandescent lamp, and their color quality is lower, but their color temperature is higher. Here is a picture of it lit .
A true full spectrum color is around 5000K with a CRI of 100. Of the electric lights, incandescents are the closest to full spectrum. They are the same as sunrises and sunsets.
Incandescent and halogen lamps are the closest to full spectrum, since they, like the sun, considered a blackbody radiators and produces light by heated materials.
However, they operates at much lower temperatures and therefore lacks in the blue and the violet unlike the sun.
However the xenon short arc lamp, is the light source that have the light spectrum that is closest to full spectrum, since it is flat and continuous with ~5000K and a CRI of 96%, but this is a coincidence, since the light source that produces it, is a discharge lamp (Probably ionised gas) and not a blackbody radiator.
UPDATE: I went back to the same store where I bought the 100w Reveals here (Rite Aid Pharmacy) and the 100w Reveals are all sold out! Incandescents are going like hotcakes!
Agreed about the carbon arc lights. Did you know that they made tungsten arc lamps for use in projectors? They produce a very point light source.
@RCM: I have actually seen Sylvania Zirconia Concentrated Arc Lamp K300 in their collection when I was at Community College about 20 years ago. I didn't know what was it back then
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Their CRI is much less then the regular incandescent lamps and even then regular triphosphors daylight fluorescents as a result, and are less efficient, but are horribly expensive.
I myself do notice for the lights we have in the USA, the lights with "Full Spectrum" on it tend to have cooler temperature color, like less red, less yellow etc.
A Reveal lamp uses neodymium to give a light blue filter to the glass. It looks blue, but actually it cuts a part of the yellow - orange light! In the lamp's spectrum, this blue filter "equilibrates" the spectrum a little to give a slightly colder-looking light, making warm colours less visible and colder colours more vibrant.
Necessarily this will affect the performances of the lamp to render colours properly, hence the lower CRI. Thus the "Full spectrum" designation is technically "incorrect". The term "Colour enhancer" is correct though.
It spectrum isn't a full spectrum and have an absorption band in the orange and the yellow wavelengths. So it produce less light then 60W regular incandescent lamp, and their color quality is lower, but their color temperature is higher.
Here is a picture of it lit .
However, they operates at much lower temperatures and therefore lacks in the blue and the violet unlike the sun.
However the xenon short arc lamp, is the light source that have the light spectrum that is closest to full spectrum, since it is flat and continuous with ~5000K and a CRI of 96%, but this is a coincidence, since the light source that produces it, is a discharge lamp (Probably ionised gas) and not a blackbody radiator.
Agreed about the carbon arc lights. Did you know that they made tungsten arc lamps for use in projectors? They produce a very point light source.