Re: Interurban electric power questions
Author: Edward
Date: 04-15-2015 - 20:49
What you say is undoubtedly true, but some of those disks have an inrush current limiting negative temperature coefficient thermistor. They do two things:
First, bring up the current slowly at turn on as most lights fail at turn on because of the inrush, which can be up to ten or twelve times the normal current.
Second, reduce the voltage slightly which extents the life in exchange for a bit less light.
Allegro has a summary in their lamp driving PDF:
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For reference, as approximations, the light output of an incan-
descent lamp (other than long life [>5000 hrs] or halogen-cycle
lamps) varies as the 3.5 power of the applied voltage-to-design
voltage ratio, the lamp current varies as the 0.55 power of the
voltage ratio, and lamp life varies inversely as the 12th power of the
voltage ratio
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So a 5 volt reduction from 120 volts increases life 67%.
Off topic a bit, I see that Daiso is selling LED 120 VAC lamps for $1.50 to $4.00. The day of the compact fluorescent is slowly approaching its end.