This is a 3m excerpt from my 89m DVD Video showing you how to make and use your own professional level Fluorescent Video Lighting. You can save big money over what the large manufacturers are charging for their fixtures. We go from simple, off-the-shelf solutions to more complex build-it-yourself ones. You’ll see the results of some of the projects in the excerpt. Thanks for watching. The video is available at www.coollights.biz, Amazon.com and Ebay.
Time series of GFP stained nervous system from C.elegans worm. Watch more at: www.zeiss.de/axiocamhs-gallery
As fossil fuel prices skyrocket to ridiculous all-time highs, green building techniques and energy efficiency become more important to the everyday homeowner. But what the average consumer doesn’t realize is just how much they can do to secure their residence against heat transfer and air loss. A tight building envelope seals cool air inside during the summer and warm air inside during the winter, reducing the run time of boilers, furnaces, and central air conditioning systems.
Below are six quick home fixes that the average homeowner can easily accomplish to conserve both money and energy. For dozens more fantastic (and easy!) ways to conserve energy, you can also visit Green Building with Energy Star.
Put Tight Seals on Doors and Windows - The most common place for a home to lose energy is at the entry and exit points: the doors and windows. Perform a thorough examination of these openings to feel for drafts or air transfer, then improve your home building seal by deciding upon the best method of better insulating them. Caulking up cracks and sealing gaps is one way to prevent unwanted airflow between conditioned and unconditioned space. Expanding foam products are sold to fill in larger areas between wall and door or window frame. Don’t be afraid to pull off your mouldings - you may be surprised at what you see! The fixes here are inexpensive and provide instant results.
Purchase Energy Star Rated Products & Appliances - The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program is designed to recognize building materials and appliances that save substantial amounts of energy over other materials within the same class or type. Doors, windows, and skylights bearing the blue Energy Star logo will contribute to a much tighter building envelope through the use of double-paned glass, warm-edge spacers, and low E-coatings that help reflect heat both inside and out. Seal home improvement savings for these products generally pay for themselves over their own lifetimes through reduced utility bills. Washers, Dryers, Refrigerators, as well as heating and cooling systems and home electronics are all rated by the Energy Star program… and the models that make the cut will save you tremendous amounts of energy, water, and money over the lifetime of the appliance.
Seal your Home’s Floor Slab or Foundation - The part of your home touching the ground is also the part most susceptible to moisture. Besides leading to mold and other health hazards, a wet or damp basement will decrease the effectiveness of heating and cooling units. If you’re about to undertake new construction, seal home improvement includes filter fabrics made of geotextile materials can be built beneath the foundation to help force water away from your home. For existing homeowners, waterproof membranes can be added to either side of your foundation or slab. Made from clay or even rubber-based substances, such a membrane can easily applied or even painted on to protect your home from unwanted moisture.
Check Your Wall Cavity Insulation - A tremendous number of brick or masonry homes were built with an empty gap between two layers of external walls, and you may very well be living in one of them. Such a cavity acts as a terrible heat sink and could easily be responsible for a large portion of your heating or cooling bills. There is a huge margin for seal home improvement here. Luckily, today’s modern methods for insulating these wall cavities is simple and wholly effective. Spray insulation includes recycled cellulose, polyurthane, or polystyrene fillers that expand to fill the gap and eliminate unwanted airflow. If you live in a brick home and your walls feel drafty, you may want to check behind them to see what you’ve got!
Install a Radiant Barrier in your Attic - As your home fills with conditioned air, it seeks to escape to the outside - and through your roof is the most likely getaway plan. One very easy way to slow the dissipation of heat and cold energy through the top of your home is by installing a radiant barrier. This simple product is little more than a thin sheet of reflective foil that you can roll out and affix to your roofing beams for substantial seal home improvement. Radiant barriers can also be installed along the floor of your attic or even in the exterior walls of your home, should they be open. These barriers and non-insulating but actually reflect radiant heat energy back into the home to keep it warm, or in the case of hot summer months they can reflect up to 95% of the sun’s radiant energy striking your roof, keeping your attic much cooler. Purchase them in panels or large rolls - installation is simple and the product is effective enough to lower your utility bills by up to 10 or 15% annually, especially in hotter climates.
Replace your Standard Light Bulbs with CFL’s - Yes, you’ve heard this one before. Perhaps you thought those spiral-looking compact fluorescent light bulbs were unattractive… or maybe you didn’t like the type of light they gave off. Guess what? Those excuses are empty now, as new CFL technology has created bulbs that look identical to standard incandescent bulbs and that give off much whiter, cleaner light than ever before. CFL’s will save you incredible amounts on electric bills because they use 75% less electricity than standard bulbs and give off 75% less heat also! Compact fluorescent bulbs have a lifetime that’s 8 or 10 times as long as a regular light bulb, and in almost all cases pay for themselves in energy savings over the bulb’s lifetime. For homeowners looking to go green and save energy, the installation of CFL’s is a given in the world of efficiency and home improvement.
The VIVA electronic ballast went bad in one of my Lithonia Fixtures. so I harvested the ballast and starter socket out of a preheat Lampi that was physically damaged but the electronics were fine. I used my existing Lithonia kind of a “map” to follow. You will see the result. Ahh the beauty of converting an electronic ballasted fixture to a preahet!!
The lighting industry has been subject to some major changes in recent years with the continued advancement of the energy saving CFL light bulbs and the decision taken by the EU to outlaw all incandescent bulbs by 2012. Despite all the consternation with CFL bulbs there is one topic that seems to be increasingly interesting: LED light bulbs.
Many lighting experts believe that the future of the lighting industry rests with LED technology. However what are the advantages and disadvantages of LED lighting in its current form? In this article I will detail the history of LED technology and discuss what LED lamps have to offer to the lighting market today.
Originally used in devices such as alpha numerical displays and pocket calculators the LEDs have recently seen successful application in commercial and domestic lighting. Two of the biggest factors that are encouraging consumers to change their lighting to LED are: -
They are the most energy efficient bulbs on the market today, cutting carbon emissions and reducing energy costs. They last longer than any bulbs available on the market, reducing maintenance and energy costs further.
So why isn’t all lighting changing to LED? The initial cost of buying LED products can be daunting for lot of consumers of particularly in the commercial sector, where the quantity of bulbs required is higher. However, when considering the total cost of ownership, LEDs far surpass incandescent and halogen lighting and are starting to threaten CFL bulbs. One of the highest costs involved in producing LED bulbs is heat sinking, without adequate heat protection LEDs can loose life span.
In the early days of domestic LED bulbs one common complaint was the colour of the light produced and the poor light output that was often inadequate to replace halogen spotlights. However, in recent years manufacturers have developed ‘warm white’ coloured LED bulbs, made to replicate traditional bulbs as well as high powered bulbs that incorporate more LEDs into a single circuit board ensuring that the bulbs can match the lumen output of halogen and CFL bulbs.
Another advantage of LED lighting is its short ‘on/off time’, this has lead to many local councils in the UK changing their traffic lights to LEDs, not only making them more efficient but also less maintenance is needed. One disadvantage that has been associated with CFL bulbs is their toxicity, or rather their use of mercury, although this has been accounted for with the WEEE levy (a tax on every bulb to contribute to recycling and disposal charges) this problem does not exist with LED lighting, making it more desirable to the more eco-minded companies and individuals.
At present LED lighting technology lends itself to spotlight bulbs because of the ability to manufacture small circuit boards unlike CFL spotlights that need to be slightly bigger to house the tubing. This is changing though with the production of candle, golfball and even strip-light LEDs by a handful of companies, this is a significant development as it proves LED might, someday, incorporate the whole lighting industry and not stay in its current market as a fringe technology. Although there is still a long way to go for LED technology, public acceptance is pivotal to its success, and considering the massive advantages and the rate of technological advancement, this shouldn’t be difficult to achieve.
Please visit Greenhouse Organisation for all your energy saving light bulbs.
I have a blue image or blue light beams (450nm wavelenght) from a source and i would like to reduce the color frecuency to red (650nm) with a fluorescent material. I know that the fluorescent materials have the property to absorb photons in some wavelenght and emit photons in another lower wavelength.
“Energy efficiency isn’t just low hanging fruit, it’s fruit lying on the ground.” – U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, June 26, 2009
In December 2007, then-President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act into law. Among other things, this law opened the door for energy-efficient light bulbs to gain market share in the U.S. However, several commonly used lamp types were exempted under the Act. On June 26 of this year, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a new set of efficiency standards for General Service Fluorescent Lamps (GSFLs) and Incandescent Reflector Lamps (IRLs). The rules will go into effect in the second half of 2012.
Since these two lamp categories represent 45% of total lighting electricity consumption in the U.S., new energy-efficient light bulb rules are significant. Vast amounts of electricity, and the harmful emissions attributable to its production, will be saved over the decades ahead. This represents good news for the American wallet and the environment we all share. Green light bulbs are here to stay.
Green Light Bulbs for Downlight Fixtures
The rest of this article will focus on the opportunities to save energy with state-of-the-art incandescent reflector bulbs, even before the new efficiency standards go into effect.
The current minimum efficacy (in lumens per watt) standard for PAR20 and PAR30, 120 volt, 75 watt IRLs (established in 1975) is 12.5. The new rules that take effect in 2012 are applicable to the same lamps and increase the minimum efficacy to 16.0 and 18.9 lumens per watt, respectively. This increase in the standard represents a 28% and 51% increase in efficiency, respectively.
Eco-friendly light bulbs, which meet the newly announced 2012 standards, are already on the market (though they’re not easy to find). The savvy reader will suspect that a Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) can easily surpass the new efficacy rules for IRLs. And they’d be correct…CFLs typically produce 40 or more lumens per watt, making them much more energy efficient than the more popular halogen variety. But there’s a catch: the light cast by CFLs and some other green light bulbs, while satisfactory in the home or office, is inferior to halogen light in terms of its ability to crisply render colors and fine details.
A Small Business Case Study: The Merits of Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs
A small, green, retail business owner wants to reduce electricity costs and carbon emissions without sacrificing the light quality needed to properly showcase merchandise. In terms of switching to the right energy-efficient light bulbs, what can the owner do now?
Facts:
Single location, green home-goods retailer in central New Hampshire occupying 300 square feet of space 36 recessed cans, mounted on 4 tracks, are used to light the store Fixtures accommodate 3.75″ wide reflector-type bulbs (PAR30, R30 etc.) 28 cans contain green light bulbs (R30 CFLs) using 15 watts each for general lighting 8 cans, mounted in a track which lights an alcove occupied by a paint-chip display for eco-friendly paints, contain PAR30 long neck halogen lamps of 75 watts each (note that these 8 lamps consume 59% of lighting electricity in the store).
Challenge: The owner wants to improve the energy efficiency of the alcove lamps without sacrificing the crisp, flattering light of the halogen lamps currently in use.
Recommendation: Replace 75 watt PAR30 long neck bulbs with 48 watt GE Long Life HIR(TM) PLUS PAR30 long neck lamps. These energy-efficient light bulbs yield output of 850 lumens, 90 lumens less than the existing lamp. The owner found this reduction to be acceptable after testing the new lamps for several days.
The new bulb produces 17.7 lumens per watt, making it 42% more energy-efficient than the old lamp. Furthermore, it is 5% more energy-efficient than Secretary Chu’s just-announced standards for a 48 watt, 120 volt, PAR30 (16.8 lumens per watt).
Finally, these lamps have a 40% longer life expectancy than the old, a redeeming merit due to the typical higher price tags of energy-efficient light bulbs. This advantage will reduce replacement costs and boost overall savings.
Savings Forecast Using Green Light Bulbs
New Hampshire is a high cost electricity state with a commercial rate of 15.6 cents per kilowatt hour as of March 2009 (citation: US Energy Information Administration). The store owner estimates 2,000 hours of annual use for these new energy-efficient light bulbs. At a retail price of $15.38 per lamp, she expects to virtually break even after one year. And over two years, during which time she would have had to replace the original 75 watt bulbs, she expects to save $155, or 30%, using green light bulbs to light her alcove with the eight fixture track.
The newly announced efficiency standards for GSFLs and IRLs are welcome news for those concerned with reducing harmful gas emissions stemming from electricity generation. And according to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, these green light bulbs will save U.S. consumers $1 to $4 billion per year starting in 2012.
Manufacturers of energy-efficient light bulbs and their forward-looking distributors are ahead of the curve however. It is therefore possible for home and business owners with downlight fixtures to immediately start phasing in green light bulbs, without sacrificing the great light quality they enjoy from IRLs.
I know…it sounds crazy. But, I didn’t pay attention to it until today. My toddler gets upset sometimes and screams at the top of her lungs. I swear that everytime she did that today…the fluorescent lights in the kitchen would flicker at the same moment she was screaming. Could that be because certain sounds can break glass? The lights never flicker by themselves, so I know the ballast (sp?) is okay and all of the tubes are fine. It was just a weird experience. Can anybody enlighten me on this?
I have replaced both the ballast and fluorescent lights. The flickering continues. Need suggestions?
Light switch in bathroom controls overhead fan and fluorescent lights. They begain flickering after many years of bright non-flickering use. I followed suggestions found on internet. Replaced bulbs and, when that did not solve problem, replaced the ballast. Problem continues with flickering and low level of illumination. No problem with fan.
How can a compact fluorescent bulb be better for the environment when the do not last any longer (in my house ) than a incandescent bulb and there is no place to recycle them here either so the poison gas in them goes to the land fill anyway, the only difference I see is more expensive.