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- Hacker News
- Tungsten will burn in an oxygen atmosphere, therefore standard light bulbs actually use an inert gas (like argon). The gas pressure slows down tungsten evaporation and prevents oxidation. The main reason for short living of the bulbs is that the filament gradually evaporating over time until it thins out and snaps.by dybovalex
- > In order to put the emission peak in the visible spectrum, the filament would need to run at ~5700 °C (...) No metal can survive these conditions: Tungsten melts at "only" 3422 °C.
Hmm, can we possibly find something that does survive at 5700 °C to use as a light source? Perhaps molten metal confined in a magnetic field...
by Aardwolf - BTW, I don't understand why having the driver converting AC to DC inside the LED spots is the default. For a new house, it seems to make sense to me to have at least one external driver for a ceiling of spots, if not one per floor (not one for the whole house because pf the drop in voltage). But 24V led spots seem much less common and I cannot find many reviews. Any idea why it's not more common ? It seems efficiency and thermals would be much easier to optimize without the size constraint, plus economy of scale with components. Any specific 24V led spots / bulbs to recommend ?by wolfgangK
- For an even deeper dive into this topic...
Technology Connections: Longer-lasting light bulbs: it was complicated
by mreome - I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.by freediddy
- While the author mentions that they are not trying to defend the Phoebus cartel, I think they may inadvertently be somewhat misleading in their explanation. What they are saying is, from an engineering standpoint, true. But my understanding of the argument against the Phoebus cartel is that it was using legitimate engineering points as the official justification for profiteering business collusion: that the points were real, but were not the actual reasons for their decisions, or reasonable justification for the particular choices of values they enforced.
In doing so, the article perhaps obscures the point that business collusion, I expect, is more often built around legitimate reasoning taken to illegitimate extents and conclusions, than around outright fabrications.
by cge - > "Therefore, this was done so that people would always need to buy more light bulbs."
This is wrong, but it's the type of wrong that cites its sources and hides in the part you'd never think to fact check
Just as a general point: I haven't seen a product decision that wasn't sold with some official explanation why it's "really for the good of everyone". Google's Manifest v3 was about reducing performance bottlenecks, FIFA's hydration breaks were about player health and relentless tracking is about "being able to provide better experiences".
The question is if those explanations hold up to scrutiny or turn out to be bullshit, not whether or not they exist in the first place.
by xg15