Well, the thing that kills Metal Halides, and HPS and for that matter most gas discharge lighting, is two things. One is the filament which starts the arc can go, this is more a problem with say fluorescent tubes, as the tungsten evaporates and migrates to the surface of the glass, which is why you see a black area at the base of fluorescent tubes. Some of this is true for Metal Halide and HPS (and all HIDs for that matter) but it's not as much of a problem because it's not as large of a filament. With High pressure Gas Discharge tubes, like Metal Halide and HPS, and presumably this technology as well, is that the salts (the elements which create the spectrum) migrate onto or through the arc tube. With th advent of Ceramic Metal Halides, which has been in use in HPS bulbs for a long time, this is not as much of a problem, as the arc tube is stronger and more resistant to elemental damage. SOoooo...
My random guess is that this technology would be better in regards to the filament, since there is no filament. It works by induction, so life span would be improved there. But as far as salts migrating out of the arc tube, It should suffer the same problems, but not sure exactly since argon is a noble gas, might have less reactivity... They say on their website that it has a "practical life of the television" which would mean upwards of 50,000 hours or so... Without replacement lamp costs, seems to be top notch.
250-400watt Metal Halide bulb, or High Pressure Mercury (which is common for rear projection televisions), would be presumably the competition. The life span of those bulbs varies between 10,000 and 30,000 hours. With the better Metal Halides being in the 20,000 hour range, which is 8 hours a day for ~7 years, or 2.2 years of non-stop burning. This would average to ~3-4 years. So If this technology could "double" efficiency, a 400 watt bulb in say 3 years (assuming 16 hours a day on time) would cost about 200$ a year to run. If you could halve that cost, say 100$ you could expect to be able to charge upwards of 600$ per fixture and break even at the 3rd year (I did the excel calculations assuming 3 year bulb replacements at a 100$ bulb replacement for this bulb and 50$ Metal Halide bulb replacement).
It says it is rated at 140 lumens per watt, which is about the same as a High Pressure Sodium bulb, but it theoretically has a 6000k color temperature and they mention it having a similar spectrum to the sun, meaning a continuous spectral output, which would be a big improvement. Metal Halides are ~80-100 lumens per watt depending on color... So this would be a big improvement in efficiency... if it becomes popular.
But for it to become popular, it would have to be a technology that basically any of the big 3 lighting manufacturers, GE, Philips, and Osram/Sylvania... because I don't believe it would get off the ground with a proprietary technology that would be wrapped up in patent disputes for many years. Fluorescent, HID, Incandescent all are basically universal technologies, and to have a wide adoption, they would need to be promoted and implemented by the large companies. Otherwise there would be no "push" to move on this technology.
Just my $.02
Last edited by Ocelaris : 05-01-2008 at 09:17 PM.
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