Here's a post on induction lighting.
5 Most Common Problems with Induction Lighting | DoItYourself.com
Induction lighting uses a special type of fluorescent bulb. Induction lights use a magnetic field generator to electrically excite the phosphorus coating on the inside of a glass tube. This type of lamp offers several financial and environmental benefits over traditional electric fluorescent bulbs. Induction bulbs are more energy efficient and last longer. An induction bulb produces more light for a given amount of electric power than either compact fluorescent bulbs or light-emitting diodes. High quality bulbs can operate for 80,000 to 100,000 hours. The bulbs warm up much faster and with less energy than sodium vapor bulbs. This has led some municipalities to adopt induction lamps for street lighting. However, the technology is fairly new and still undercommercialized. Induction lights have been neglected in favor of LEDs by important policymakers such as the U.S. Department of Energy. Problems still exist with the technology.
Read more: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/5-most-common-problems-with-induction-lighting#ixzz10B8h1dZF
I think it is fair to say that there are problems still exist with the technology. 99% of the induction sold in the USA are made in China - and from user reports i have gathered from Australia to Germany, the Chinese ballasts, not the bulbs, are the most problematic and fundamentally challenged area.
Largely because the technology was copied - from Philips and Osram, the Chinese R&D have failed to improve upon that 20 years old ballast design and electrical circuitry. If you understand the fundamentals of induction and magnetism, you will find that the Chinese ballasts are so technically backwards in this digital world. Open one of these ballasts and you will travel back to the analog days, listening to radios and 8 tracks.
Unfortunately, there are no one in China that can upgrade this ballast to a digital world. If China is the world factory, then why has production not been scaled up to make this technology cheaper? If anyone can do it, it's the Chinese that can mass produce and mass discount? Then why is that not happening? My theory is that they can't - the production know how is so low that there are very little competent manufacturers, and even amongst those who know it, the failure rate is so high that it cannot be mass produced.
By mass produced i mean in the scale of CFL manufacturers which, in China, produces 20 million units in a month, in a decent size and competent facility. The numbers that i have heard from Chinese induction manufacturers are 1 million units per year. Why 240 times less?
If they can scale up production, we will see prices falling and a successful commercialization of the technology - which is already half the price of LED equivalents.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
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