Talk:Lamp (electrical component)

Move

The recent move of this page from lamp to light bulb had created a bit of a problem. While "lamp" is indeed a technical name for a "light bulb", the former is a broader term than the latter. "Lamps" in the technical sense include incandescent, fluorescent, gas discharge, and LED modules. Only the first of these is really correctly described as a "light bulb", and there is already an article on that: Incandescent light bulb. I have therefore moved the article to Lamp (electrical component), which I think better describes the contents. I have adjusted the intro to suit the new name and role, and to reduce duplication with Incandescent light bulb.--Srleffler 06:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Errors

Halogen lamps do not produce a colour temperature anywhere near that of sunlight. Halogens are typ 3000K, daylight is over twice that. The non-linear response of the eye can fool viewers in this respect.

The famous indandescent lamp of the 1800s was the carbon lamp, NOT the metal filament lamp we know today. Today's lamp didnt show up until much later. (there were also various other indandescent lamps long ago)

High halogen capsule temp is not caused by filament temp, but rather by small surface area to power ratio.

"which is sealed behind an additional layer of glass."

sometimes, sometimes not. Lots of halogen lamps & fittings lack this safety guard. Tabby 17:16, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know if this diff is correct? Do halogen lamps work at 200°C or 2000°C? Jediknil (talk) 01:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I dont know the actual temperature of operation of the glass envelope, bit I doubt the glass itself is at that temperature, at which the glass itself would be quite incandescent. 200C is probably much too low, as well. Something in the range of 500C to 1000C for the glass sounds at least more plausible. Is this what the question is asking? Jornadigan (talk) 05:14, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

You're replying to a comment that is seven years old. The question was settled long ago, by reverting the edit in question. The bulb operates at 200°C (at the quartz surface). --Srleffler (talk) 06:25, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I have just now found a reference to the making of high-temperature fused-quartz glass in wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_quartz where it states the glass is melted and refined near 2000C. So that cannot be the temperature of the glass envelope. 2000C (2273K) could plausibly be the temperature of a filament, a somewhat "cool" one at that spectral temperature (since filaments are close to ideal black-body radiating surfaces) Jornadigan (talk) 06:02, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I have not noticed a link to a disambiguation page, where I would find a link to other technologies, such as oil lamps, which were in fact, the first true lamps. Did I miss it? Or was the disambiguation a miss itself? Jornadigan (talk) 05:04, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The dab page is at Lamp, of course. It doesn't need to be linked to from this article, since this article is more specific.--Srleffler (talk) 06:25, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Efficiency figures

Have removed several of these %age figures, since they are unrepresentative of real life lighting. I don't know where the figures came from, perhaps they represent the absolute edge of technological possibility, but they are most optimistic when describing domestic and commercial lighting. Tabby (talk) 12:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

How

maybe we should explain how lightbulbs work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.6.125.46 (talk) 09:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

A couple comments

1. In plain English, a lamp is the thing with a cord that you plug into the wall outlet, a base to sit on the floor/desk/table, a switch, and a place to screw in the light bulb. This article is about light bulbs, not lamps. I know user manuals and such call light bulb "lamps", but that doesn't mean you should. Ditch the stupid jargon.
2. I'm trying to find out what I need to do to get a lamp that will work with normal lightbulbs instead of needing the ones with the long neck. It says "type A" on the box. What does that mean? I should be able to look it up.

--dsws (talk) 23:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I found a brief description of types in the incandescent bulb article. It's inadequate. It should be expanded, and made into its own article or included in the light bulb article, because it's not at all specific to incandescent. Unfortunately, I'm completely unqualified to do that. --dsws (talk) 00:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

About point 1: the naming of these articles is not so easy. Lamp (electrical component) was a compromise between several conflicting goals. It is clear and unambiguous. The thing with a cord is a lamp (fixture) or light fixture. Lamp takes you to a disambiguation page that lists all the possible articles that term could apply to.

The difficulty is that there was a need for an article covering "lamps" in general, and not all types can be accurately described as a "light bulb". "Lamp" is the only term that covers all the types.

Sorry the info on shapes and types was inadequate for your needs. Someone will edit it eventually. It probably does belong in the incandescent light bulb article, because those shape categories are particular to that type of bulb. The only other types I know of that use them are halogen lamps and compact fluorescent lamps, and then only for special bulbs designed to mimic the shape of an incandescent bulb. The more typical lamps of these types have their own distinct shapes.--Srleffler (talk) 05:19, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

A Brief History

Whilst interesting, the closing sentence: "Therefore, the electric light bulb was named “American”." in the context of this section, could appear to be somewhat biased and even a little anti-American. This section tells the story (albeit extremely briefly) of the invention of the light bulb in Canada, then the sale of part of the rights to the US Patent, but I've never heard of the light bulb being called 'the American light bulb.' Would this mean I only have English light bulbs in my home, as I live and buy my bulbs in England? I think not! lol. If no-one has an objection, I will pop back in 24 hours and remove the sentence if this is ok with everyone concerned. I could be wrong of course, but maybe there's a better way to close this section; it just seems a little subjective/POV. Daniel-James 03:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, most of the paragraph feels subjective and non-encyclopedic (citations needed, in particular); moreover IMHO such information doesn't really belong in this article, but should probably be added into the "Incandescent light bulb" article instead (which does already mention Woodward and Evans a bit). Jediknil (talk) 06:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. I have incorporated the information about where they worked and their filing of a US Patent into the incandescant light bulb article, providing a full explanation on that article's talk page. With that done, I will remove the text from the brief history section and place a link there to the History of the Light Bulb section.

I'm an occasional and very inexperienced Wiki user, so please forgive me if I've trodden roughshod over any Wiki guidelines! Daniel-James 01:51, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Redundant article

I agree with the notion to merge to electric light; there's been no comments since February. That article compares the different types of electric lamp, and seems to be a little more natural title than this article has. If I don't see any comments to the reverse I shall likely carry out the merge in the next few days. --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Lamp (electical component) is the more accurate title. Electric lamp or simmilar may work as a title as well, but electric light not a good title for the article, as the article refers to lamps, not light. -JWGreen (talk) 03:15, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

This article has various issues, not least of which is that it is dependent upon technical usage which is different from that in common usage in many parts of the English speaking world. The term lamp is defined by Chambers as:

lamp noun 1 a piece of equipment designed to give out light, now especially one with an electricity supply, a means of holding a light-bulb and a shade. 2 an appliance used as a source of light, that has a glass case covering a flame produced by burning oil, etc. 3 any piece of equipment that produces ultraviolet or infrared radiation and which is used in the treatment of certain medical conditions.

The page should have some mention of the differencs in usage as the fundamental use of lamp throughout the page could make more sense as bulb or light in other common english variants. The etymology comes from the replacement of combustion based lamps where the wick is enclosed in glass to form the lantern. In a strict sense, the wick is substituted by the filament, so the bulb is viewed as a lamp. From a user perspective, you don't switch the filament, you switch the bulb, which is viewed as an indivisible source of light. Hence, the bulb is the equivalent of the wick, and the enclosing fixture becomes the lamp. Dalesit (talk) 09:08, 28 July 2015 (UTC)