Misplaced Pages

#99900

88-487: In 1906, Theodor Kiepe created an electric arc lamp repair workshop in Düsseldorf . Over the next 40 years the company's product range grew to include electrical switches, then electrical drum controllers and resistors for electric vehicles. By 1951, the product range included electro-pneumatic contactors, and traction motors ; in 1952, the company supplied equipment for an order of 700 trolleybuses for Argentina. Between

176-656: A motor-generator combo (AC motor powering a DC generator). Even in these applications conventional carbon-arc lamps were mostly pushed into obsolescence by xenon arc lamps , but were still being manufactured as spotlights at least as late as 1982 and are still manufactured for at least one purpose – simulating sunlight in "accelerated aging" machines intended to estimate how fast a material is likely to be degraded by environmental exposure. Carbon arc lighting left its imprint on other film projection practices. The practice of shipping and projecting motion pictures on 2,000-foot reels, and employing "changeovers" between two projectors,

264-407: A phase-out of incandescent light bulbs to reduce energy consumption. Historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel list inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison of General Electric . They conclude that Edison's version was the first practical implementation, able to outstrip the others because of a combination of four factors: an effective incandescent material;

352-434: A vacuum higher than other implementations which was achieved through the use of a Sprengel pump ; a high resistance that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable, and the development of the associated components required for a large-scale lighting system. Historian Thomas Hughes has attributed Edison's success to his development of an entire, integrated system of electric lighting. The lamp

440-428: A Canadian patent was filed by Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans for a lamp consisting of carbon rods mounted in a nitrogen-filled glass cylinder. They were unsuccessful at commercializing their lamp, and sold rights to their patent to Thomas Edison in 1879. (Edison needed ownership of the novel claim of lamps connected in a parallel circuit.) The government of Canada maintains that it is Woodward and Evans who invented

528-488: A Hungarian patent (No. 34541) for a tungsten filament lamp that lasted longer and gave brighter light than the carbon filament. Tungsten filament lamps were first marketed by the Hungarian company Tungsram in 1904. This type is often called Tungsram-bulbs in many European countries. Filling a bulb with an inert gas such as argon or nitrogen slows down the evaporation of the tungsten filament compared to operating it in

616-508: A carbon conductor, and platinum lead-in wires. This bulb lasted about 40 hours. Swan then turned his attention to producing a better carbon filament and the means of attaching its ends. He devised a method of treating cotton to produce 'parchmentised thread' in the early 1880s and obtained British Patent 4933 that same year. From this year he began installing light bulbs in homes and landmarks in England. His house, Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead ,

704-465: A carbonized bamboo filament could last more than 1200 hours. In 1880, the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company steamer, Columbia , became the first application for Edison's incandescent electric lamps (it was also the first ship to use a dynamo ). Albon Man, a New York lawyer, started Electro-Dynamic Light Company in 1878 to exploit his patents and those of William Sawyer . Weeks later

792-441: A close approximation of sunlight is needed, for testing materials, paints, and coatings for wear, fading, or deterioration, or, for example, spacecraft materials that are to be exposed to sunlight at orbits closer than Earth's. The arc consists of pure carbon-vapor heated to a plasma state. However, the arc contributes very little of the light output, and is considered non-luminous, as most of its emission occurs in spectral lines in

880-466: A coiled platinum filament in a vacuum tube and passed an electric current through it. The design was based on the concept that the high melting point of platinum would allow it to operate at high temperatures and that the evacuated chamber would contain fewer gas molecules to react with the platinum, improving its longevity. Although a workable design, the cost of the platinum made it impractical for commercial use. In 1841, Frederick de Moleyns of England

968-451: A comparative test of dynamo systems. The one developed by Brush performed best, and Brush immediately applied his improved dynamo to arc-lighting, an early application being Public Square in Cleveland, Ohio , on April 29, 1879. Despite this, Wabash, Indiana claims to be the first city ever to be lit with "Brush Lights". Four of these lights became active there on March 31, 1880. Wabash was

SECTION 10

#1732873238100

1056-496: A constant electric light at a public meeting in Dundee, Scotland . He stated that he could "read a book at a distance of one and a half feet". However he did not develop the electric light any further. In 1838, Belgian lithographer Marcellin Jobard invented an incandescent light bulb with a vacuum atmosphere using a carbon filament. In 1840, British scientist Warren De la Rue enclosed

1144-475: A glass receiver, hermetically sealed, and filled with nitrogen, electrically arranged so that the current could be passed to the second carbon when the first had been consumed. Later he lived in the US, changed his name to Alexander de Lodyguine and applied for and obtained patents for incandescent lamps having chromium , iridium , rhodium , ruthenium , osmium , molybdenum and tungsten filaments. On 24 July 1874,

1232-424: A high intensity point light source was needed, such as searchlights and movie projectors until after World War II . The carbon arc lamp is now obsolete for most of these purposes, but it is still used as a source of high intensity ultraviolet light. The term is now used for gas discharge lamps , which produce light by an arc between metal electrodes through a gas in a glass bulb. The common fluorescent lamp

1320-448: A lamp with inert gas instead of a vacuum resulted in twice the luminous efficacy and reduced bulb blackening. In 1917, Burnie Lee Benbow was granted a patent for the coiled coil filament , in which a coiled filament is then itself wrapped into a coil by use of a mandrel . In 1921, Junichi Miura created the first double-coil bulb using a coiled coil tungsten filament while working for Hakunetsusha (a predecessor of Toshiba ). At

1408-406: A lower resistivity than carbon, the tantalum lamp filament was quite long and required multiple internal supports. The metal filament gradually shortened in use; the filaments were installed with large slack loops. Lamps used for several hundred hours became quite fragile. Metal filaments had the property of breaking and re-welding, though this would usually decrease resistance and shorten the life of

1496-416: A lower voltage. The "strike" requires an electrical circuit with an igniter and a ballast . The ballast is wired in series with the lamp and performs two functions. First, when the power is first switched on, the igniter/starter (which is wired in parallel across the lamp) sets up a small current through the ballast and starter. This creates a small magnetic field within the ballast windings. A moment later

1584-481: A meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne on 3 February 1879. These lamps used a carbon rod from an arc lamp rather than a slender filament. Thus they had low resistance and required very large conductors to supply the necessary current, so they were not commercially practical, although they did furnish a demonstration of the possibilities of incandescent lighting with relatively high vacuum,

1672-694: A process of introducing red phosphorus as the so-called getter inside the bulb ), which allowed obtaining economic bulbs lasting 800 hours; his patent was acquired by Edison in 1898. In 1897, German physicist and chemist Walther Nernst developed the Nernst lamp , a form of incandescent lamp that used a ceramic globar and did not require enclosure in a vacuum or inert gas. Twice as efficient as carbon filament lamps, Nernst lamps were briefly popular until overtaken by lamps using metal filaments. US575002A patent on 01.Dec.1897 to Alexander Lodyguine (Lodygin, Russia) describes filament made of rare metals, amongst them

1760-424: A result, the incandescent bulb became widely used in household and commercial lighting, for portable lighting such as table lamps, car headlamps , and flashlights , and for decorative and advertising lighting. Incandescent bulbs are much less efficient than other types of electric lighting. Less than 5% of the energy they consume is converted into visible light; the rest is lost as heat. The luminous efficacy of

1848-402: A ruling 8 October 1883, that Edison's patents were based on the prior art of William Sawyer and were invalid. Litigation continued for a number of years. Eventually on 6 October 1889, a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. The main difficulty with evacuating the lamps was moisture inside the bulb, which split when

SECTION 20

#1732873238100

1936-412: A sheet of ordinary window glass in front of the lamp, blocking the ultra-violet. By the dawn of the "talkies", arc lamps had been replaced in film studios with other types of lights. In 1915, Elmer Ambrose Sperry began manufacturing his invention of a high-intensity carbon arc searchlight . These were used aboard warships of all navies during the 20th century for signaling and illuminating enemies. In

2024-553: A small enough city to be lit entirely by 4 lights, whereas the installation at Cleveland's Public Square only lit a portion of that larger city. In 1880, Brush established the Brush Electric Company . The harsh and brilliant light was found most suitable for public areas, such as Cleveland's Public Square, being around 200 times more powerful than contemporary filament lamps . The usage of Brush electric arc lights spread quickly. Scientific American reported in 1881 that

2112-421: A source is defined as the ratio of its luminous efficacy to the maximum possible luminous efficacy, which is 683 lm/W. An ideal white light source could produce about 250 lumens per watt, corresponding to a luminous efficiency of 37%. For a given quantity of light, an incandescent light bulb consumes more power and emits more heat than most other types of electric light. In buildings where air conditioning

2200-518: A successful version of this the first synthetic filament. The light bulb invented by Cruto lasted five hundred hours as opposed to the forty of Edison's original version. In 1882 Munich Electrical Exhibition in Bavaria, Germany Cruto's lamp was more efficient than the Edison's one and produced a better, white light. In 1893, Heinrich Göbel claimed he had designed the first incandescent light bulb in 1854, with

2288-480: A system of lighting . In 1761, Ebenezer Kinnersley demonstrated heating a wire to incandescence . However such wires tended to melt or oxidize very rapidly (burn) in the presence of air. Limelight became a popular form of stage lighting in the early 19th century, by heating a piece of calcium oxide to incandescence with an oxyhydrogen torch . In 1802, Humphry Davy used what he described as "a battery of immense size", consisting of 2,000 cells housed in

2376-472: A thin carbonized bamboo filament of high resistance, platinum lead-in wires in an all-glass envelope, and a high vacuum. Judges of four courts raised doubts about the alleged Göbel anticipation , but there was never a decision in a final hearing due to the expiration of Edison's patent. Research work published in 2007 concluded that the story of the Göbel lamps in the 1850s is fictitious. Joseph Swan (1828–1914)

2464-929: A typical incandescent bulb for 120 V operation is 16 lumens per watt (lm/W), compared with 60 lm/W for a compact fluorescent bulb or 100 lm/W for typical white LED lamps . The heat produced by filaments is used in some applications, such as heat lamps in incubators , lava lamps , Edison effect bulbs, and the Easy-Bake Oven toy. Quartz envelope halogen infrared heaters are used for industrial processes such as paint curing and space heating. Incandescent bulbs typically have shorter lifetimes compared to other types of lighting; around 1,000 hours for home light bulbs versus typically 10,000 hours for compact fluorescents and 20,000–30,000 hours for lighting LEDs. Most incandescent bulbs can be replaced by fluorescent lamps , high-intensity discharge lamps , and light-emitting diode lamps (LED). Some governments have begun

2552-453: A vacuum. This allows for greater temperatures and therefore greater efficacy with less reduction in filament life. In 1906, William D. Coolidge developed a method of making "ductile tungsten" from sintered tungsten which could be made into filaments while working for General Electric Company . By 1911 General Electric had begun selling incandescent light bulbs with ductile tungsten wire. In 1913, Irving Langmuir found that filling

2640-425: A voltaic arc). The carbon arc light, which consists of an arc between carbon electrodes in air, invented by Humphry Davy in the first decade of the 1800s, was the first practical electric light . It was widely used starting in the 1870s for street and large building lighting until it was superseded by the incandescent light in the early 20th century. It continued in use in more specialized applications where

2728-408: Is a low-pressure mercury arc lamp. The xenon arc lamp , which produces a high intensity white light, is now used in many of the applications which formerly used the carbon arc, such as movie projectors and searchlights. An arc is the discharge that occurs when a gas is ionized . A high voltage is pulsed across the lamp to "ignite" or "strike" the arc, after which the discharge can be maintained at

Kiepe Electric - Misplaced Pages Continue

2816-409: Is a simple arc lamp without a regulator, but it has the drawbacks that the arc cannot be restarted (single use) and a limited lifetime of only a few hours. The spectrum emitted by a carbon-arc lamp is the closest to that of sunlight of any lamp. One of the first electric lights, their harsh, intense output usually limited their use to lighting large areas. Although invisible wavelengths were unknown at

2904-545: Is either evacuated or filled with inert gas to protect the filament from oxidation . Electric current is supplied to the filament by terminals or wires embedded in the glass. A bulb socket provides mechanical support and electrical connections. Incandescent bulbs are manufactured in a wide range of sizes, light output, and voltage ratings, from 1.5 volts to about 300 volts. They require no external regulating equipment , have low manufacturing costs , and work equally well on either alternating current or direct current . As

2992-411: Is used, incandescent lamps' heat output increases load on the air conditioning system. While heat from lights will reduce the need to run a building's heating system, the latter can usually produce the same amount of heat at lower cost than incandescent lights. The chart below lists the luminous efficacy and efficiency for several types of incandescent bulb. A longer chart in luminous efficacy compares

3080-524: The Edison and Swan United Electric Company (later known as Ediswan, and ultimately incorporated into Thorn Lighting Ltd ). Edison was initially against this combination, but Edison was eventually forced to cooperate and the merger was made. Eventually, Edison acquired all of Swan's interest in the company. Swan sold his US patent rights to the Brush Electric Company in June 1882. The United States Patent Office gave

3168-515: The Thomson-Houston Electric Company . Thomson remained, though, the principal inventive genius behind the company patenting improvements to the lighting system. Under the leadership of Thomson-Houston's patent attorney, Frederick P. Fish , the company protected its new patent rights. Coffin's management also led the company towards an aggressive policy of buy-outs and mergers with competitors. Both strategies reduced competition in

3256-746: The United States Electric Lighting Company was organized. This company did not make their first commercial installation of incandescent lamps until the fall of 1880, at the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company in New York City, about six months after the Edison incandescent lamps had been installed on the Columbia . Hiram S. Maxim was the chief engineer at the US Electric Lighting Co. After the great success in

3344-601: The University of British Columbia , Vancouver, Canada, made the Guinness Book of World Records in 1986 and 1993 as the most powerful continuously burning light source at over 300 kW or 1.2 million candle power. In a carbon arc lamp , the electrodes are carbon rods in free air. To ignite the lamp, the rods are touched together, thus allowing a relatively low voltage to strike the arc. The rods are then slowly drawn apart, and electric current heats and maintains an arc across

3432-570: The electric arc , by passing high current between two pieces of charcoal. For the next 40 years much research was given to turning the carbon arc lamp into a practical means of lighting. The carbon arc itself was dim and violet in color, emitting most of its energy in the ultraviolet, but the positive electrode was heated to just below the melting point of carbon and glowed very brightly with incandescence very close to that of sunlight. Arc lamps burned up their carbon rods very rapidly, expelled dangerous carbon monoxide, and tended to produce outputs in

3520-429: The 1880s: František Křižík invented in 1880 a mechanism to allow the automatic adjustment of the electrodes. The arcs were enclosed in a small tube to slow the carbon consumption (increasing the life span to around 100 hours). Flame arc lamps were introduced where the carbon rods had metal salts (usually magnesium, strontium, barium, or calcium fluorides) added to increase light output and produce different colours. In

3608-400: The 1920s, carbon arc lamps were sold as family health products, a substitute for natural sunlight. Arc lamps were superseded by filament lamps in most roles, remaining in only certain niche applications such as cinema projection , spotlights , and searchlights. In the 1950s and 1960s the high-power D.C. for the carbon-arc lamp of an outdoor drive-in projector would typically be supplied by

Kiepe Electric - Misplaced Pages Continue

3696-499: The 1950s and 1970s Kiepe Elektrik GmbH expanded, with formation of subsidiaries. In 1959 in Wien, Austria Kiepe Elektrik GmbH took over a small manufacturing company forming Kiepe Bahn und Kran Electric Ges.m.b.H. and additionally founded Kiepe Italiana di Elettricità s.p.a., later named Kiepe Electric spa , in Milan, Italy. In 1973, Kiepe Electric GmbH was acquired by ACEC of Belgium. In 1983,

3784-481: The U.S., patent protection of arc-lighting systems and improved dynamos proved difficult and as a result the arc-lighting industry became highly competitive. Brush's principal competition was from the team of Elihu Thomson and Edwin J. Houston . These two had formed the American Electric Corporation in 1880, but it was soon bought up by Charles A. Coffin , moved to Lynn, Massachusetts , and renamed

3872-806: The United States, the incandescent light bulb patented by Edison also began to gain widespread popularity in Europe as well; among other places, the first Edison light bulbs in the Nordic countries were installed at the weaving hall of the Finlayson 's textile factory in Tampere, Finland in March 1882. Lewis Latimer , employed at the time by Edison, developed an improved method of heat-treating carbon filaments which reduced breakage and allowed them to be molded into novel shapes, such as

3960-401: The advent of xenon projector lamps, being replaced with single-projector platter systems , though films would continue to be shipped to cinemas on 2,000-foot reels. Incandescent light An incandescent light bulb , incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a filament that is heated until it glows . The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb that

4048-519: The anode facing outward to keep from blocking its light output. Since carbon has the highest melting point of any element, it is the only lamp whose blackbody radiation is capable of nearly matching the Sun's temperature of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5500 degrees Celsius), especially when filters are used to remove most of the IR and UV light. The concept of carbon-arc lighting was first demonstrated by Humphry Davy in

4136-433: The arc within the tube/lamp. The circuit will repeat this action until the lamp is ionized enough to sustain the arc. When the lamp sustains the arc, the ballast performs its second function, to limit the current to that needed to operate the lamp. The lamp, ballast, and igniter are rating-matched to each other; these parts must be replaced with the same rating as the failed component or the lamp will not work. The colour of

4224-535: The arc. In 1899, she was the first woman ever to read her own paper before the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). Her paper was "The Hissing of the Electric Arc". The arc lamp provided one of the first commercial uses for electricity, a phenomenon previously confined to experiment, the telegraph, and entertainment. In the United States, there were attempts to produce arc lamps commercially after 1850, but

4312-461: The basement of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, to create an incandescent light by passing the current through a thin strip of platinum , chosen because the metal had an extremely high melting point . It was not bright enough nor did it last long enough to be practical, but it was the precedent behind the efforts of scores of experimenters over the next 75 years. Davy also demonstrated

4400-436: The bulb has cooled sufficiently to handle. Often, if these types of lamps are turned off or lose their power supply, one cannot restrike the lamp again for several minutes (called cold restrike lamps). However, some lamps (mainly fluorescent tubes/energy saving lamps) can be restruck as soon as they are turned off (called hot restrike lamps). The Vortek water-wall plasma arc lamp, invented in 1975 by David Camm and Roy Nodwell at

4488-507: The characteristic "M" shape of Maxim filaments. On 17 January 1882, Latimer received a patent for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for the production of light bulb filaments, which was purchased by the United States Electric Light Company. Latimer patented other improvements such as a better way of attaching filaments to their wire supports. In Britain, the Edison and Swan companies merged into

SECTION 50

#1732873238100

4576-463: The city of Novi Sad reached an agreement for the establishment of a rail vehicle air conditioning unit factory. In 2014, as part of a restructuring by its parent company, Vossloh Kiepe discontinued its mainline traction equipment activities ( Vossloh Kiepe Main Line Technology GmbH ). In December 2016, Vossloh AG announced that it was selling Vossloh Electrical Systems, of which Vossloh Kiepe

4664-466: The company had five subsidiaries: The company's primary business is the supply and manufacture of electric equipment for rail vehicles, typically trams or LRVs ( light rail vehicles); the company provides electrical traction converters, auxiliary power supplies, air conditioning and heating equipment. Entire trams and LRVs are typically supplied in association with other manufacturers. Also supplied are specialised electric rail vehicles, and equipment for

4752-610: The company was acquired from ACEC by Alstom , then by AEG in 1993. During this time Kiepe had become a provider of electrical traction equipment for light rail vehicles. In 1995, AEG formed Adtranz with ABB by merging their transportation divisions. As this created a duopoly of electric traction equipment manufacturers in Germany, the European Commission ruled that the Kiepe subsidiary had to be sold; in 1996, Schaltbau AG acquired

4840-480: The company. In the early 2000s the company expanded into the North American and Italian markets. On 14 September 2002, Vossloh AG acquired Kiepe Elektrik GmbH, and in 2003 the company was renamed Vossloh Kiepe GmbH. In mid-2012, UK-based engineering consultancy Transys Projects Ltd. was acquired. The acquisition was renamed Vossloh Kiepe UK in late 2012. In late 2013, the company, Serbian company Zelvoz and

4928-579: The cost of providing a given quantity of light by a factor of thirty, compared with the cost at introduction of Edison's lighting system. Consumption of incandescent light bulbs grew rapidly in the US. In 1885, an estimated 300,000 general lighting service lamps were sold, all with carbon filaments. When tungsten filaments were introduced, about 50 million lamp sockets existed in the US. In 1914, 88.5 million lamps were used, (only 15% with carbon filaments), and by 1945, annual sales of lamps were 795 million (more than 5 lamps per person per year). Less than 5% of

5016-422: The early 19th century, but sources disagree about the year he first demonstrated it; 1802, 1805, 1807 and 1809 are all mentioned. Davy used charcoal sticks and a two-thousand- cell battery to create an arc across a 4-inch (100 mm) gap. He mounted his electrodes horizontally and noted that, because of the strong convection flow of air, the arc formed the shape of an arch. He coined the term "arch lamp", which

5104-654: The electrical lighting manufacturing industry. By 1890, the Thomson-Houston company was the dominant electrical manufacturing company in the U.S. Around the turn of the century arc-lighting systems were in decline, but Thomson-Houston controlled key patents to urban lighting systems. This control slowed the expansion of incandescent lighting systems being developed by Thomas Edison 's Edison General Electric Company . Conversely, Edison's control of direct current distribution and generating machinery patents blocked further expansion of Thomson-Houston. The roadblock to expansion

5192-413: The electrodes are mounted vertically. The current supplying the arc is passed in series through a solenoid attached to the top electrode. If the points of the electrodes are touching (as in start up) the resistance falls, the current increases and the increased pull from the solenoid draws the points apart. If the arc starts to fail the current drops and the points close up again. The Yablochkov candle

5280-425: The electrons are forced to enter the anode at the hottest point, generating tremendous amounts of heat that vaporizes the carbon and creates a pit in the anode's surface. This pit is heated from 6000 to 6500 degrees Fahrenheit (3300 to 3600 degrees Celsius, just below its melting point), causing it to glow very brightly with incandescence. Due to this, the electrodes were often placed at right angles from each other with

5368-611: The filament. General Electric bought the rights to use tantalum filaments and produced them in the US until 1913. From 1898 to around 1905, osmium was also used as a filament in lamps made by Carl Auer von Welsbach . The metal was so expensive that used lamps could be returned for partial credit. It could not be made for 110 V or 220 V so several lamps were wired in series for use on standard voltage circuits. These were primarily sold in Europe. On 13 December 1904, Hungarian Sándor Just and Croatian Franjo Hanaman were granted

SECTION 60

#1732873238100

5456-429: The gap. The tips of the carbon rods are heated and the carbon vaporizes. The rods are slowly burnt away in use, and the distance between them needs to be regularly adjusted in order to maintain the arc. Many ingenious mechanisms were invented to control the distance automatically, mostly based on solenoids . In one of the simplest mechanically-regulated forms (which was soon superseded by more smoothly acting devices)

5544-478: The help of Charles Stearn, an expert on vacuum pumps, in 1878, Swan developed a method of processing that avoided the early bulb blackening. This received a British Patent in 1880. On 18 December 1878, a lamp using a slender carbon rod was shown at a meeting of the Newcastle Chemical Society , and Swan gave a working demonstration at their meeting on 17 January 1879. It was also shown to 700 who attended

5632-518: The inside of lamp bulbs without weakening them. In 1947, he patented a process for coating the inside of lamps with silica . In 1930, Hungarian Imre Bródy filled lamps with krypton gas rather than argon, and designed a process to obtain krypton from air. Production of krypton filled lamps based on his invention started at Ajka in 1937, in a factory co-designed by Polányi and Hungarian-born physicist Egon Orowan . By 1964, improvements in efficiency and production of incandescent lamps had reduced

5720-535: The lack of a constant electricity supply thwarted efforts. Thus electrical engineers began focusing on the problem of improving Faraday's dynamo . The concept was improved upon by a number of people including William Edwards Staite  [ de ] and Charles F. Brush . It was not until the 1870s that lamps such as the Yablochkov candle were more commonly seen. In 1877, the Franklin Institute conducted

5808-415: The lamp was lit, with resulting oxygen attacking the filament. In the 1880s, phosphoric anhydride was used in combination with expensive mercury vacuum pumps . However, about 1893, Italian inventor Arturo Malignani  [ it ] (1865–1939), who lacked these pumps, discovered that phosphorus vapours did the job of chemically binding the remaining amounts of water and oxygen. In 1896 he patented

5896-434: The light emitted by the lamp changes as its electrical characteristics change with temperature and time. Lightning is a similar principle where the atmosphere is ionized by the high potential difference (voltage) between earth and storm clouds. The temperature of the arc in an arc lamp can reach several thousand degrees Celsius. The outer glass envelope can reach 500 degrees Celsius, therefore before servicing one must ensure

5984-442: The lightbulb. On 4 March 1880, just five months after Edison's light bulb, Alessandro Cruto created his first incandescent lamp. Cruto produced a filament by deposition of graphite on thin platinum filaments, by heating it with an electric current in the presence of gaseous ethyl alcohol . Heating this platinum at high temperatures leaves behind thin filaments of platinum coated with pure graphite. By September 1881 he had achieved

6072-443: The modernisation of older electrically powered mass transit vehicles. and traction equipment for trolley buses and hybrid electric buses . The company often acts as a component supplier to larger integrated rail vehicle manufactures including Siemens, Alstom and Bombardier. Components for conveyor belts are also made. Arc lamp An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc (also called

6160-534: The museum of the Château de Blois . In 1859, Moses G. Farmer built an electric incandescent light bulb using a platinum filament. Thomas Edison later saw one of these bulbs in a shop in Boston, and asked Farmer for advice on the electric light business. In 1872, Russian Alexander Lodygin invented an incandescent light bulb and obtained a Russian patent in 1874. He used as a burner two carbon rods of diminished section in

6248-412: The power consumed by a typical incandescent light bulb is converted into visible light, with most of the rest being emitted as invisible infrared radiation. Light bulbs are rated by their luminous efficacy , which is the ratio of the amount of visible light emitted ( luminous flux ) to the electrical power consumed. Luminous efficacy is measured in lumens per watt (lm/W). The luminous efficiency of

6336-408: The starter interrupts the current flow from the ballast, which has a high inductance and therefore tries to maintain the current flow (the ballast opposes any change in current through it); it cannot, as there is no longer a 'circuit'. As a result, a high voltage appears across the ballast momentarily, to which the lamp is connected; therefore the lamp receives this high voltage across it which 'strikes'

6424-576: The system was being used in: 800 lights in rolling mills, steel works, shops, 1,240 lights in woolen, cotton, linen, silk, and other factories, 425 lights in large stores, hotels, churches, 250 lights in parks, docks, and summer resorts, 275 lights in railroad depots and shops, 130 lights in mines, smelting works, 380 lights in factories and establishments of various kinds, 1,500 lights in lighting stations, for city lighting, 1,200 lights in England and other foreign countries. A total of over 6,000 lights which are actually sold. There were three major advances in

6512-471: The tens of kilowatts. Therefore, they were only practical for lighting large areas, so researchers continued to search for a way to make lamps suitable for home use. Over the first three-quarters of the 19th century, many experimenters worked with various combinations of platinum or iridium wires, carbon rods, and evacuated or semi-evacuated enclosures. Many of these devices were demonstrated and some were patented. In 1835, James Bowman Lindsay demonstrated

6600-443: The time of their invention, unenclosed lamps were soon discovered to produce large amounts of infrared and harmful ultraviolet-radiation not found in sunlight. If the arc was encased in a glass globe, it was found that many of these invisible rays could be blocked. However, carbon-arcs were soon displaced by safer, more efficient, versatile, and easier to maintain incandescent and gas-discharge lamps. Carbon-arc lamps are still used where

6688-560: The time, machinery to mass-produce coiled coil filaments did not exist. Hakunetsusha developed a method to mass-produce coiled coil filaments by 1936. Between 1924 and the outbreak of the Second World War, the Phoebus cartel attempted to fix prices and sales quotas for bulb manufacturers outside of North America. In 1925, Marvin Pipkin , an American chemist, patented a process for frosting

6776-538: The violet and UV portions of the spectrum. Most of the carbon spectra occurs in a very broad line centered at 389 nm (UV-A, just outside the visual spectrum), and a very narrow line at 250 nm (UV-B), plus some other less-powerful lines in the UV-C. Most of the visible and IR radiation is produced from incandescence created at the positive electrode, or anode. Unlike the tungsten anodes found in other arc lamps, which remain relatively cool, carbon produces much higher resistance and

6864-419: Was a British physicist and chemist. In 1850, he began working with carbonized paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb. By 1860, he was able to demonstrate a working device but the lack of a good vacuum and an adequate supply of electricity resulted in a short lifetime for the bulb and an inefficient source of light. By the mid-1870s better pumps had become available, and Swan returned to his experiments. With

6952-561: Was a part, to Knorr-Bremse , and the sale was completed in late January 2017. In May 2017, new parent Knorr-Bremse announced the renaming of Vossloh Kiepe as Kiepe Electric GmbH , a restoration of its pre-Vossloh name but using English spelling. From 2002 through 2016, the company was part of the Vossloh group , as of 2009 part of the transportation division (Motive Power & Components) along with Vossloh Locomotives (Kiel, formerly MaK ) and Vossloh España (formerly Meinfesa ). As of 2009,

7040-456: Was a small component in his system of electric lighting, and no more critical to its effective functioning than the Edison Jumbo generator , the Edison main and feeder, and the parallel-distribution system. Other inventors with generators and incandescent lamps, and with comparable ingenuity and excellence, have long been forgotten because their creators did not preside over their introduction in

7128-425: Was contracted to "arc lamp" when the devices came into common usage. In the late nineteenth century, electric arc lighting was in wide use for public lighting. The tendency of electric arcs to flicker and hiss was a major problem. In 1895, Hertha Ayrton wrote a series of articles for The Electrician , explaining that these phenomena were the result of oxygen coming into contact with the carbon rods used to create

7216-410: Was due to the carbon rods used in projector lamphouses having a lifespan of roughly 22 minutes (which corresponds to the amount of film in said reels when projected at 24 frames/second). The projectionist would watch the rod burn down by eye (though a peephole like a welder's glass) and replace the carbon rod when changing film reels. The two-projector changeover setup largely disappeared in the 1970s with

7304-493: Was granted the first patent for an incandescent lamp, with a design using platinum wires contained within a vacuum bulb. He also used carbon. In 1845, American John W. Starr patented an incandescent light bulb using carbon filaments. His invention was never produced commercially. In 1851, Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin publicly demonstrated incandescent light bulbs on his estate in Blois, France. His light bulbs are on display in

7392-500: Was lit by Joseph Swan's incandescent lamp on 3 February 1879. Thomas Edison began serious research into developing a practical incandescent lamp in 1878. Edison filed his first patent application for "Improvement in Electric Lights" on 14 October 1878. After many experiments, first with carbon in the early 1880s and then with platinum and other metals, in the end Edison returned to a carbon filament. The first successful test

7480-448: Was on 22 October 1879, and lasted 13.5 hours. Edison continued to improve this design and by 4 November 1879, filed for a US patent for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected ... to platina contact wires." Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including using "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways," Edison and his team later discovered that

7568-476: Was removed when the two companies merged in 1892 to form the General Electric Company . Arc lamps were used in some early motion-picture studios to illuminate interior shots. One problem was that they produce such a high level of ultra-violet light that many actors needed to wear sunglasses when off camera to relieve sore eyes resulting from the ultra-violet light. The problem was solved by adding

7656-549: Was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb. In the early 1880s he had started his company. In 1881, the Savoy Theatre in the City of Westminster , London was lit by Swan incandescent lightbulbs, which was the first theatre, and the first public building in the world, to be lit entirely by electricity. The first street in the world to be lit by an incandescent lightbulb was Mosley Street, Newcastle upon Tyne , United Kingdom . It

7744-492: Was tungsten. Lodygin invented a process where rare metals such as tungsten can be chemically treated and heat-vaporized onto an electrically heated thread-like wire (platinum, carbon, gold) acting as a temporary base or skeletal form. (US patent 575,002). Lodygin later sold the patent rights to GE. In 1902, Siemens developed a tantalum lamp filament that was more efficient than even graphitized carbon filaments since they could operate at higher temperature. Since tantalum metal has

#99900