Do you have a pear for me?

In the past it was all simple: 'Do you have a 40-watt bulb for me?' 'Matte or clear? That will be two euros.' That time has passed. Nowadays you almost have to have studied lamps to figure it out. What about now? What is still allowed and what is no longer made? I will tell you more about that today in this blog.

Light bulbs
Almost all lamps used to be incandescent lamps. Light bulbs are glass balls with a wire in the middle that is electrified and starts to glow. To prevent this wire from burning, this is done under vacuum, so that no oxygen is present and the wire cannot burn. You may have broken a light bulb and the vacuum makes it sound as if the bulb is imploding; so that's right.

Halogen lamps
An improved version of the incandescent lamp is the halogen lamp. The operation of a halogen lamp is very similar to that of an incandescent lamp, but the halogen lamp is filled with halogen gas. By using this halogen gas, a halogen lamp can produce more light with less power than an incandescent lamp. In addition, the burning time of a halogen lamp is twice as long. A good invention for its time. Halogen lamps have been widely used in the last forty years.

Energy saving lamps
In addition to the development of the halogen lamp (an incandescent lamp filled with gas), there was also the emergence of the energy-saving lamp. We know the energy-saving lamp in different models; the best known is the fluorescent beam. This glass tube is filled with a special gas. This gas is given a strong electric shock through a starter, causing the gas in the tube to light up. After this electric shock, the gas only needs a small amount of current (compared to a light bulb) to continue burning.

Led lamps
The successor, and also rejecter, of all previous lamps is of course the LED lamp. The LED lamp is a diode; a small electronic component that produces a lot of light when a little current passes through it. An LED lamp produces much less heat, which means that a very large amount of lumens can be generated with a very small amount of power. I hear you thinking: 'Lumen, what are they?'

Lumen and Kelvin
The amount of light is indicated in lumens. It varies considerably per supplier and measuring method, but assume that ten lumens is approximately equal to one watt at incandescent lamp level. An old-fashioned 60-watt bulb therefore provides about 600 lumens of light. In addition to lumens, there is also Kelvin; you may know it from physics class. It does indeed relate to the Kelvin of the temperature somehow, but that gets very complicated. You can remember that a light bulb normally emits a color of 2700 Kelvin and a candle of about 1800 Kelvin. The lower the color code, the redder the color becomes, the higher the color code, the bluer the color becomes. Depending on the weather, daylight is about 5000 to 8000 Kelvin.

Legislation
To contribute to environmental challenges, the production of incandescent, halogen and energy-saving lamps is increasingly limited. That is of course a good thing. However, it is sometimes very difficult if you have an existing lamp for which a good LED replacement is not yet available. For example, LED lamps often do not work well with existing dimmers and transformers, they only shine in one direction by default and they are often slightly larger. Where production and import options are increasingly restricted, the sale of all types of lamps is still permitted. That's why we decided years ago to go big.

Lamp specialist
With the disappearance of the lamp shops in Alkmaar, we have significantly expanded our range of lamps in recent years. We are happy to advise you on the best replacement for your current lamps. Whether you want to replace them because of the color, the energy label or because the current lamp is broken; you have come to the right place. Working with dimmers, a warmer color or a huge box of light; we have it. From incandescent lamp to - you guessed it - LED lamp.