[Death Ray J]

Instead of using a reflector has anyone tried coating the outer glass of a bulb in silver leaving just a front opening towards the fresnel?

I know silver melts at around 900c so might withstand the heat from a lamp with direct cooling or it could just explode!

Im guessing power ball type lamps would work best as they already use a glass sphere.

My poor render of what i mean. used gold as it shows up better than silver on this but you get the idea




DRJ

This post has been edited by Death Ray J: 10 March 2007 - 01:07 AM

[NinHowFritz]

This would be neat, once a good model is found, that could be recommended by LL so people dont have to take a chance with finding the right kind of bulb (like the T15 is now).

The other thing is I think heat would become a problem, as far as I know, the bulbs have alot of warnings about fingerprints, cracked glass, etc. causing them to explode which makes me think this would cause problems too.

Possibly a solution would be to find something that reflects visible light, but allows IR (and UV?) through. A spray-on cold mirror I guess.

Hope this helps

[Death Ray J]

I believe the warning about fingerprints is that they leave an oily residue that will burn and boil causing a stress point.

Heat is the only issue that would worry me but then again you can get 200watt+ reflected lamps for domestic use.

The main purpose of this idea is to try and capture as much of the wasted light as possible to double or even tripple the amount of light sent to the lcd.

This would let a 150watt lamp put out similar amounts of light as a 400watt lamp.

And your right about the UV/IR pass filter, allowing that to pass would definatly reduce heat, I would bet any company that can coat optics with a UV/IR reflective coating could also coat a bulb.

I was thinking about just asking a company that makes mirrors to see if they can coat a bulb too.

Direct forced cooling would be needed, two 80mm/120mm fans should do the job, two incase one breaks.

Well it was just a thought, maybe someone might be crazy enough to give it a try.

DRJ