The principal types are the Edison and the Swan, [Fig. 4] and [Fig. 5].
Incandescent lamps can be obtained to order from 1½ candle-power upwards, but the 16 candle-power (nominal 20) or the 8 candle-power (nominal 10) lamps are almost invariably employed. The latter give the best effect, and can be worked to 10 candle-power without much risk, they take about 30 watts as against 60 watts for the 16 candles; and are not uneconomical, for nearly double the number can be worked with the same energy. A new type of glow lamp, called the “Sunbeam,” has been recently introduced, which contains a thick filament, and gives a light of from 200 to 1500 candle-power, and can be employed instead of an arc lamp with the same economy as the ordinary 16 candle-power type.
Fig. 4.Fig. 5.
Life of Incandescent Lamps.
In estimating the annual cost of lighting, the renewals of lamps must be taken into account; and although some lamps have worked 3000 or even 4000 hours, a life of 1000 working hours is the highest average it is safe to assume in practical work under even the best conditions, that is, using secondary batteries and never over running. The average life of 130 lamps on H.M.S. troopship Malabar was 3799 hours each, the shortest life being 638½ hours for 18 yard-arm lamps of 32 candle-power. If the current is allowed to fluctuate, the average life would be very much less; it is an unsettled question whether long-lived lamps are really economical, by reason of the blackening of the globes, which takes place after the lamp has been worked some time, and is probably due to small particles of carbon thrown off from the filament being deposited on the glass. It has been suggested that attrition of the filament is going on all the time the lamp is at work, and that the heated atoms striking against the filament may account for the blackening, in that the mean free path of the atoms would be greater in a perfect vacuum than in the air, consequently they would abrade the filament with considerable force. If lamps were sold at 1s. each instead of 3s. 6d., which is now the price for not less than a thousand, it would be more economical to change them at the first signs of blackening, even if the life did not exceed 500 hours.
The diagram, [Fig. 6], has been so arranged that the amount of light required in a given district can be ascertained for any period of the day or night; it has been calculated from the observations taken daily at one of the Berlin central-stations by the engineer to the company.
Six hundred and forty watts are assumed, for the purposes of the diagram, to be the equivalent of a horse-power, instead of 736, as the German electrical horse-power is 736 watts instead of 746 watts.