Petition to 'Save Tungsten'.

[Ynot]

I see some of you have already seen this, but whether it's likely to have any effect at all it's perhaps worthy of joining those who've signed.

 

ONLINE PETITION

[Ynot]

I see some of you have already seen this, but whether it's likely to have any effect at all it's perhaps worthy of joining those who've signed.

 

ONLINE PETITION

 

The petition is over 9200 signatures...

Anyone not added their details?

[Ynot]

Over 48,000 names on there now - HAS to be a significant effort to wave in front of the bureaucrats...

[grandMA_the_2nd]

For reference this is not a petition or campaign to save tungsten - its to save all stage lighting including discharge and LED stage fixtures which also dont conform.

 

As well as the petition please also make your voice directly heard on the EU public consultation which is a direct message to the eurocrats - PLASA have a handy guide here

 

http://www.plasa.org/technical/Responding-to-EU.pdf

 

And also write to your MEPs at writetothem.com

 

There is a lot of apathy around and finally people like PRG are now onboard the campaign as its serious... Im on Radio 4 at 1pm today talking about it... get involved, share and please do the above....

[vinntec]

Im on Radio 4 at 1pm today talking about it... get involved, share and please do the above....

You can listen to it at https://www.bbc.co.u...s/b0b0lznf#play and move forward to 29:33

[nuttytechy]

I work at the Groundlings Theatre in Portsmouth and we won't have the funds to change our lighting to LED lighting.

 

Don't get me wrong LED lighting looks great for effects etc but I do not trust their drivers or the Diodes itself as they can fail so easily. Unlike a regular lantern which you can just replace the lamp if it fails, with an LED fixture then if it fails and you have no idea with electronics then you are screwed because it will just become a paperweight.

 

The dimmer we have is an Rank Strand LD 90 which was kindly donated to us many years ago and that thing is a beast. Its going strong and apart from a few niggles with the Triacs which I am trying to replace but compare that thing to LED fixtures then the LED's just fail quite easily.

 

The other issues are DMX channels. DMX fixtures are requiring more and more and small theatres do not have the capacity on their LX desk to do it. Yes you can use a laptop and dongle but I do not feel that works well in my opinion. Some theatres may still use analogue or a LX desk which do not have the channels. We are only using a frog desk with 48 channels max.

 

Because of this EU thing. I have taken the steps of buying spare lamps out of my own pocket so if it does happen then the theatre can still function like it should because I care about the cast when we do in-house productions and when we receive too.

[vinntec]

I work at the Groundlings Theatre in Portsmouth and we won't have the funds to change our lighting to LED lighting.

Your post is generally spot on, except you appear to have missed that there is not even any LED stage lighting which meets the "proposed" efficiency standards - and there won't be before 2020.

 

LED lighting from a reputable company (ETC, Philips, etc) is typically supported while in warranty but return to base usually if the LED engine fails, although self replacement of a circuit board is sometimes possible. Out of warranty if they are no longer the current model, then repair even by the manufacturer might be by cannibalisation from dead units of the same type unless the newer ones ones are compatible (not usual).

 

We have a supporting cast of Philips Selecon PL LEDs (fresnel, profile and cyc) (October 2013) at my tiny theatre but they are Mk 1 so there are no (or few) spares for them especially if the LED engine has failed. Their warranty was 3 year return to base, which worked well. However, last year one of our cyc units - post warranty period - failed but Philips pulled out all the stops to get it repaired and got it going again from a box of parts a few hours after I brought the offending unit in to their London office. All 14 units are working in tip-top-condition (touch wood) after 4.5 years, with four failures resolved.

Before the EU regulation problem came up, we could have started putting funds aside to allow for future failures and replacing them with Mk 2 ones if they can't be repaired. Now that's all out of the window because at £1,000 each or more they will be obsolete in under 2 years time and no-one has that sort of money to throw away. As far as tungsten goes, we have built up a 5 year stock of lamps which, due to our good past planning, are only a few different types.

[nuttytechy]

As Vinntec says below.

 

Before the EU regulation problem came up, we could have started putting funds aside to allow for future failures and replacing them with Mk 2 ones if they can't be repaired. Now that's all out of the window because at £1,000 each or more they will be obsolete in under 2 years time and no-one has that sort of money to throw away. As far as tungsten goes, we have built up a 5 year stock of lamps which, due to our good past planning, are only a few different types.

 

 

 

Luckily I am starting to build up a collection of lamps. 2 a month roughly so it doesn't break my own bank.

 

I knew I forgot to write something else but I was in a rush when I wrote the reply. I blame a nagging misses ** laughs out loud ** LED fixtures will be efficient even by 2020 arrives. I recon it will take a few more years after that because they will need to be tested to the extreme.

Edited May 5, 2018 by nuttytechy

[vinntec]

I recon it will take a few more years after that because they will need to be tested to the extreme.

It is much worse than that. To meet the EU requirement with a LED source is only theoretically possible at the current time and way beyond anything being achieved today, but no manufacturer knows for sure if and when it will be possible to achieve in practice. No-one believes this will be possible by 2020, if at all. The worst part of it is that even if it is possible and you change everything over to the new standard, you will only SLIGHTLY decrease the theatre's power usage as the stage lighting is not on for long periods of time.

[nuttytechy]

It is much worse than that. To meet the EU requirement with a LED source is only theoretically possible at the current time and way beyond anything being achieved today, but no manufacturer knows for sure if and when it will be possible to achieve in practice. No-one believes this will be possible by 2020, if at all. The worst part of it is that even if it is possible and you change everything over to the new standard, you will only SLIGHTLY decrease the theatre's power usage as the stage lighting is not on for long periods of time.

 

I totally agree there fella. Unless you have a performance which is 3 hours long with only a couple of LX Ques then the theatres power usage will not decrease a huge amount plus a PA system on top of that then there will hardly be any noticeable difference.

 

Another thing being overlooked is the manufacturing side of things. 1 factory in general would make the lamps if it was the tungsten. With an LED fixture then they would have to source all the components if they didn't make them in house, so that would mean different factories then add shipping etc. Its like people with electric cars. "electric cars save the enviroment".... The batteries for the cars are mined then for them to charge the car is plugged into a socket which comes from a power station.

 

It makes me laugh to a degree because things which are thought up are done by people who have no understanding at all and have not thought it through properly.

[timsabre]

I don't think you're right with this. You need a tremendous amount of heat to make the tungsten wire and the glass envelope for a lamp, plus the lenses too. I would bet an led fixture uses less energy to make, even considering shipping in all the bits.

[vinntec]

I don't think you're right with this. You need a tremendous amount of heat to make the tungsten wire and the glass envelope for a lamp, plus the lenses too. I would bet an led fixture uses less energy to make, even considering shipping in all the bits.

Of course LED is more efficient than tungsten, but that's not we are talking about - the proposed EU legislation due to come into force in 2020 with efficiency standards of the light source that none of LED, tungsten or arc currently meets.

 

[musht]

I don't think you're right with this. You need a tremendous amount of heat to make the tungsten wire and the glass envelope for a lamp, plus the lenses too. I would bet an led fixture uses less energy to make, even considering shipping in all the bits.

 

Really... glass fibre/resin PCB with etched copper tracks, alloy solder, driver semiconductors made from rare earth minerals, some very very toxic,capacitors made from other materials, never mind the manufacture of the LED itself, hint , few furnace operations involved, ,acrylic lenses and plastic housing.

 

Bit like sausages , like the result , wouldn`t want to see how they are made.

 

Then end of life recycling...

 

http://www.it-green.co.uk/images/burning_e-waste.jpg

 

At least don`t have trace of mercury that landfills full of lighting`s last revolution, compact fluorescents, had in them.

 

It`s an economic argument to keep the lighting industry fed on it`s constant diet of replenishment, like electric cars requires creating a complete disconnection between total energy cost including manufacture and disposal and energy use in service lifetime.

Edited May 6, 2018 by musht

[timsabre]

Hmm, it's an interesting question. Over the lifetime of the fixture, and including the full manufacture process and disposal /recycling, which would take more energy, tungsten or led? And which would be more polluting?

 

I have seen plenty of pcbs being made, also led emitter manufacture. Per unit manufactured I would guess there's a lot less energy used than tungsten lamp manufacture. But I'm guessing.

Edited May 6, 2018 by timsabre

[musht]

I have seen plenty of pcbs being made, also led emitter manufacture.

 

PCB making including the manufacture of the glass fibre, resin and mining and processing of copper, for quite a lot of it to be removed with highly toxic etchants.

 

LED emitter manufacture including sourcing materials and manufacture of precursors and processing of wafer before encapsulation with more resins.

 

Its a total energy cost looking at, not bill of materials ;-)