EU halogen ban, take two

Public engagement is important to make sure that the new phase of banning additional halogen lamps scheduled for September 2018 makes everybody happy. It is just one year from now.

The halogen ban

Countries all over the world are phasing out inefficient filament lamps in the past decade. Basically, the transition to more efficient lamps will soon complete, with some filament lamp types spared to serve special purposes. The issue is whether we can also settle the grievances and resistances to make a happy ending.

The EU directive EC 244/2009 is significant because it made a precedent to be postponed from 2016 to 2018 due to widespread opposition. In 2015, it was decided that compact fluorescent lamps and LED's would still be expensive by 2016 to substitute halogen lamps. So the enforcement time was postponed to September 2018.

The lingering problem

Well, the issue actually has not been settled. The objections of ugly colour and failure for substitute products to dim like tungsten halogen lamps is not yet addressed.

Of course, given today's digital technology, you can simulate any colour without much difficulty. But we are talking about a drop-in replacement that doesn't add much to the cost and does not require running a Blue-tooth app so your grandma can use it as before. Also, museums, theatres, hotel banquet halls etc.. are not going to let you ruin their business with a directive that doesn't consider their demanding quality lighting needs. Maybe because of this, the directive just forbid manufacturing and import but not sales, which means retailers can stock up supply to serve genuine needs. That is better than a totalitarian ban.

The issue of phasing out inefficient lamps can be seen as one of the many similar cases in our efforts in combating climate change and pursuing sustainability. While the goal is good, there are also oppositions. Finally, it is a showdown between promoters and the opposition. Progress is often less than desirable. We need a better way of engaging people so that our energy is used more in solving the problem than arguing.

After years thinking about why climate action and sustainability projects do not prevail as such great initiatives should be, my observation is that the public has to a large extending leading to this due to their resistance to understand technical issues. It is compounded by technology companies revealing only part of their story. Due to business concerns, supplier of technology do not want to reveal too much about their technology so that they can delay competition. They only reveal enough to impress the would-be customers that they have something superior. A lot of documentary introducing new technology do not differ much from featured advertising. To break this curse, we need to make technology more understandable and the public should be prepared to make sense of technical matters.

The halogen ban is a good case which is simple enough to understand, and hopefully, can be solved within a short period so that lessons can be learned here and then applied to other similar efforts.

A proposal of public engagement

Firstly, objections of the public has to be addressed so that they are solved instead of being swept under the rug. Secondly, the return on investment of solid state lighting is really good, which should be promoted. This cost advantage can also create real savings for customers as well as helping create a greener environment. Finally, we should deliver products that provide all-round advantages beyond halogen so that it can be the engine of future applications and industry growth. It should be more than the works of the lighting product industry. Designers, makers, contractors, academia and everyone concerned should be welcome to join.

Addressing objections:

The hesitation of the public has real reasons. The advantage of LED is oversold while its shortcoming are hidden. It was said to have a life of 50,000 hours even ten years ago when whole product life could hardly reach 20,000 hours then. Even today, some low-end and mid-range products still suffer from short life and poor colour quality. Buyers have little means to know beforehand whether they are buying a good product except maybe by buying from trusted brands. This is in sharp contrast to the transparency of the halogen lamp market. At a fraction of cost for LED lamps, users are pretty sure the halogen lamps they buy will function and emit light that is almost identical to another of same model.

This can be addressed with proper quality standards and labelling. The energy label has successfully addressed variance in lamp brightness and life. We can also add colour quality labels.

In order the tackle the real issue instead of beating around the bushes, I would like to go directly to the core of the technical part. Subsequent discussion will be a bit technical. But I promise you, it is not difficult.

High quality LED with a spectrum even close to the sun or the halogen lamp is getting more and more commonplace now. There are metrics to measure colour quality. For general use, it is sufficient to use CRI (colour rendering index), sometimes also called Ra. Number ranges from 0 to 100 like the score of examination with 100 being perfect and above 80 is pretty good whereas 90 is very good. But a high quality LED with CRI above 90 has a brightness that is lower than that of poorer colour by 10%, 20% or even more. That will put the manufacturer in a competitiveness disadvantage because most users only compare brightness. This is particularly the case for torches. So instead of complaining poor colour, look for products that offer CRI of at least 80. If this is not listed, you can assume that its colour quality is poor. So quality issue is solved by 1) Better user education explaining how to choose products of high colour quality and 2) Industry labelling CRI of products.

Another issue is product life. In addition to electronics or LED component failure, LED has more significant brightness drop over its life, particularly if the component quality is poor. Normally we measure the life of LED as the time when its brightness is less than 70% of the claimed value. But instead of looking into the technicalities, it is simpler to look into its warranty terms. There is 8760 hours a year. So 50,000 hours is about 6 years. Guaranteed life is the pre-requisite before we talk about investing.

Presenting the economics and benefits:

The price of LED lamps are still a few times higher than halogen lamps, but the energy saving in a few months is enough to offset the higher cost. When the normal payback period for most capital investment is at least a few years, a payback period of a few months is just great. So it is time for the industry to make more money selling LED’s while giving users a wonderful deal.

In fact, the benefit is more than just money saving. Apart from less CO2 emission, most countries are still using fossil fuel for a substantial part of their power generation, reducing electricity usage will also reduce harmful air pollution from power plants, which also means better health for us.

Transcending technology for new applications:

Like many other issues, good lighting products to replace existing ones are not rocket science. It's manageable. But we have to admit that solid state lighting is a new branch involving multiple disciplines which can be developed more healthily through collaboration than competition. So if we pool our resources to work out solutions and share them with others, we can have more attractive products that can expand the market while satisfying the public.

As a starter, the dim-to-warm effect of halogen lamps can be achieved using a warm-white LED and a cool-white LED with proper calculation to get the right mix at different dimming levels. There are solutions coming up now but is still a minority in the market due to circuit complication and higher cost. But how difficult is it? Can we just design a simple circuit to turn on a series of LED’s one by one, starting from the one with warmest colour?

The following circuit implements this idea with just a few resistors added to a string of LED’s, which adds almost nothing to the cost. 

If you have tinkered with LED lights before, you should be able to build one in an hour or two. If you have the right components and tools, it’s just a few minutes’ work.

The resistors of varying values bypass different amount of current to delay the turning on of LED's at different current levels. The component values in circuit is for 1W LED's that turns on fully at about 3V. The 4-LED version would be fully on at about 12V, which is the same as that for the popular MR16 halogen spotlights. Feel free to experiment with different combination of LED colour and resistor values as well as having longer, shorter chains, or blending chains in parallel or series. While not suggested for your experiment, there are high voltage LED's which can use this circuit topology for AC powered designs.

For my own enjoyment, I’ve made a fancy one below. Although handmade in just an hour, it can handle 4W of power which normally require an aluminium based printed circuit board made by factory that can take a week to fabricate and send to your hands. Would that seduce you to do something also?

I can tell you it works. Why? This is my patent that I want to share with you by letting it lapse in next June, thereby going to the public domain.

How it works and its advantages need another article. But this is really simple. 95% of electronics engineering graduate can explain the circuit to you. For now, it is sufficient to know that you can connect this circuit to an adjustable power supply found in almost every electronics workbench to get very smooth and wide range dimming.

Now comes the interesting part. Basically every LED lighting product manufacturer has the ability to incorporate this circuit to their products and every motivated electronics maker can build this dimming light in an evening. We share a common platform to think about how to apply it in situations previously not practicable due to lack of accessible solutions.

Again I would like to volunteer a first application scenario :- emergency lighting. Hurricane Harvey that just swept through Texas has again showed that extreme weather is getting more extreme, leading to emergency conditions even in developed countries. A robust, reliable, dimmable light based on simple circuits can greatly extend battery life by providing reliable and appropriate lighting.

WIIFM, what’s in it for me?

My answer to the halogen-LED transition might have created even more questions. It’s too good to be true. Is there any hidden agenda? What do I get from releasing a patent to the public domain?

My answer about my motive is that this move is a cost-effective way for me to start an important experiment that might bring us to the solution of effective climate action. It is a rare chance showing up now that enables me to make a difference. I have a number of patents. But this is the one that is easiest to understand and incorporate into existing designs. This is that rare characteristic we call a technology “productive”, which is essential for public engagement. This patent won a Gold Medal for me in the prestigious Geneva Inventions this year, among other awards, which I hope gives more incentive for people to use, making it more productive.

Another reason is more personal. When my friends introduce me to new friends, they like to call me scientist or inventor, which is a flattery for me as an engineer. But my greatest longing is to have my friends understand what I do, and share the joy of making things work, creating novel gadgets to improve quality of life, etc.. If this patent don’t bring me money, I hope it at least bring me some new friendship, and let my friends know more about me and my work.

Also, as a science advisor to New Generation Science Innovation Centre, I have a few teenage mentees that aspire to be great scientists, but I want to show them how engineers approach their work to deliver results which they can then apply to tackle their projects. I think it is quite possible to use this easily understandable circuit to demonstrate a systemic engineering approach in technology development.

Finally, I’ve benefited a lot from public domain and open source software during a period when I had limited means. And I always want to give back. Even today, I use a number of open source tools in my work because they are really good and getting better every day.

Last but not least, it is about financial return. I believe collaborative work is the future and open source, public domain approach is a powerful means for collaboration to work. Many companies also thrive in this arena. It is time I learn how to make a living this way, which I believe will be quite satisfying through working with like-minded people to achieve something greater than individual endeavours.

A little appeal

I would like to ask your favour to help with this effort to make a happy ending for the transition from halogen to LED in the coming year. If possible, go through the article and ask questions if you don't get the logic (and the circuit) so that I can explain it to people more clearly in future. I would also request you to pass the circuit in this article to people you think might do something about it.