The neon lamp is the most attractive and brightest representative of the lamp family in every sense. And to this day, the word “neon” refers to all lamps filled with inert gases - argon, neon and others.
What is a gas discharge lamp?
Gas discharge lamps are “relatives” of modern neon. And now the term “neon lamp” can be used to refer to a gas-discharge lamp if it contains neon gas. But this is not entirely true, although these names are very close. The term “gas discharge lamp” refers to the electrical discharges flowing inside the tube between the spiral-shaped anode and cathode, which are located on both sides. When exposed to a discharge, mercury vapor emits ultraviolet waves that are invisible to human eyes. Using a phosphor applied to the inner surface, which consists of a mixture of different elements and phosphorus, ultraviolet radiation is transformed into visible light. A neon lamp is also a gas-discharge lamp, but with some special features.
What are throttle and starter?
The 220 V gas-discharge neon lamp operates thanks to an electronic ballast and a starter. An electronic ballast is an electromagnetic ballast, which is “popularly” called a choke. The power of this device must match the power of the lamps that are connected to it. The starter is a small device filled with an inert gas, with a pair of bimetallic normally open electrodes inside.
The difference is in the operating principle
A gas discharge lamp has a fairly simple operating principle. When the power supply is turned on, a discharge occurs in a device such as a starter, and the bimetallic electrodes close. After this, the current in the starter and electrode circuits is limited by the resistance of the ballast electromagnetic device (throttle). As a result, the operating current instantly increases several times, the electrodes heat up. At this moment, the bimetallic contacts cool down and open the circuit. The choke, using the phenomenon of self-induction, forms a high-voltage triggering pulse. It causes a discharge in an inert gas environment, which ignites the lamp. After this process, the voltage on the lamp will be equal to half the voltage in the network. If the lamp shines normally, the starter contacts will be normally open and it itself will not take part in the operation of the device.
A neon lamp is a glow discharge gas-light device. It consists of a cylinder made of glass, which is filled with neon under pressure. Inside it are two electrodes made of non-activated metal of different shapes. As you can see, the modern neon lamp is more versatile and reliable.
Features of neon
Unlike other lamps, neon lamps are much more durable, since they do not have incandescent filaments inside, which would create electronic emissions. A neon lamp requires more voltage, but at the same time has a significantly lower current value (up to 75 milliamps). The electrodes that create the emission remain quite cold. That is why the neon lamp is also called “cold cathode”. The physics of the process is based on the laws of bombardment of neutral gas atoms by charge carriers. When charged electrons collide, they push neutral atoms (inert particles) out of their orbital. This leads to excitation of the atomic structure. This process is called ionization. During each collision, several light quanta are released. Since such collisions are very frequent (many times per second), the result is a stable (for the human eye) glow. Inert gases have different color qualities. This allows you to create unusual photodynamic effects.
Application
Neon lamps, the price of which, depending on the size, manufacturer and shape, varies from several tens of dollars to several hundred, have found their application in many areas. Without them, it is difficult to imagine lighting highways and city streets at night, outdoor illuminated advertising, and illumination of buildings and structures. The lighting of warehouses, workshops, offices, enterprises, and the design of shopping malls are carried out using neon. It is often used not only as additional/emergency lighting, but also for main lighting.
Advantages
A 220V neon lamp has many advantages:
The light box can be made of any size, shape;
Connection and installation require few accessories and time;
Simple and reliable electrical circuit, in comparison with gas-discharge ones;
Ability to control brightness and consumption;
You can get different colors thanks to different gases and phosphors (helium gives yellow, neon gives red, argon gives blue);
Long service life - up to twenty years.
Installation
Connecting a neon lamp is very simple. Lamp holders must be secured to the surface. The lamp itself is inserted into them. An electronic converter or electromagnetic transformer is connected to the middle of the load, according to the connection diagram. They cannot be used on a metal surface. There must be a dielectric between the converter and the surface (at least 1 cm).
Do you know that neon lamp invented as a result of experiments whose purpose was to supply liquefied oxygen to hospitals? We bring to your attention a short story about the invention of the neon lamp and the principle of its operation.
Jean Claude - inventor of the neon lamp
In fact, scientists came close to inventing the neon lamp several times before the 20th century. French astronomer Jean Piccard in 1675 discovered a mysterious faint light in the tube of a mercury barometer, the cause of which he could not explain. Many years later, in 1855, the German physicist Heinrich Geisler invented the prototype of a gas discharge tube. Neon itself was discovered in 1898 by English scientists William Ramsay and Morris Traver.
These discoveries became like separate parts that were to be combined into one invention. The inventor of the neon lamp was the Frenchman Jean Claude, an engineer with the talent of an entrepreneur. He hoped to supply liquefied oxygen to hospitals and make good money from it.
There was only one problem - inert gases prevented the production of high-quality oxygen. By removing impurities from oxygen, the practical Claude tried to find a use for them. One day he heard about “glowing tubes.” He pumped gases into tubes and passed an electric charge through them. The tubes began to glow - red from neon and blue from argon. The engineer immediately realized that this discovery would bring him commercial success.
In 1910, Jean Claude presented his neon lighting at an exhibition of achievements in Paris, and soon patented it. In 1915, he opened the Claude Neon Lights company, and licensed his technology to anyone who wanted to hang a neon sign. This made Claude wealthy very quickly - by the end of the 20s, the annual income of his company reached almost 10 million dollars.
Characteristics and principle of operation of neon lamps
Let's tell you a little about the principle of operation of neon lamps. Their design consists of glass tubes (colored or transparent), which are filled with an inert gas. Most often it is neon in its pure form or in the form of a mixture with argon. The tube is connected to a power source, and when an electrical charge passes through it, the gases inside the tube begin to glow.
As for the characteristics of neon lamps, we can note very high brightness, durability and a huge selection of shades of light. Disadvantages - neon lamps are fragile, expensive and fire hazardous. These disadvantages are the reason why neon, once incredibly popular, has lost its position. Increasingly, neon lighting on the streets has begun to be replaced with LED lighting. LED lighting is more economical, consumes less electricity, is fireproof, and resistant to atmospheric and mechanical influences.
Specifications
The lamp light has low inertia and allows brightness modulation with a frequency of up to 20 kHz. The lamps are connected to the power source through a current-limiting resistor so that the current through the lamp is no more than 1 milliampere (a typical value for miniature lamps), however, lowering the current to 0.1...0.2 mA significantly extends the life of the lamp. Some lamps have a resistor built into the base. Using a lamp without a resistor extremely dangerous, since it can lead to overgrowth of the discharge in the arc, accompanied by an increase in the current through it to a value limited only by the internal resistance of the power source and supply wires, and, as a consequence, a short circuit and (or) rupture of the lamp cylinder.
The lamp ignition voltage is usually no more than 100 volts, the extinction voltage is about 40-65 volts. Service life - 80,000 hours or more (limited by gas absorption by the glass of the bulb and darkening of the bulb from sprayed electrodes; there is simply nothing to “burn out” in the lamp).
Decorative neon lamp
Decorative neon lamp, electrodes covered with phosphor.
Domestic neon lamps
Domestic neon lamps are represented by a wide range of devices, including special ones, having different dimensions, characteristics, and electrode shapes: VMN-1, VMN-2, IN-3, IN-3A, IN-25, IN-28, IN-29 , INS-1, IF-1, MN-3, MN-4, MN-6, MN-7, MN-11, MN-15, 95SG-9, TN-0.2-2, TN-0.3 , TN-0.3-3, TN-0.5, TN-0.9, TN-1, TN-20, TN-30, TN-30-1, TN-30-2M, TNI-1.5D , TMN-2, TNU-2, as well as a large family of phosphor lamps of the TL series.
Among the lamps for special applications, the following should be noted:
- VMN-1, VMN-2 - wave-measuring neon lamps.
- IN-6 - controlled three-electrode neon lamp. It is not a thyratron; it has a slightly different principle of operation. The discharge in it is constantly lit, but, depending on the control voltage, it jumps either to the indicator cathode or to the auxiliary cathode. Such a lamp is controlled by a negative voltage of several V applied to the indicator cathode. The lamp electrodes are located in such a way that when the discharge is lit on the indicator cathode, it is clearly visible to the operator, when on the auxiliary cathode it is not.
- IN-21 is a lamp that can withstand high temperatures without negative consequences, and therefore is used in electric stoves, in particular, the Electra-1001 model. It has electrodes made in the shape of semicircles and is highly aesthetic.
- IN-25 is a neon lamp with a reduced ratio of the diameter of the cylinder to the diameter of the luminous spot, for matrix displays with improved ergonomic characteristics.
- IN-28 - three-electrode neon lamps with flexible leads, having a service life of at least 5000 hours, despite the significant discharge current (up to 15.6 mA). They are used in the subway as single elements of over-tunnel displays of the ESIC system.
- IF-1 is an ultraviolet radiation indicator, in particular for flame sensors. The principle of operation is unknown, apparently, the lamp is supplied with a voltage slightly below the ignition voltage, and in the presence of radiation it lights up.
- MH-3 - lamp with reduced combustion voltage (about 40 V). The electrodes are made of pure iron, molybdenum, nickel. The cathodes are coated with a thin film of barium, calcium or cesium to reduce combustion voltage.
The designations of domestic phosphor neon lamps consist of the letters TL, a letter indicating the color of the glow (O - orange, G - blue, Z - green), a number characterizing the rated discharge current in mA, and a number characterizing the ignition voltage in hundreds of volts. For example, TLO-1-1 is an orange lamp with a current of 1 mA and an ignition voltage of 100 V.
Foreign neon lamps
NE-2 in different colors
In the past, indicator and decorative neon lamps of various designs and dimensions were produced abroad. Currently, only a limited assortment of decorative figured neon lamps is produced, and of the indicator models in mass production, there is essentially only one left - the subminiature NE-2, the design of which has not undergone any significant changes in over 50 years. However, this lamp is now available in several sizes. In addition to conventional lamps of this type, phosphor lamps are also produced: green (NE-2G), blue (NE-2B), white (NE-2W) and others. Moreover, of the phosphor varieties of this lamp, only green is widely used, and models of other colors are scarce.
Literature
- Genis A. A., Gornshtein I. L., Pugach A. B. Glow discharge devices. Kyiv, Tekhnika, 1970.
- Zgursky V. S., Lisitsyn B. L. Indication elements. M.: Energy, 1980. - 304 p., ill.
- Gurlev D.S. Handbook of electronic devices. Kyiv, 1974.
see also
Notes
| Incandescent | Incandescent lamp Halogen lamp |
|---|---|
| Fluorescent | |
I wonder what neon lamp invented was literally in parts. First, a mysterious glow of inert gases was discovered, then a gas-discharge tube was created, then scientists discovered neon, and a few years later the neon lamp itself was created. Let's talk about everything in order.
Who became the inventor of the neon lamp?
Several scientists were involved in the invention of the neon lamp:
- In 1675, an astronomer from France, Jean Piccard, noticed a strange glow in the tube of a mercury-powered barometer;
- In 1855, a German physicist, Heinrich Geisler, created a device that was later modified into a gas discharge tube;
- In 1898, two British inventors, Morris Travis and William Ramsay, discovered three gases, including neon;
- At the beginning of the 20th century, the number of these scientists was supplemented by the French engineer Jean Claude, who became inventor of the neon lamp.
He was a man who thought both as an engineer and as an entrepreneur. He was prompted to invent the neon lamp by the promising idea of supplying liquefied oxygen to medical clinics. To achieve high quality oxygen, he had to purify it from inert gases. After removing the impurities from the oxygen, Claude decided to find a use for them.
Experiments by other scientists with “luminous tubes” gave him the idea to conduct his own experiments. The engineer pumped argon and neon into the tubes and passed an electric charge through them. A glow appeared in the tubes - red from neon and blue from argon. Jean Claude was inspired by the result. Experiments with oxygen purification were forgotten, and Claude begins to work on creating a lamp.
His entrepreneurial instinct did not fail him. The unusually bright neon lighting, which he presented in 1910 at the Paris Exhibition of Achievements, was an incredible success. The engineer patented the invention, and in 1915 he opened his own company, Claude Neon Lights. From that time on, anyone who wanted to use the idea of neon lighting was required to pay a license. By the end of the 20s, Claude Neon Lights' income was almost $10 million annually, and neon signs were becoming more and more popular.
Unfortunately, the popularity of neon lighting did not last forever. Gradually, it began to be replaced by modern LED lighting - strips and modules appeared. They are more economical, resistant to external damage and temperature, and can be used in humid environments.
But neon signs can still be found in many cities around the world - the largest of them, consisting of 12 thousand lamps, is located in Las Vegas, America. The area of this giant sign covers more than 6 kilometers.
Neon lamps
The first mention of attempts to make a gas glow through electricity dates back to the beginning of the 18th century, when the scientist Francis Hawksby, better known as a researcher of the capillary effect in liquids, together with another physicist, Johan G. Finkler, conducted similar experiments using static electricity. However, these were nothing more than experiments, because the beginning of the true era of electricity was still far away.
Heinrich Geissler, who worked as a glassblower in his youth and began by making scientific instruments from glass, later established himself as an excellent designer, and then seriously took up physical research. By the way, it was he who determined the temperature of water at which its density is maximum (now known to every diligent schoolchild - 4°C), invented a thermometer, a hydrometer, and scales. However, Geisler's lamps had no practical use, like the effect of glowing gas in a glass vessel, and at that time were considered exclusively as fun experiments or electrical toys. Their industrial use at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. It was impossible due to the low reliability of the electrodes and power sources, which were still served as an inductive coil. But the main stumbling block was the lack of suitable gas. All the gases under study, during the glow of the lamp, and simply over time, inevitably reacted with the material of the electrodes, and sometimes glass, and were consumed, forming new chemical compounds. This led to rapid failure of the lamps.
At the end of the “golden” 19th century, electric light firmly entered the life of US cities. Electrical networks were already in full use there, and companies producing electrical appliances developed vigorous activity. The largest of them - General Electric - is directly related to our story. Her employee, Daniel McFarlane Moore, produced a gas light lamp filled with carbon dioxide (CO) - carbon dioxide. The lamp, which gave a uniform glow, had a length of up to 6 (!!!) m. But carbon dioxide is by no means inert, and as a result of chemical reactions inside the lamp, its amount was constantly decreasing. In other words, the lamp required refueling. In general, the entire lighting system based on “Moore tubes,” as they were called then, was very cumbersome and expensive, which prevented its widespread implementation. However, Moore managed to carry out, as they now say, an action that left a mark on history. We are talking about the use of Moore's pipes in 1898 to decorate the chapel at Madison Square Garden in New York. It looked very impressive, because nothing like this had ever existed before. However, as often happens in history, the true beginning of the neon era was laid in the same year, 1898, by a completely different, much less noisy and spectacular event.
| W. Ramsay |
M.U. Traver |
On the other side of the Atlantic, in the Old World, the Scottish chemist William Ramsay (Ramsay), together with Morris William Traver, discovered NEON (N6) - an inert gas contained in microscopic quantities in the air. This was the third inert gas discovered by scientists after argon and helium. Ramsay talks about the choice of name for this element:
“When we first looked at its spectrum, my 12-year-old son was there.
“Father,” he said, “what is the name of this beautiful gas?”
“It hasn’t been decided yet,” I replied.
- He's new? - the son was curious.
“Newly discovered,” I objected.
- Why not call him Novum, father?
“That doesn’t apply because novum is not a Greek word,” I replied.
- We'll call it neon, which means new in Greek.
This is how the gas got its name."
A few years later, Ramsay discovered two more noble gases - krypton and xenon, and in 1904 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "in recognition of his discovery of various noble gases in the atmosphere and the determination of their place in the periodic table." However, Ramsay was a serious scientist, very far from the gas-light business and, in general, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe commercial use of inert gases. Moreover, the cost of their production was too high at that time.
So, so far, two events - the discovery of the scientist Ramsay and the invention of the General Electric employee Moore - were connected only by a date. They happened in the same year, 1898. Could this end their connection forever? Maybe. But here, in the gas-light business, as in many areas of technology of that time, French engineering shone.
Initially, Parisian Georges Claude did not even think about neon, much less about advertising. He was born on September 24, 1870, and began his experiments on gases at the very end of the 19th century, working as an engineer at the Paris School of Physics and Chemistry. Georges wanted to achieve a cheap method of producing high quality oxygen. It was for this project that on May 6, 1899, Claude, together with his student friend Paul Delorme, opened a company with a capital of 7,500 francs.
Claude was going to sell oxygen to hospitals and gas welders, which promised considerable profits at that time. However, the gas did not want to be released in its pure form. It invariably appeared with "waste" - inert gases. At that time, their properties had already been described, and Claude understood that the admixtures of inert gases did not in any way interfere with the purposes for which he received oxygen. But he, as a talented engineer, was interested in the question of their use, especially since he was quite capable of obtaining neon and argon using similar technology. Remembering the overseas luminous tubes, he began - so far only for the sake of experiment - to fill sealed glass vessels with inert gases under low pressure. The tubes filled with neon glowed with a bright red light under the influence of electrical discharges! Argon gave a blue glow.
The enterprising Frenchman immediately appreciated the potential of the result. The oxygen business was abandoned. Now Claude's engineering thought began to work in a different direction. he decided to attract public attention to neon light and exhibited it. In 1910 Grand Palais is not yet an advertising, but an artistic composition using neon tubes. Seeing the “unearthly light”, Claude’s acquaintance Jacques Fonsecu suggested using noble gases for outdoor advertising. A year later, a patent for neon advertising appeared, and with it the company Claude Neon Lights, Inc.
In 1912, Claude's enterprising assistant sold the first advertising sign for a small hairdressing salon on Montmartre Boulevard. A year later, a Cinzano neon sign about a meter high was installed on the roof of one of the Parisian houses. Claude, meanwhile, diligently improved neon tubes. Their “weak” point was the electrodes. In 1915, he patented his most successful invention - electrodes with a high degree of corrosion resistance. Thanks to this innovation, the design of the lamp was significantly simplified. By the way, Claude dreamed of decorating houses with his lamps both outside and inside. During the First World War, his business slowed down, but in the early 1920s. The world is overtaken by an advertising boom. The neon signs arrived just in time. In 1919, the Paris Opera was illuminated in red and blue. The first advertisement appears in the United States in the same color combination. In 1923, a representative of the Packard brand in America bought two signs for $1,250 each to advertise cars.
As a result of the fact that Georges Claude began to sell licenses for the production of neon advertising outside France, by the end of 1924 they were sold out all over the world, but most of all in the USA. Neon soon appeared in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Boston, etc. America, which made a splash at the end of the 19th century. "Moore tubes", in the twentieth century gradually regained the title of the world center of neon production. In the 20s the phrase "Neon Claude" was so persistent that many Americans were sure that "Neon" was the name of the inventor. Illuminated signs became increasingly popular, and transporting fragile glass tubes from city to city was difficult and unprofitable. Therefore, countless unlicensed small factories for the production of neon signs began to appear in US cities. Moreover, Georges Claude's patents expired by the early 1930s, and the manufacturers of neon masterpieces were inspired. Real competition emerged, which helped neon expand the technical capabilities of advertising signs. Brand logos began to be developed, and advertising began to take on the character of art. Finally there are other colors besides red and blue. This was achieved by applying phosphor powder to the inner walls of the tubes, which, under the influence of ultraviolet radiation, especially intensely emitted by mercury vapor mixed with argon, has one or another light shade depending on its composition. This technology made it possible to achieve almost exact reproduction of company colors.
Let us return, however, to the Old World and, finally, turn our gaze to Russia. Did neon advertising exist here at the beginning of the 20th century? It was not possible to find reliable information, but most likely not. Almost immediately after Claude’s global triumph, the First World War broke out in Europe, but the salvos of its guns for Russia only marked the beginning of a series of terrible upheavals. In the early 1920s, when the world was experiencing the aforementioned advertising boom, the former Russian Empire lay in ruins. From these ruins a new era was rising, in which commercial outdoor advertising clearly had no place. However, life takes its toll - neon light began to find use for lighting and decorative purposes as soon as the country recovered a little from wars and revolutions. But the meaning of signs, including neon ones, in the conditions of the state economy and the lack of competition, was still not advertising, but decorative and informational, and sometimes even propaganda. But for simplicity, we will call them advertising.
The first practical use of a gas-light tube for advertising purposes was by Moscow lighting engineer A. Seleznev. In 1931, he made a neon sign “GARDEN” for the city park named after Pryamikov not far from Taganskaya Square. In 1932, several gas-light neon installations were created for the Palace and Central cinemas, and argon advertising for the Grand Hotel in Moscow. In 1934, to expand the color gamut, for the first time in the USSR, phosphor powder was sprayed onto the inner walls of the tube.
Serious production of neon signs in the USSR began only in the 60s. Then the upcoming holiday - the 50th anniversary of Soviet power (1967) - served as a kind of impetus for the development of illuminated advertising. At that time, there were many small workshops producing gas-light advertising in the Union - in the Goskino system and in the system of the Ministry of Trade. There were also giants, so characteristic of the Soviet era - the Moscow Gas Light Advertising Plant, the Leningrad Gazosvet plant. They produced not only gas-light tubes, but also materials (phosphor glass, electrodes, controllers for dynamic installations) and equipment (pumping stations). The whole country worked on these materials. In the rest of the world at this time, neon was going through hard times - it was actively (but, as it later turned out, temporarily) being squeezed by new technologies for the production of light boxes with fluorescent lamps, acrylic glass and colored light-transmitting films, but in the USSR this practically did not manifest itself.
It’s paradoxical, but true - for the last 30 years of the existence of the Soviet Union, neon signs made up the vast majority of illuminated advertising! Thousands of them were installed in different cities, often very small ones. But, as is, again, very typical for that period of our history, quantity did not mean quality. The choice of colors was small, and fading, that is, a decrease in color saturation, occurred very quickly. The electrodes were also not of high quality and suffered greatly from corrosion. It should also be noted that the composition of the glass used to make the pipes has not changed for decades. At that time, in other countries, and especially in the USA, “soft” glass (including the so-called “lead”) had long been widely used, the properties of which, in particular, better ductility, make it more convenient to use. We continued to use classic silicate glass - SL 97-1, which could only be bent along a sufficiently large radius. That is why among the neon signs of the Soviet period we mainly find large roof installations, facade signs, and we will not find small, jewelry-made pictures and inscriptions that now decorate the windows and interiors of shops, restaurants, etc. in large numbers. The technology of those years simply did not allow them to be made.
One of the reasons for all these shortcomings is that the attention paid to gas-light production in the industry of the USSR was concentrated on the production of large-scale products - lighting lamps for various needs, as well as signal and indicator lamps, etc. Neon tubes were given a secondary role. For example, reading in the reference book "Popular Library of Chemical Elements" (Publishing House "Nauka", 1977) about the industrial use of neon and argon gases, we do not find the slightest mention of gas-light lamps.
The first appearance of neon signs in the USSR dates back to the late 80s. Then in Moscow, on the roof of one of the houses on Pushkin Square, a large Cosa-Cola installation was placed. Both it and other large signs that appeared in the neighborhood later were foreign-made. But, as the first (and last) president of the Great Empire, which was already measuring its last days, said, “the process has begun.” In the early 90s, Russia, and at the same time all the other republics of the post-Soviet space, with a delay of 70 years, was overtaken by the “advertising boom”, just as it overtook the world at the dawn of the century. And at the end of the 20th century, domestic producers of new neon advertising arrived just in time.
