Xtreme Life Bulbs

Life Cannot Grind to a Halt Just Because the Sun Goes Down

Anywhere you find civilization, there is human-made light. When humanity discovered fire, we instantly understand that this new technology would change our lives forever. We used fire for light, cooking, enjoyment, and whatever else you can think of. Point is, this technology changed our lives forever. It’s been a long time since we discovered fire, rough estimates put it around 1 million years ago. That’s some time and since then we homo sapiens have made quite a few improvements.

Incandescent

The incandescent lamp… what you picture in that beautiful brain when you think “light bulb” came into widespread use a century ago and still has a purpose. For an incandescent to light up, the filament needs to be heated, which causes it to glow. For this to happen, the filament needs to be sealed in an airtight, gas-filled vacuum tube. Electricity flows through the bulb, the filament heats up, the bulb begins to glow, and we have light.

Halogen

By brother-in-law Jessie would love a Halogen bulb. He owns this body shop just outside of Minneapolis that pimps your ride. A Halogen bulb is a pimped-out Incandescent. The filament is covered in special halogen gas and uses a pure axel tungsten filament with laser-centered titanium reflectors. Again it’s a pimped-out incandescent. When the tungsten heats up, it ignites the gases and triggers a chemical reaction where the tungsten atoms steam from the bulb's surface and back onto the tungsten filament. Therefore, the lamp can run safely at higher temperatures, last longer, and shines much brighter than your regular incandescent light bulb.

High-Intensity Discharge(HID) Light Bulbs

HID lamps revolutionized the lighting industry. To this day, they are some of my favorite bulbs. An incandescent light bulb can produce between 15 and 35 lumens per watt. The HID light bulb can produce between 65 and 115 lumens per watt! That is a massive amount of light and is reason enough to love these bulbs.

At this point, we covered enough about light bulbs that you officially know more than the average person. Pretty much some brilliant guys and gals kept pimping out the light bulb, making it more efficient and producing more lumens using fewer watts. So give credit to where credit is due, like Sir Humphry Davy.

Fluorescent Tube Light Bulbs

Let’s get this out of the way, If you are using a T12 fluorescent light bulb, you need to call my office and talk to one of the Lumen Masters at 701.205.4953. In today’s lighting advanced world, the applications of using the T12 fluorescent tubes have been replaced by better options. So, if you’re still replacing your T12s with T8s then know you are leaving money on the table. If you want to keep more money in your pocket then follow this link to see how you can do just that, and explore our catalog of options.

Induction

Induction lighting is a super pimped-out form of fluorescent lighting using a high-frequency electromagnetic field that somehow made these bulbs last forever and I mean forever. Seriously, I relamped a car dealership parking lot with induction lighting over 15 years ago and those bulbs still have not burned out. I enjoyed working with this client and he has not needed my help since the installation, 15 years later! Yet, 15 years later and induction lighting has become a dinosaur in the lighting industry. Now, the entire world is shifting to LED lighting, sorry induction, you are not worth our time anymore.

LED Lights

LED stands for Light Emitting Diodes and this is the future of light. Every road in lighting has guided us towards LED and I can only wonder what’s next. The bulbs are operated by electroluminescence...an optical phenomenon in which electrical current (in this case, flowing through a semiconductor) triggers light emission as it passes through certain materials. Thank you to the lighting gods for that information. LED lamps use 30% less power compared with HID lighting and generate much less heat. They are instant on and produce a superior brightness with average longer life. In short, they are the ideal lighting solution for most applications.