Its fairly simple to imagine. everything that you can make even a paper airplane can be thought of a series of steps that you need to follow until the product is made. So all you have to do is think about the first step *cutting the glass tube at the right length, then think about how you can build a machine to cut the glass tubing for you. In the video you can see the cutter spinning as the tubing is put in place and forced through the cutter. by now im sure you can see in designing this machine for cutting the glass tubing, you also have to design a machine that can pickup the tubing that was loaded in the machine by a human, then the machine places the tubing in precise slots before its get passed through the cutter, the excess tubing is collected and likely sent to a recycling bin while the main part is sent to the next part of the manufacturing process.
Cheers for the explaination. I was always under the impression that all lengths of the filiament were the same to cut down the amount of production lines necessary for different wattage bulbs. Always re-learning something everyday.
i honestly don't know why the fuck I enjoy watching How It's Made. After all, it's just complicated giant machines doing stuff over and over again while a soothing voice talks about what's happening, and yet I could watch it for hours.
Interesting, and intricate. All too often we purchase and consume so much - but how many of us stop for a minute to wonder what technological processes are used to make everyday items? I tend to quite often as i find it all quite interesting.
I have no problem with energy efficent bulbs, but for some tasks the good old incandescant rules. I am talking things like closets, where the light is on for 30 seconds and then off, or refrigerator bulbs ect. CFLs just do not last in these applications and LED are just too dim.
"Actually people from many countries spell/say it aluminium, not aluminum. The US is the only country I know of that almost exclusively spells/pronounces it aluminum." ==Canada also uses Aloominum but the chemical name is actually aluminium, so the british way is the standard one.
Too right. We in new zealand follow the british way of spelling. We call "Aluminum" Aluminium. We spell "Color" Colour. And "Escalator" Esculator. And An "Elevator" is a Lift.
Do you know why that is? The original namer of the element chose the name Aluminum first for around 5 years, then switched it to Aluminium after another scientist wrote in and said that it didn't sound "classical" enough. This caused a split in the spellings which was exacerbated by initial press releases and decades after by dictionaries. Then the guy a century later who later figured out how to efficiently produce the metal called it Aluminum in his publications. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology
Actually burning coal (which is still the main source for electricity) releases mercury, too. (coal also contains many other hazardous impurities, so saving energy has even more advantages). If you compare the amount of mercury in the CFL with the amount not emitted through energy saving over the lifetime of the CFL you end up with less mercury in the environment (this would even assume you broke all CFLs). But I agree to one thing: I don't want to break it at home.
Actually Edison discovered the filament composition that would survive the repeated heat cycling every time the light was turned on and off. Heinmann determined the best composition of the class envelope. You are correct however that Edison mass produced and marketed his light bulb.
The only reason the centennial bulb is still running is it is running at very low power. Take a standard light bulb and run it on low voltage and see how long it lasts.. I have a 240 volt rated bulb rated at 50 watts that has been running here for the past 30 or so years. This old bulb I have was from the UK, and was in a lamp bought at a garage sale. Yes it lights up, and puts out the equivalant of about a 20 watt bulb. I have it lighting an outdoor staircase, and it is never turned off.
@midnightcharger2 Filament thickness determines the lamp operating current at the desired filament operating temperature (lower filament temperature increases lamp life, higher filament temperature increases efficiency and color temperature). The electrical potential (incorrectly called voltage) of the lamp is determined by the filament length. The lamp power is the product of the current and electrical potential.
At 3:39 the commentator says that the bulb bill work if connected to an electrical current. It is interesting that normally we connect the bulbs to an electrical voltage and they the current passes through. Perhaps saying that the bulb would work if we pass an electrical current through it but then one would somehow think of a current source where before on would think of a voltage source. Technically there is a difference in operation, but few will know of the subtle difference between a voltage source and a current source as far as their output impedances are concerned. The electronic people who worked with valves and transistors of FETs would know the differences between voltage sources and current sources.
the big incandescent bulb factory in Virginia has shut down. sales were killed by flourescent products. i depise cold creepy flourescent lights! i want normal warm incandescent bulbs back on the market!
@pbien16 It's the metal our drink cans are made of. In the UK, they call it "aluminium", while here on this side of the planet, it's called "aluminum".
I run plenty of LED bulbs in my house, and CFL bulbs. LEDs don't have the brightness of CFL bulbs. In my kitchen, I have 10 23 watt CFL bulbs with reflectors. I tried to use LEDs but even the brightest ones I could find were not as brite, and they didn't save much more power. They were 16 watts vs 23 watts. CFL give the biggest band for the buck. LED are suited to lower light level requirements, and incandescant to things like atics, and closets where there are not on for long.
I guess so. Another light I miss is the mercury vapor light, with its eerie green-ish glow. The bulbs can still be found for sale in the US but the ballasts have been banned since 2008. I like all 3 types of HID bulbs but since they all emit different types of light.
Believe me, I do NOT believe a word of what the GOP says! I love LEDs. I'm trying to convert most of the lighting in my home and business to LED lighting, but there are certain places that I NEED incandescent lighting (such as accent lights)
I don't like the new LED lamps because they make a lot of electrical noise. And you're right, they are very physically ugly, even if their light can be tailored to immitate a nice incandescent color temperature. I have some burned-out 25W coloured incandescents here that are so old, they have brass (not aluminium) bases. I wonder if I should keep them as momentos.
Do keep those old brass capped globes, I been obsessed with globes since I was 6, I have a huge collection ranging from 50s -2009 when the Aussie ban came in
I like incandescent but the spirals CFLs are better, those from Philips or Osram don't distort the colors and last too much, I'm using them since six or seven years ago and until now I had to replace only three of 12 bulbs in my house, I've put some with 23w and 42w in the kitchen and in my work room they are really good and my ceiling lamps stops to be burned by the intense heat... I recommend them! But those with generic brands definetly are craps, don't by them...
I've always wondered this... Where do people buy these big automated production lines like this one? Are there companies that make them or contractors? How does one go about finding/buying/making one of these?
the air inside the lamp is replaced with argon in order for it to operate AS WELL AS to lengthen its lifespan like they state here. Without it, the filemant would only glow red hot (not white hot) and would burn out in seconds
here in australia you cant get incandescents anywhere. the closest is the halogen ones. and there hasn't been a 100watt equivalent in the led's on the shelves yet. but for now its frosted halogens i suppose.
You could go back several layers! We use tools to make tools, and those tools to make machines, and then all of THAT to make special purpose machines as you see here. You could go back and back! "How it's made, Soda-Lime Glass", "How it's made, SODA (Sodium oxide)" Finally at some point you get to raw materials, and the whole show is a guy saying "Oh, we just dig that out of the ground"?
Three years? :) Perhaps that's a typical lifespan, but there are examples of longer lived incandescent bulbs... the most famous of which is the Centennial Bulb in a firehouse in Livermore, CA. Search Wikipedia for Century_bulb Several other bulbs with similar histories, but this one is by far the most famous.
CFL's Really bug me because they buzz if i hook them up in my room but anywhere else they run smooth and gray, gloomy, depressing and digital camera distorting sadness. Yes i Really hate CFL's because the light doesn't emit heat at all, also they contain mercury and there really grayish too, they also seem to sometimes but not always strobe really quickly but i have to look very close at the bulb in order to see the strobe effect.
@brilliantstudent Compact fluorescent lamps suck. They blow up at EOL and on dimmers/solid state switches. They cannot be used in any light fixture where there is insufficient air circulation. Ones that are not professional grade (>$10 each) are hideously made.
@lgugue you do realize that those cfls have to be recycled at a specialty facility and not just thrown away right? Cfls are good when it comes to energy efficency but they are also harmful to our environment when not disposed of properly.
question: is the wattage determined by the thickness of the wire? My brother thinks that the wire needs to be thicker, me the opposite for a brighter bulb. More resistance = higher wattage? Whats everyones take?
its not true that thomas edison invented the light bulp but it was a guy named heinman (german) and was invented in 1817 but edison only mass produced it and made it populair
No its not just that, if you can't see the ideas and ingenuity that went behind making all this then you're clearly missing the point. Those "complicated" machines didn't just come out of nowhere.
Most likely condensation resulting from humidity. Time between heating the glass and cooling again (very short periods they may be) could possibly cause moisture.
Nope. We have LED bulbs. I love incandescent bulbs but realize they're a waste of energy. I'm trying to replace most of the lights in my house with LEDs, and they are great, especially the 2700K ones that emit light at an equal color to incandescent bulbs. Much better than that depressing cool white light you get from CFL bulbs. There are areas of my house that just wouldn't be the same without incandescent lights so i'll always have a few, and the government put the light bulb ban on hold BTW.
Whenever I watch these "how it's made" I wonder how the machine itself was made???
Its fairly simple to imagine. everything that you can make even a paper airplane can be thought of a series of steps that you need to follow until the product is made.
So all you have to do is think about the first step *cutting the glass tube at the right length, then think about how you can build a machine to cut the glass tubing for you.
In the video you can see the cutter spinning as the tubing is put in place and forced through the cutter.
by now im sure you can see in designing this machine for cutting the glass tubing, you also have to design a machine that can pickup the tubing that was loaded in the machine by a human, then the machine places the tubing in precise slots before its get passed through the cutter, the excess tubing is collected and likely sent to a recycling bin while the main part is sent to the next part of the manufacturing process.
L
By very intelligent people.
yes, that to me is the genius part. the tolerance of each movement has got to be incredibly small.
Who made the first lightbulb making machine?
Cheers for the explaination. I was always under the impression that all lengths of the filiament were the same to cut down the amount of production lines necessary for different wattage bulbs. Always re-learning something everyday.
Screw new energy saving bulbs! Long live the incandescent lamp!
I'm using them to today and what's ironic i'm live in UE so incandescent lapmps was banned XD. So I supposed to buy them from internet
LED's are the future :v
Where's the UE?
Not Vladimir Putin. In europe dummy. I'm live in central europe
i honestly don't know why the fuck I enjoy watching How It's Made. After all, it's just complicated giant machines doing stuff over and over again while a soothing voice talks about what's happening, and yet I could watch it for hours.
Interesting, and intricate. All too often we purchase and consume so much - but how many of us stop for a minute to wonder what technological processes are used to make everyday items? I tend to quite often as i find it all quite interesting.
I am surprised about the factory than the bulb itself..!
i always watch these videos when i can't sleep, but they are so entertaining.
I couldn’t STOP dancing with the music i love this video
Am i the only one who loves the music while watching these?
I absolutely love the music!
i enjoy watching these when i have to sleep
The music melted my brain.
I have no problem with energy efficent bulbs, but for some tasks the good old incandescant rules. I am talking things like closets, where the light is on for 30 seconds and then off, or refrigerator bulbs ect. CFLs just do not last in these applications and LED are just too dim.
"Actually people from many countries spell/say it aluminium, not aluminum. The US is the only country I know of that almost exclusively spells/pronounces it aluminum."
==Canada also uses Aloominum but the chemical name is actually aluminium, so the british way is the standard one.
Too right. We in new zealand follow the british way of spelling. We call "Aluminum" Aluminium. We spell "Color" Colour. And "Escalator" Esculator. And An "Elevator" is a Lift.
Do you know why that is? The original namer of the element chose the name Aluminum first for around 5 years, then switched it to Aluminium after another scientist wrote in and said that it didn't sound "classical" enough. This caused a split in the spellings which was exacerbated by initial press releases and decades after by dictionaries. Then the guy a century later who later figured out how to efficiently produce the metal called it Aluminum in his publications.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology
And then it should sound like aloomiñum not aloominum
choose yor flavor...i mean your flavour.
that's because we American's like to be stubborn and act like we better than everyone else
Thank you so much for this video! You don't have any idea of how much this just helped me with my exam-project in material technology. :D
i love the music
I like to believe they play this music on repeat at the factory.
The truth: It takes more energy to make a fluorescent lamp than it does to make an incandescent one.
exactly why i love it just everything is so fascinating
Actually burning coal (which is still the main source for electricity) releases mercury, too. (coal also contains many other hazardous impurities, so saving energy has even more advantages). If you compare the amount of mercury in the CFL with the amount not emitted through energy saving over the lifetime of the CFL you end up with less mercury in the environment (this would even assume you broke all CFLs). But I agree to one thing: I don't want to break it at home.
I'm sorry nobody recognized your post for 13 years... How are you?
best video ever for my power point
Actually Edison discovered the filament composition that would survive the repeated heat cycling every time the light was turned on and off. Heinmann determined the best composition of the class envelope. You are correct however that Edison mass produced and marketed his light bulb.
The only reason the centennial bulb is still running is it is running at very low power. Take a standard light bulb and run it on low voltage and see how long it lasts.. I have a 240 volt rated bulb rated at 50 watts that has been running here for the past 30 or so years. This old bulb I have was from the UK, and was in a lamp bought at a garage sale. Yes it lights up, and puts out the equivalant of about a 20 watt bulb. I have it lighting an outdoor staircase, and it is never turned off.
@midnightcharger2 Filament thickness determines the lamp operating current at the desired filament operating temperature (lower filament temperature increases lamp life, higher filament temperature increases efficiency and color temperature). The electrical potential (incorrectly called voltage) of the lamp is determined by the filament length. The lamp power is the product of the current and electrical potential.
This is goddamn amazing.
"If only I could be as grossly incandescent..."
Ohhhh good video
hmm i dont know whats more interesting .. the light bulbs ..or the machines that make them lol
R.I.P. the filthy, inefficient incandescent light bulb. Your warm, comforting glow will be missed. ;(
Cool
RIP the filthy light bulb is not died
At 3:39 the commentator says that the bulb bill work if connected to an electrical current. It is interesting that normally we connect the bulbs to an electrical voltage and they the current passes through. Perhaps saying that the bulb would work if we pass an electrical current through it but then one would somehow think of a current source where before on would think of a voltage source. Technically there is a difference in operation, but few will know of the subtle difference between a voltage source and a current source as far as their output impedances are concerned. The electronic people who worked with valves and transistors of FETs would know the differences between voltage sources and current sources.
Or that the electrons are energized to produce photons that emit visible light. But I digress.
cool i like how they make it
the big incandescent bulb factory in Virginia has shut down. sales were killed by flourescent products. i depise cold creepy flourescent lights! i want normal warm incandescent bulbs back on the market!
I like the background music :)
I like watching making of things jus watchin this fr fun !! :P
@pbien16 It's the metal our drink cans are made of. In the UK, they call it "aluminium", while here on this side of the planet, it's called "aluminum".
How interesting and efficient.
Why does stepping up voltage and repeated lighting strengthen the filaments to better withstand shipping?
6 people openly dislike the creation of light bulbs. no wonder there's war in the world
I run plenty of LED bulbs in my house, and CFL bulbs. LEDs don't have the brightness of CFL bulbs. In my kitchen, I have 10 23 watt CFL bulbs with reflectors. I tried to use LEDs but even the brightest ones I could find were not as brite, and they didn't save much more power. They were 16 watts vs 23 watts. CFL give the biggest band for the buck. LED are suited to lower light level requirements, and incandescant to things like atics, and closets where there are not on for long.
12voltvids k
I don't care about brightness. LED and CFL are harmful.
I guess so. Another light I miss is the mercury vapor light, with its eerie green-ish glow. The bulbs can still be found for sale in the US but the ballasts have been banned since 2008. I like all 3 types of HID bulbs but since they all emit different types of light.
Believe me, I do NOT believe a word of what the GOP says! I love LEDs. I'm trying to convert most of the lighting in my home and business to LED lighting, but there are certain places that I NEED incandescent lighting (such as accent lights)
Dislikes are the People Who live in the dark and hate the light
amazing
I don't like the new LED lamps because they make a lot of electrical noise. And you're right, they are very physically ugly, even if their light can be tailored to immitate a nice incandescent color temperature. I have some burned-out 25W coloured incandescents here that are so old, they have brass (not aluminium) bases. I wonder if I should keep them as momentos.
Do keep those old brass capped globes, I been obsessed with globes since I was 6, I have a huge collection ranging from 50s -2009 when the Aussie ban came in
Dislikes are the People who lives in the dark
They were disappointed lights weren't powered by faeries and pixie dust.
I like incandescent but the spirals CFLs are better, those from Philips or Osram don't distort the colors and last too much, I'm using them since six or seven years ago and until now I had to replace only three of 12 bulbs in my house, I've put some with 23w and 42w in the kitchen and in my work room they are really good and my ceiling lamps stops to be burned by the intense heat... I recommend them! But those with generic brands definetly are craps, don't by them...
THE MACHINES GO SOOO FAST!!
I've always wondered this... Where do people buy these big automated production lines like this one? Are there companies that make them or contractors? How does one go about finding/buying/making one of these?
It's the same for New Zealand and Australia too.
I think the pronunciation is unique to the US.
and yet they missed the most interesting part imo...how the hell do they make the tungsten wire???
Thnx man.
the air inside the lamp is replaced with argon in order for it to operate AS WELL AS to lengthen its lifespan like they state here. Without it, the filemant would only glow red hot (not white hot) and would burn out in seconds
here in australia you cant get incandescents anywhere. the closest is the halogen ones. and there hasn't been a 100watt equivalent in the led's on the shelves yet. but for now its frosted halogens i suppose.
This video has been uploaded 14 years ago and at that time I didn't knew there was a thing known as Internet 😅
humans are beautiful
Not to mention that they require much more energy, more precious metals to make and have Mercury in them.
Nostalgic.
How its made: factories
How its made: How its made
You could go back several layers! We use tools to make tools, and those tools to make machines, and then all of THAT to make special purpose machines as you see here. You could go back and back! "How it's made, Soda-Lime Glass", "How it's made, SODA (Sodium oxide)" Finally at some point you get to raw materials, and the whole show is a guy saying "Oh, we just dig that out of the ground"?
leave a light bulb on for 3 hours,grab it and see how long you can hold on for
I love him, he says aluminium, and not aluminumiuminum... ;)
25 hammers disliked this (light bulb breaking joke)
I like this video becuse I like light bulbs
he pronounces aluminium like that cause that's the british/canadian way to pronounce it.
Pritty cool
Because they prefer fluorescent bulbs. :)
I’m disappointed they didn’t show the Corning glass forming machine that makes the globes.
nice
Cool
Three years? :) Perhaps that's a typical lifespan, but there are examples of longer lived incandescent bulbs... the most famous of which is the Centennial Bulb in a firehouse in Livermore, CA. Search Wikipedia for Century_bulb Several other bulbs with similar histories, but this one is by far the most famous.
There are still this type of light bulbs in markets?
CFL's Really bug me because they buzz if i hook them up in my room but anywhere else they run smooth and gray, gloomy, depressing and digital camera distorting sadness. Yes i Really hate CFL's because the light doesn't emit heat at all, also they contain mercury and there really grayish too, they also seem to sometimes but not always strobe really quickly but i have to look very close at the bulb in order to see the strobe effect.
Mirabella were bad for buzz
It's called aluminium everywhere except the US
@levitabusman
I saw your comment and thought it was mine, since we have the same profile pic. Good taste of music =).
You must live in a big house! I just counted 15 lights in mine. Not counting clocks or flashlights.
they say people like the nz accent in usa but in nz we like the us accent lol
@brilliantstudent Compact fluorescent lamps suck. They blow up at EOL and on dimmers/solid state switches. They cannot be used in any light fixture where there is insufficient air circulation. Ones that are not professional grade (>$10 each) are hideously made.
I know these are all screw caps ones what the ones with the bayonet caps?
Such incandescent bulb started by late thomas edison?
@lgugue you do realize that those cfls have to be recycled at a specialty facility and not just thrown away right? Cfls are good when it comes to energy efficency but they are also harmful to our environment when not disposed of properly.
Next year, the U.S. is going to phase-out the incandescent bulb in favor of more energy efficient CFLs and LED bulbs.
@MrPapawill They're made of alaminyum.
@grimslider75 Sick album bro!
question: is the wattage determined by the thickness of the wire? My brother thinks that the wire needs to be thicker, me the opposite for a brighter bulb. More resistance = higher wattage? Whats everyones take?
Less wattage
allimineum?
its not true that thomas edison invented the light bulp but it was a guy named heinman (german) and was invented in 1817 but edison only mass produced it and made it populair
How do you spell the name of the liquid he mentioned at about 2:00 ???
I need the name for a project at school.
CFL users and vampires would be my guess.
im tellin ya! its the same stuff over and over but once you see one you gotta see another!
No its not just that, if you can't see the ideas and ingenuity that went behind making all this then you're clearly missing the point. Those "complicated" machines didn't just come out of nowhere.
Should be required watching by every 7th grader who thinks stuff arrives in his/her home by magic.
what happened to Brooks Moore narrating all the episodes?
@serbescuiuliana WTF 7 mounth's ago and you have only just replyed ?? p.s what did ur comment say befor u removed it ?
whats an alaminyum???
people he's british. don't blame him; blame the brits lol
4:45 it looks like inside out
what do they mean by moisture inside the bulb
+Commander Rolex
Perhaps the argon they use isn't clean or perhaps that white powder they used to coat the inside is humid.
Most likely condensation resulting from humidity. Time between heating the glass and cooling again (very short periods they may be) could possibly cause moisture.
@Xgamer7755 i tryed that i was told you need 120 dc to make it work on DC just like AC it uses 120.
Can I get a text version I have to make a paragraph of it XD
Yo, Rodrigo C., how can this be YOUR video?
Nope. We have LED bulbs. I love incandescent bulbs but realize they're a waste of energy. I'm trying to replace most of the lights in my house with LEDs, and they are great, especially the 2700K ones that emit light at an equal color to incandescent bulbs. Much better than that depressing cool white light you get from CFL bulbs. There are areas of my house that just wouldn't be the same without incandescent lights so i'll always have a few, and the government put the light bulb ban on hold BTW.