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Some data on commonly available fluorescent tubes.

This is a bunch of raw data on the commonly available fluorescent tubes from GE, Sylvania and Philips.


                               Nominal          CRI     CCT     Notes
                                LPW (1)         appx    (K)

Daylight                        65               75     6250    Bluish
GE Lite White                   83.8             49     4200    Pale greenish
GE Cool White                   78.8             62     4150    White
GE White                        80               60     3450    Pale yellowish
GE Warm white                   81.3             52     3000    Yellowish
GE SP41                         82               70     4100    Pale Greenish, (2)
GE SP35                         82               73     3500    Pale yellowish
GE SP30                         81.3             70     3000    Yellowish
GE SPX41                        84.3             82     4100    White
GE SPX35                        82.5             82     3500    White
GE SPX30                        81.5             82     3000    White (pinkish)
GE Chroma 50                    55.3             90     5000    Sunlight on cloudy day
GE Chroma 75                      50             92     7500    Northern clear daylight
GE Deluxe cool white            56.3             89     4175    White (pinkish)
GE Deluxe warm white              55             77     3025    Simulates incandescent
GE Sign white                     60             82     5200    White (bluish)
GE Plant light                  21.3             -2     6750    Purplish
GE Plant and aquarium light     48.8             70     3050    Pale purplish
GE Natural                      52.5             90     3700    Pinkish
GE SPX27                         -               81     2700    Simulates incandescent

Old bulbs: lite white, cool white, warm white, sign white, plant light, white. Newer, wide spectrum bulbs: deluxe warm white, deluxe cool white, plant and aquarium light, chroma 50 & 75, sign white, natural, daylight. Newest, with REP: SP series, SPX series

The older bulbs tend to have spctra that are weighted heavily around green; it's not ``spikey'' but it's a rather sharp rise and fall. There is not a whole lot of difference between cool white and warm white. The latter has a specta that peaks more in the yellow (and therefore declines slowly through red) region, whereas cool white peaks earlier in the green and declines more through green than yellow.

The newer, wide spectrum bulbs have a much more even spectral output. It rises at 400 nM, peaks almost immediately, stays more or less level and slowly declines when it hits 650 nm. There are spikes, but they are at localized maxima at 400, 450, 550 and 575 nM.

The REP bulbs are the newest and may have been influenced by the energy crisis. They utilize rare earth phosphours, and produce more light per given quanta of energy than other tubes. Unfortunately, the spectra is kind of wierd. It's very low and flat with two huge spikes, one in the yellow/red are about 620 nm and the other in the green at 550 nm. This is all but useless for growing plants, as these are primarily the two frequencies of light that are rejected by plants (they are green for a reason :-).


Sylvania Incandescent fluorescent         39             89     2750    Simulates incandescent
Sylvania Warm white                       80             52     3000    Old technology
Sylvania Deluxe warm white                55             74     2950    Low efficiency
Sylvania Cool white                       79             62     4200    Bluish
Sylvania Deluxe cool white                55             89     4100    Low efficiency
Sylvania Interior design                  82             69     3000    Warm tone
Sylvania Designer 3000                    82             69     3000    More efficient than above
Sylvania Octron 31K                       90             75     3100    High efficiency
Sylvania Designer 830                     82             80     3000    Royal white
Sylvania White                            80             57     3450    High efficiency
Sylvania Designer 3500                    82             69     3500    Neutral white
Sylvania Designer 835                     82             80     3500    Better CRI
Sylvania Octron 3500                      90             75     3500    Good colour and efficiency
Sylvania Natural white                    53             86     3600    Good color, fair CRI
Sylvania Octron 4100                      90             75     4100    Good colour and efficiency
Sylvania Designer 4100                    82             69     4100    Low tech (non REP) Octron
Sylvania Designer 841                     82             80     4100    Better colour rendering
Sylvania Lite white                       86             48     4150    Efficient, poor CRI.
Sylvania Daylight                         67             76     6300    Blueish
Sylvania Design 50                        55             90     5000    Blueish

Old tubes: cool white, white, warm white, lite white. Newer wide spectrum tubes: deluxe warm white, deluxe cool white, design 50, daylight. The rest are the newer REP types. Sylvania has a product line predominently centered around industrial and domestic lighting.

(Note: Philips does not provide Lumens Per Watt information. Instead they provide a ``relative light output'' figure, which seems to be the percent of light (more or less) radiated than a cool white tube)


Philips Agro-Lite
Philips Cool white                       100             67     4100    Cool
Philips Cool white deluxe                 70             89     4100    Cool
Philips White                            102             58     3500    Neutral
Philips Warm white                       102             53     3000    Warm
Philips Warm white deluxe                 68             79     3000    Warm
Philips Daylight                          83             79     6500    Cool
Philips Colortone 50                      70             92     5000    Cool
Philips Colortone 75                      64             95     7500    Cool
Philips Cool green                        83             70     6100    Cool
Philips Natural                           66             81     3400    Warm
Philips Soft white                        68             69     3000    Warm
Philips Lite white                       103             51     4100    Cool
Philips Spec 30                          103             70     3000    Warm
Philips Spec 35                          103             73     3500    Neutral
Philips Spec 41                          103             70     4100    Warm
Philips Ultralume 27                     105             82     2700    Warm
Philips Ultralume 30                     105             85     3000    Warm
Philips Ultralume 35                     105             85     3500    Neutral
Philips Ultralume 41                     105             85     4100    Cool
Philips Ultralume 50                     105             85     5000    Cool
Philips Advantage X 30                   117             80     3000    Warm
Philips Advantage X 35                   117             80     3500    Neutral
Philips Advantage X 41                   117             80     4100    Cool

Old tubes: white, warm white, cool white. Newer wide wpectrum tubes: natural, colortone. Newer REP tubes: Ultralume, advantage, spec (?)

It's hard to imagine why Ultralume 50's are so well respected. They have a horrible output spectra, flat, low, with a small peak in the violet blue range at 430 nm, a huge peak in the (useless) green range of 540 nm and another peak in the 620 nm red range. They look VERY much like a gro lux with the green thrown in for CRI correction. The Ultralume 30 is a bit better; at least the red spike is bigger than the green spike, but the real winners are the colortone 30 (``warm'', or spectra biased towards red) and the colortone 50 (``cool'' or bluish). These have very nice wide spectra.

(1) Lumens per watt applies to the F40 type.

(2) REP = Rare Earth Phosphours

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