1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,158 Hello and welcome to No Effort November, 2 00:00:03,158 --> 00:00:05,297 a series [rushed mumbling] 3 00:00:05,297 --> 00:00:09,550 Gonna be lots of flickering lights throughout this video, fyi. 4 00:00:09,550 --> 00:00:10,345 This, 5 00:00:10,345 --> 00:00:11,289 [click] 6 00:00:11,289 --> 00:00:18,371 if not the weirdest light bulb ever made, is certainly the wildest light bulb ever made. 7 00:00:18,371 --> 00:00:27,748 It’s called the Balafire and just in case a quick glance at the box isn’t clear enough, it’s a product of the late 1960’s and early seventies. 8 00:00:27,748 --> 00:00:31,292 This novelty light bulb was produced by Kyp-Go Incorporated, 9 00:00:31,360 --> 00:00:33,922 the company founded by Bob Kyp. 10 00:00:33,922 --> 00:00:37,446 He was dedicated to the preservation of carbon filament light bulbs 11 00:00:37,446 --> 00:00:48,222 and in 1950 founded his company (right here in the Chicago area, as it happens) which manufactured reproductions of various antique light bulb designs. 12 00:00:48,222 --> 00:00:51,930 But in 1964, he had an idea. 13 00:00:51,930 --> 00:00:53,517 And it wasn’t this. 14 00:00:53,517 --> 00:00:54,868 It was this! 15 00:00:54,868 --> 00:01:04,361 This bulb, called the Gas Glo, was an attempt to produce a realistic flame effect for old-looking but still electric light fixtures. 16 00:01:04,361 --> 00:01:06,904 I’ve long had a soft-spot for this sort of thing - 17 00:01:06,904 --> 00:01:11,039 you may recall I covered neon flicker flame lamps in the past. 18 00:01:11,039 --> 00:01:17,005 While they’re really not useful for any  amount of illumination and the flame effect is... 19 00:01:17,005 --> 00:01:21,181 uh, not terribly realistic it’s still a neat idea. 20 00:01:21,181 --> 00:01:25,707 These days, since LEDs and microcontrollers are so stinking cheap 21 00:01:25,707 --> 00:01:31,546 these new light bulbs are gaining in popularity which are… 22 00:01:31,546 --> 00:01:33,228 well they’re something. 23 00:01:33,228 --> 00:01:40,545 I don’t love them - these aren’t warm white diodes, they’re amber, so they create terribly unpleasant lighting, 24 00:01:40,545 --> 00:01:48,108 plus you can usually notice a pattern in their behavior pretty quickly, so I think there’s lots of room for improvement. 25 00:01:48,108 --> 00:01:54,066 I probably have unrealistically high standards,  though, since growing up and visiting the Disney parks 26 00:01:54,066 --> 00:02:00,423 I was entranced by how they managed to make  antique lanterns look like there was actually a flame in there. 27 00:02:00,423 --> 00:02:08,636 I even tracked down a product called SimFlame which is a thing - if not the thing - which makes that particular magic happen. 28 00:02:08,636 --> 00:02:12,364 This is a plug-in version of the SimFlame 29 00:02:12,364 --> 00:02:20,269 and really all it is is a fancy dimmer switch which  randomly and subtly changes the brightness of an incandescent light bulb. 30 00:02:20,269 --> 00:02:25,040 Incandescent filaments offer a natural shift in color emperature as they dim down 31 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:33,602 so if you simply frost the glass of a light fixture so you can’t see the actual light bulb, it’s a very convincing effect. 32 00:02:33,602 --> 00:02:37,849 Jerry’s Electronics is still around and you can still order these if you like, 33 00:02:37,849 --> 00:02:43,185 in fact they’ve been updated to support LED light bulbs, and I put a link in the doobly-do. 34 00:02:43,185 --> 00:02:48,365 Though, as I later discovered when I started getting into actual hurricane lanterns, 35 00:02:48,365 --> 00:02:54,847 this effect isn’t actually representative of the  sort of light output a burning oil lamp creates. 36 00:02:54,847 --> 00:02:58,028 This, though, it actually is. 37 00:02:58,028 --> 00:03:05,123 The flicker of an oil lamp is quite subtle and, well, this light bulb has a very subtle flicker. 38 00:03:05,123 --> 00:03:11,289 It also produces about as much light with the same character that a real oil lamp does. 39 00:03:11,289 --> 00:03:13,553 And how is it doing that? 40 00:03:13,553 --> 00:03:21,339 Well, through the magic of buying two of them, I have this clear version of the same bulb which lets us look inside. 41 00:03:21,339 --> 00:03:25,486 Before I switch it on, and this is going to be very hard to see but hopefully you can, 42 00:03:25,486 --> 00:03:33,405 you’ll notice the filament is very long and is sticking up into the point of the vaguely flame-shaped glass bulb. 43 00:03:33,405 --> 00:03:36,463 And it’s free to move around a little bit. 44 00:03:36,463 --> 00:03:44,554 What I’m sure you have noticed is the weird black chunk of something on a stick, positioned right in the middle of the filament. 45 00:03:44,554 --> 00:03:46,324 That is a magnet. 46 00:03:46,324 --> 00:03:48,234 Just a simple magnet. 47 00:03:48,234 --> 00:03:53,909 Now, you may know that when current flows through a wire it generates a magnetic field. 48 00:03:53,909 --> 00:03:59,545 And the filament in this light bulb is a wire which will have current flowing through it. 49 00:03:59,545 --> 00:04:03,263 So once we switch it on, the filament will create a magnetic field 50 00:04:03,263 --> 00:04:11,203 which will interact with the magnet and create an attractive or a repulsive force which moves the filament relative to the magnet. 51 00:04:11,203 --> 00:04:20,996 But because the electricity that powers stuff in your home is alternating current,  where the direction of current flow is constantly reversing 50 or 60 times per second, 52 00:04:20,996 --> 00:04:25,544 the direction the filament will move will constantly reverse. 53 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:27,787 And that produces this effect. 54 00:04:27,787 --> 00:04:33,195 The filament is essentially vibrating thanks to the magnet and alternating current. 55 00:04:33,195 --> 00:04:38,322 The shape of the bulb restricts the filament’s movement to just a small back and forth motion - 56 00:04:38,322 --> 00:04:42,311 you can actually hear the filament hitting the glass if you listen real close. 57 00:04:42,311 --> 00:04:43,706 [faint tinkling] 58 00:04:43,706 --> 00:04:47,153 And while the effect is pretty tiny, it’s significant. 59 00:04:47,153 --> 00:04:53,812 The source of the light is physically moving and so, even though the filament is not changing in brightness, 60 00:04:53,812 --> 00:05:00,022 the amount of light which leaves the bulb in any given direction is always just a little different. 61 00:05:00,022 --> 00:05:06,909 Even staring directly at this clear bulb, it does kind of look like there’s an actual flame in there. 62 00:05:06,909 --> 00:05:09,934 And the frosted bulb makes the effect… 63 00:05:09,934 --> 00:05:19,419 well I won’t say more convincing but it changes the character of the effect in a useful and pleasing way depending on what sort of light fixture you’re sticking it in. 64 00:05:19,419 --> 00:05:24,929 But then, in 1968, Bob decided to let things loosen up a bit. 65 00:05:24,929 --> 00:05:33,071 The Balafire bulb is basically the same thing as the Gas Glo bulbs - it even has the same roughly flame-shaped filament. 66 00:05:33,071 --> 00:05:39,284 But the matching flame shape of the glass envelope was swapped for a simple spherical globe. 67 00:05:39,284 --> 00:05:43,769 While the Gas Glo bulb physically prevents the filament from moving very far, 68 00:05:43,769 --> 00:05:48,543 the globe of the Balafire is large enough that the filament can never touch it. 69 00:05:48,543 --> 00:05:50,515 And the result… 70 00:05:50,515 --> 00:05:51,777 is that. 71 00:05:51,777 --> 00:05:57,550 An absolutely wild light bulb where the filament is just flying all over the place. 72 00:05:57,550 --> 00:06:04,241 It really does look quite a lot like a small fire inside of that light bulb,  and they came in several different colors. 73 00:06:04,241 --> 00:06:10,228 This really is a mesmerizing effect and you really lose quite a lot of time just staring at one of these, 74 00:06:10,228 --> 00:06:15,693 especially if under the influence of the sort of substances that the box design might remind you of. 75 00:06:15,693 --> 00:06:25,022 I have this, of course, just in a standard lamp socket but these were often displayed in fixtures specially designed specifically to display them. 76 00:06:25,022 --> 00:06:29,715 They might take the form of a mirrored  box to let you see the lamp from all sides, 77 00:06:29,715 --> 00:06:38,428 and some pretty groovy acrylic cuboids  were out there which fit a globe lamp just perfectly and served as a sort of… 78 00:06:38,428 --> 00:06:39,886 shrine? 79 00:06:39,886 --> 00:06:42,108 I dunno, I’m not old enough to have been there. 80 00:06:42,108 --> 00:06:44,273 And speaking of mirrored [clicks off] 81 00:06:44,273 --> 00:06:47,742 you might have noticed that the glass is somewhat mirrored. 82 00:06:47,742 --> 00:06:53,804 While I can’t say for sure, I have a hunch that this was  done in part to hide the fact that what’s inside this 83 00:06:53,804 --> 00:06:58,376 is literally the same exact thing as the Gas Glo bulb. 84 00:06:58,376 --> 00:07:03,343 If you could see clearly into the bulb, it would look identical. 85 00:07:03,343 --> 00:07:12,110 Then again, it also just looks pretty cool and a lot more interesting when it’s shut off than a simple red light bulb so maybe I’m just being too cynical there. 86 00:07:12,110 --> 00:07:13,250 You tell me. 87 00:07:13,250 --> 00:07:23,371 The box claims these light bulbs had a life of 500 hours which seems quite pessimistic for a lamp which is burning the filament at such a dull brightness 88 00:07:23,371 --> 00:07:30,297 until you remember that the tiny, fragile filament is flying around every which way with gusto. 89 00:07:30,297 --> 00:07:32,524 Ever heard of metal fatigue? 90 00:07:32,524 --> 00:07:36,362 This is both really cool to watch and really painful! 91 00:07:36,362 --> 00:07:39,675 That’s not good for the health of the filament, 92 00:07:39,675 --> 00:07:44,068 though for what it’s worth the patent mentions that an aged filament 93 00:07:44,068 --> 00:07:51,541 (one which has already been subjected to higher-than-normal voltage and thus had a burn-in period) is preferred. 94 00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:55,560 I’m sure that helped keep these  things from burning out too early. 95 00:07:55,560 --> 00:08:03,380 Then again, I found some forum posts about these where someone claimed they had used theirs for many thousands of hours. 96 00:08:03,380 --> 00:08:10,595 Certainly if the filament is being driven as gently as it is in the Gas Glo bulb that’s not outside the realm of possibility - 97 00:08:10,595 --> 00:08:15,908 that’s quite dim and evaporation of tungsten is going to be very, very slow. 98 00:08:15,908 --> 00:08:22,942 But it relies on getting very lucky as far as how sturdy the filament was in your particular bulb. 99 00:08:22,942 --> 00:08:31,611 These don’t “burn out” in the traditional sense where a weak spot forms after hundreds of hours of pushing tungsten almost to its melting point, 100 00:08:31,611 --> 00:08:35,873 instead the filament just mechanically fails at some point. 101 00:08:35,873 --> 00:08:38,965 And, well, that’s really all I've got for you today. 102 00:08:38,965 --> 00:08:41,778 Just a couple of weird old light bulbs. 103 00:08:41,778 --> 00:08:52,091 Bob Kyp passed away in 2011, but shortly before he died Kyp-Go started up a new run of these using standard A19-shaped light bulbs. 104 00:08:52,091 --> 00:08:55,214 I’m assuming there was a logistical or technical reason for that - 105 00:08:55,214 --> 00:09:03,158 the mirrored red sphere looks so much cooler than just a normal light bulb and I would think they would have wanted to do that again if they could have - 106 00:09:03,158 --> 00:09:06,105 but it was still nice that it was revived. 107 00:09:06,105 --> 00:09:11,415 Now, these are collectors items and are worth around $100 each. 108 00:09:11,415 --> 00:09:17,289 I believe Kyp-Go is now defunct, I only found a web presence via the Wayback Machine. 109 00:09:17,289 --> 00:09:23,710 But I was genuinely delighted to learn that there actually was a Disney Parks connection this whole time - 110 00:09:23,710 --> 00:09:31,584 apparently Kyp-Go was who was making the antique carbon filament bulbs in use in the theme parks and certain attractions. 111 00:09:31,584 --> 00:09:35,337 Though I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my channel icon. 112 00:09:35,337 --> 00:09:46,481 That is a photograph of a FerroWatt bulb - one of the newer companies who got into the reproduction “Edison” bulb trend long before it exploded into what it is now. 113 00:09:46,481 --> 00:09:47,927 Or maybe what it was a decade ago. 114 00:09:47,927 --> 00:09:49,657 I don’t remember when it peaked. 115 00:09:49,657 --> 00:09:52,856 Anyway, it looks like they, too, are defunct. 116 00:09:52,856 --> 00:09:56,366 Which is kinda sad, they had some of the best reproductions. 117 00:09:56,366 --> 00:09:58,981 Including a glass-tip. 118 00:09:58,981 --> 00:10:10,011 For what it’s worth, though, most of those so-called “carbon filament” reproductions  were and still are, as far as I know, just tungsten filaments being run very gently. 119 00:10:10,011 --> 00:10:15,215 And that means they tend to last a lot longer than they seem like they should - 120 00:10:15,215 --> 00:10:19,890 it’s like being permanently on a dimmer set quite low. 121 00:10:19,890 --> 00:10:27,817 However, they’re horribly inefficient and produce an  extremely warm light and so while they are nice in a few decorative spots, 122 00:10:27,817 --> 00:10:31,964 they’re not great at all for general illumination. 123 00:10:31,964 --> 00:10:33,267 Uh, but anyway, the end. 124 00:10:34,069 --> 00:10:36,596 ♫ wildly smooth jazz ♫ 125 00:10:37,401 --> 00:10:40,987 …for old-looking but still electric light bulbs. 126 00:10:40,987 --> 00:10:42,519 Light fixtures! 127 00:10:42,519 --> 00:10:43,802 [clears throat] 128 00:10:43,802 --> 00:10:49,696 I don’t love them, these aren’t warm white diodes, they’re amber so they create… terr… 129 00:10:49,696 --> 00:10:50,844 ohf shoot. 130 00:10:50,844 --> 00:10:54,632 …thing if not the thing which makes that par… crap. 131 00:10:55,660 --> 00:11:01,395 I have this of course just in a standard lamp socket just inst… ffthwhat? 132 00:11:01,395 --> 00:11:05,243 But I was genuinely telighted to lear - ahhhhhh 133 00:11:05,523 --> 00:11:07,978 Yeah, we’re gonna be done by the end of the day! 134 00:11:08,605 --> 00:11:09,186 Oh, 135 00:11:10,807 --> 00:11:16,387 that reminds me because this one was so short I dunno how many bloopers there are going to be. 136 00:11:16,387 --> 00:11:19,277 There were a few, uh but I’m just recording this section 137 00:11:19,277 --> 00:11:22,134 in case I have to pad it  out into the point where I normal cu- 138 00:11:24,313 --> 00:11:28,171 that's some movie magic for ya. 139 00:11:28,171 --> 00:11:32,168 cutting right when i said cut. 140 00:11:32,168 --> 00:11:35,684 i'm so clever makin' funnies like that