Man Turns On 20,000-Watt Lightbulb, Illuminates Small Neighborhood

“Bloody hell, it’s like having a bonfire in the middle of the room.” Andy Moir, an electrical engineer, recently hooked up a 20,000-watt lightbulb in his house, and 95 amps and 210 volts later, the results are astounding.

When I was a kid, one of my best friends was a physics genius who once took the light out of an ancient copy machine (long before the days of LED) and hooked it up in his backyard to a power supply. The neighbors called the police when they thought lightning had struck something nearby. That paled in comparison to this monster.

The 20,000-watt halogen bulb is typically used on large film sets, is almost 2 feet long, and uses garage door springs as filaments. To put that into perspective, a normal room lightbulb is around 60 watts. So, imagine over 300 household lights scrunched into one monster bulb and turned on. Moir turned off auto exposure on his camera to allow us to see just how bright the room got, and by the end, the scene is just a wash of white. It's much funnier, however, when he takes the bulb into his backyard and turns it on. It lights up his neighbor's house so brightly that I half-expected it to burst into flames at any moment.

[via Motherboard]

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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6 Comments

I'm sure that his neighbors love him. I wonder what his electricity bill is.

If he left it on for one hour, he would have used 20 kilowatt hours. My local electric company charges 13 cents per kilowatt hour, so it would cost $2.60 for one hour.

Thats a lot of money for a light build. LOL.
I would scared to be in the same room as that light bulb.

That's going to need a pretty big softbox...

Calling the filaments "garage door springs" in the video is hyperbole, but the written article seems to take it literally.

I miss you photonicinduction Please come back!