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What Is a Par Floodlight?

In the initial days of electric lighting, many companies made light bulbs. They all had their own idea of how to design a light bulb. You might think that's a good thing -- after all, more choices often lead to a better match between what you want and what you can get. But what happens when you want to buy a lampshade? If every manufacturer had a different size bulb, you'd need to have just as many options for lampshades. To balance between choice and utility, the industry adopted standards, and the PAR light is one of those standards.

  1. Different Types of Lights

    • There are standards for bulbs of all different shapes.

      The old-style incandescent bulb is a type "A" bulb, which refers to its the familiar stretched-out globular shape. Among the other standards are "F" bulbs, which are shaped like flames, "G" globe-shaped bulbs, and "S" straight bulbs. PAR is another standard. PAR is the acronym for parabolic aluminized reflector. If you took a cross-section of a PAR bulb, you would see that the profile is indeed parabolic, and the parabolic surface is made reflective with a thin layer of aluminum.

    Numbers

    • In addition to the letter designation for different bulbs, there are numbers associated with each bulb shape, as well. For example, the common "A" designation is A19. For whatever strange reason, the number corresponds to the dimension of eigth inches in its diameter. The electrical wattage is placed before the letter. So 60A19 is a 60-watt bulb in an elongated globular shape with a diameter of 19 x 0.125 inches, which is 2.375 inches or 2 3/8 inches. The most common PAR lamp is PAR38, which is a reflective parabolic shape with a diameter of 4.75 inches.

    Varieties

    • An infrared PAR bulb puts out a beam of focussed heat.

      Every PAR38 bulb, no matter which company makes it, will be an aluminized parabolic reflector with a diameter of 4 3/4 inches, but that doesn't mean they're all identical. PARs can have regular incandescent bulb tungsten filaments, or they can be halogen PAR bulbs with the tungsten filament built into a tiny halogen capsule. Halogen PARs run at a higher temperature than standard bulbs, so they are usually made of quartz to withstand the heat. The part number is then preceded with a "Q," as in Q90PAR38. There are also "energy-saving" PARs and infrared halogen PARs for use as heat lamps.

    Spots and Floods

    • The final consideration is related to the conditioning of the light. The light from PAR bulbs can be tightly focused in a narrow spot, labeled "NS", or it can be focused on a traditional spot, labeled "SP." The light can also be spread out and diffused to provide a floodlight rather than a spotlight. PAR floodlights are labelled "FL." Therefore a Q150PAR36/FL is a 150-watt quartz floodlight bulb measuring 4 1/2 inches in diameter, with a parabolic reflector shape.

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