In fact, such short CCFLs were in quite wide use to backlight industrial LCDs circa 1990's. Though, usually driven off classic Royer inverters.
I even still have one in 240x64 size, popular in synthesizers of that era.

GE did 405nm pumped high CRI white LEDs very very long ago under the trademark Vio LED. Probably forgotten now. 2009 story...

Violet and UVA pumped WLEDs would of course lose in efficiency to classic WLEDs considerably due to extra Stokes shift and extra conversion in blue light.

I'm afraid that it applies not only to Discord. I think that introducing so-called "age verification" is global trend and will apply to more services (especially very popular ones) if not done so. There are even mentions of rolling out it at OS/device level. Projects such as GrapheneOS and some distros are against it. In contrast in UK iOS already started to prompt users to "verify their age".

Dor123, WOWIE!

At this point the only reason I am still on LG is drama like this lol
My interest in lighting has turned into a broader interest for electrical engineering and electronics (but let’s face it, it was pretty much already like this, but I have learned a lot of useful information here and playing with lighting in general though)
I still like a collection of the big glowing things because I just find them cool, and I pretty much use LED and boring fluorescent exclusively.

By the way that's why I like lights too.I know this should be combined with my previous post but I'm too lazy to edit it LOL

Sorry for attention seeking behavior. I did not mean to cause problems or whatever. I was just trying to provide more info on a picture. By the way, I forgot to mention that I was actually REFERRED by an overzealous physician!    WHAT THE WOW! I deserve a...dude, where's the slapping emoji?

Exactly, when I try and remove or lock topics that really shouldn't be here I get attacked for it! So I've just been leaving everything up!

@Danny
Don't feel pressured to respond, I just want to make my intentions clear.

When I say "some topics should be deleted", what I mean is that they should be deleted when they violate site rules. Again "topics that just do not need to be posted" is a very broad category, and I can't even begin to imagine how the mods would try to enforce that, though I do know what kind of topics you are referring to.

Members leave, and usually when they do leave they mention something horrible about the off-topic section. This is undeniably a bad thing, and like you I would love to have that not happen.

From what I am seeing, this starts by someone posting a topic that someone else deems to be uninteresting or otherwise unfit. That then prompts a user to make a comment criticising the user who started the topic. This starts a conflict between the people who defend the post and those who are against the post.

In my mind there are two ways to solve this:

1: Prohibit members from posting topics that others may or may not consider to be uninteresting/unfit (how do you enforce that?).

2: Prohibit members from making disrespectful comments on topics that they personally dislike or find boring (pretty enforceable).

In my mind, solution #2 is better. But either one will probably work, and you seem to like solution #1. And so does @RCM442. I don't think restriction is practical or desirable but that's just me.

@LightsAreBright27
I think on Discord servers people are more likely to be nicer to each other because it is more of an instant short message type of platfrom rather than a forum. More like a conversation.

This seems to be mostly a US problem, in other Europe most of the time clear lamps are tubular and diffused lamps are elliptical. However particularly with low wattage and retrofit lamps, this does not seem to be the case in the US.

For example, most clear 360W HPS retrofit lamps are BT-37 shaped, which matches their MV counterparts. But why not make them tubular (like normal 400W HPS)? The envelope is clear anyway, making it bulb shaped doesn't make a difference.

And for smaller regular HPS wattages this is still the case, most 35-150W HPS lamps are not tubular in the US. Often they are BT, E, or ED shape. Is it to reduce the surface temperature of the envelope?

And of course out larger wattages (250-1000W) are almost never actually tubular but rather a strange elongated elliptical-ish shape. How did this shape come about? Why not just use plain tubular like the rest of the world?

Now I know for things like MV and MH (which are usually nitrogen filled in the outer envelope), having a tubular envelope can sometimes restrict their use to vertical only so the envelope doesn't end up melting. But I haven't heard of this happening with HPS before.

Anybody have any ideas?

from what I have read and responses i have got from lighting engineers over the years when I have asked similar questions


the principle reason, is mechanical/optical compatibility, and quality of materials and ease of manufacture


for retrofit lamps, you want it to be the same shape and size as the lamp its replacing, to be as mechanically and optically compatible as possible


the reason for the funny shape of US 250W-1000W HPS lamps is because of material and ease of mfg, US glass tends to be lower quality than European glass and so having a slightly bulged bulb means a slightly cooler bulb, less out-gassing and degradation of the glass, and also I it makes it easier to centralise the bulb over the stem mount assembly on the sealing machine

As a newer member, I feel that the off-topic section should be mainly hobby related things (mainly electronics, etc) with the occasional incident or funny thing here and there.


But the strange thing is, other lighting discussion places with off topic are more active. For example lighting discord servers have plenty of off topic channels, yet have a constant flow of lighting related pictures. So according to statistics, off topic shouldn't be an issue.


I still agree that comments on photos have gone down a lot, comparing oct 2023 (when I joined) and now.


For now I'll leave it as is, the off topic board doesn't bother me too much.