Measured on the mains side it's about 0.1A (22-23 watts, my multimeter isn't very accurate). shorted would be the wrong word, I had a brain freeze, I meant putting them in series. The lamp may be slightly overdriven, maybe a watt or two.

@dchen4- Up until about July of this year we still had our Renault pr100.2 mk2s from 1993 still on regular routes! Now they were something to ride on. ACTION are currently also in the process of replacing our CNG Scania L94UBs with a mixture of youtongs and Scania K320ubs (BusTech VST bodied) . Unfortunately we only got 4 Custom denning element 2s here early this year. Read about some of this on Actbus.net

Nice thnx, will flurescent lamp (I have 1 18W, 1 32W, and 2 (the longest u can getW)  work, they are all coolwhite (does it have enough mercury) so I could get to know this mercury spectrum lines


I do know that my HPS lamps, starts like blue with a little orange, while hps lamps on the street, start completly white, then become orange

I do love the first LPS phase my hps lamp goes to while starting up, I wonder how do I force it to stay in this phase?

I do have 250W HPS lamp (and ballast), and also a few 400W HPS lamps (no ballast)

If I stick my 400W hps inside my 150W HPS ballast will this force the lamp to not enter HPS phase and emit monocromatic light?

I dont want to destroy my ballast or cause my lamp to explode

PS: if u compare LPS phase to HPS lamp, to a real LPS lamp. Is the color and light the same?

Your lamp looks pretty normal to me. They produce a golden light. I'm not used to them looking orange at all.

Make a diffraction grating spectroscope (plenty of plans online, you just need a CD/DVD and some cardboard) and see if you can find mercury vapor lines in either your lamp or the lamps outside. In most HPS lamps there is mercury vapor adding a small amount of blue and green light to the spectrum, and the associated lines are easy to recognize.
However, since in the entire EU mercury based lamps of *any* type are being phased out, there are now also fully mercury free HPS lamps that will lack these spectrum lines.

Use a halophosphate lamp to get to know the mercury spectrum lines.

If, however, you're somehow overdriving your lamp, the light will get whiter due to the higher pressure inside of the lamp. Conversely, if you underdrive it, it will become more monochromatic. On startup, HPS looks like LPS for a few moments because the pressure hasn't built up.

What do you mean by "shorted the 2 inductors"?

"It works": Check the total power, it should not exceed the lamp power rating by more than 1..2W (assume roughly 10% losses in the ballast, but also the 10% reduction due to the steady capacitive current adding to the filament heat, to prevent filament overtemperature)...

Instant and sometimes few flashes starting is normal for such setup, that part works as expected.

Theoretically low pressure sodium is very similar to Fluorescent lamps in terms of structure and how they behave, but the starting voltage of instant start ballasts maybe insufficient to strike the lamp, modification to the ballast may be needed.

I have found this Mitsubishi metal halide lamp designed to retrofit mercury vapor lamps on Japanese 100W mercury vapor HX autotransformer ballasts if you would be interested:

https://www.jauce.com/auction/r1143926133

Just as I mentioned earlier, it is only compatible with HX autotransformer ballasts and series choke ballasts.

Additionally, this website can help you get this lamp shipped to the USA.

Just so you know, 4800 JPY is about $31 USD. Additionally, I think with an item this small, the shipping costs might be reasonable.

I'm a fan of most busses found in Australia, the custom denning element 2 would be my favourite modern bus but the leyland panther psu3 with an Athol hedges body would be my all time favourite.
The freightliner fs-65 is cool too.

We have quite a few electric Custom Denning running the local bus line to replace some of the old Scanias, they ride a lot smoother, the Scanias are so old every time it shifts I get kicked in the back hard. They are built right here in St. Marys, and there are definitely a few around, at least a lot more than other suburbs. Seems like one of the route is a trial route of the Elements as I've been on them as early as 2021.

I currently have a 3 lamp F32T8 ballast in the fixture with 2 of the wires being used for the F24T12, I just want something that is magnetic. Unfortunately for me however the channel won't fit a standard sized slimline ballast and will only take something as big as a standard F40T12 rapid start ballast. The 539 would fit I just do not know if it would run right with a 2 foot lamp.

In my situation, I have used an alternative CWA ballasting circuit to run a 1000W H34 mercury vapor lamp. It seems to draw a similar line current and system wattage compared to a 1000W H36 mercury vapor lamp on a CWA ballast.