MV, MH, and HPS all from one ballast?!?!

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Topic: MV, MH, and HPS all from one ballast?!?! (Read 468 times)

Multisubject
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Sooooo, WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA has proven to me that 100W European HPS bulbs run nearly perfectly on US 100W PSMH gear. My idea is the following:

I have a 100W HX pulse-start metal halide ballast. This can run a 100W PSMH lamp (obviously). That is one out of three major HID technologies in one ballast.
With the ignitor disconnected from the ballast, I can also (as usual) run a 100W MV lamp with this ballast as well. That is now two out of three major HID technologies in one ballast.
Now I know that I can also run a European 100W HPS bulb with the ignitor still connected. That is all three major HID technologies in just one ballast!!!

I can connect 2 of the ignitor leads to a 2 pole switch so I can disconnect the ignitor from the ballast as I wish. This would mean that I can run MH and HPS, and just flip a switch to run MV.

Has anyone tried this before? This is really exciting for me lol, I have it all planned out in my head.

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dor123
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M90 ballast can run European 100W HPS and MH lamps.

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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site.
Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.

I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).

I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.

Multisubject
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What key words should I type while searching to differentiate the European style from the US style?

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dor123
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Osram NAV-T 100W Super 4Y.
Osram NAV-E 100W Super 4Y.
Philips SON-T Pia Plus 100W.
Philips SON Pia Plus 100W.
etc...

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RRK
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Roman

Quote from: Multisubject on March 24, 2025, 10:33:52 AM

Sooooo, WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA has proven to me that 100W European HPS bulbs run nearly perfectly on US 100W PSMH gear. My idea is the following:

With the ignitor disconnected from the ballast, I can also (as usual) run a 100W MV lamp with this ballast as well. That is now two out of three major HID technologies in one ballast.

Are you guys sure?

I am not very into American lamps, but AFAIK for 100W mercury and MH lamps are incompatible:

Mercury: 100w – H38/H44/H4 130V 0.85A
MH 100w – M90/M140 100V 1.2A

My bet when run on M90 ballast, mercury lamp will end up with about 1A current, which is not the end of the world (mercury's are largely tolerant to abuse) but still a bit of overdrive...

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joseph_125
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I sometimes run 125w mercury lamps on M90 (100w MH) ballasts with the ignitor disconnected, it's not exactly the specs but mercury lamps are generally fairly tolerant...a fact exploited by some manufacturers of low cost 100w and 175w MV yardlights.

The 100w European HPS is pretty interesting, maybe I will get one of those to try out as well.

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WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
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HID, LPS, and preheat fluorescents forever!!!!!!

Another option to go for if you want to run a variety of HID lamp types on one ballast is to use mercury vapor HX ballasts or reactor ballasts since Japan is well known for developing a very wide range of quartz metal halide, ceramic metal halide, high pressure sodium, and deluxe high pressure sodium lamps all made to be directly retrofitted into mercury vapor HX and reactor ballasts without any ballast modifications. Interestingly, there were even twin arc high pressure sodium retrofit lamps designed for mercury vapor HX and reactor ballasts available in Japan as well. Sadly, 250W H37 mercury vapor and 400W H33 mercury vapor HX ballasts are pretty rare in the states.

« Last Edit: March 24, 2025, 11:50:11 PM by WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA »

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Desire to collect various light bulbs (especially HID), control gear, and fixtures from around the world.

DISCLAIMER: THE EXPERIMENTS THAT I CONDUCT INVOLVING UNUSUAL LAMP/BALLAST COMBINATIONS SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED UNLESS YOU HAVE THE PROPER KNOWLEDGE. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INJURIES.