| I just had a chance to play with some nice old Osram's T5 HE's and HO's, original German and Italian. I used my spectrometer to capture spectra from cold lamps (mercury not yet fully evaporated) to get the idea of what buffer gas fill is. Based on near-IR signature I see, a dense cluster of IR lines, I can say the fill is pure Ar, no Xe or Kr added. About the same that I see for small T5's and CFLs too. I remember reading somewhere too that the fill gas for T5 tubes is just plain argon. Note that some lightweight inert gas with high ionization potential as Ne or He may slip in unnoticed by this method, as it is not preferentially excited in the mix, but I did not see Ne pattern even around cathodes, where it can show up.
I don't have access to any newer 'economy' T5 tubes, so can not tell for them.
See, old school T5 13W runs at the same current as modern T5 HE 14W (170 milliamps), is about the same size and is almost mutually electrically compatible.
|
|
|
« Last Edit: Today at 03:34:51 AM by RRK »
|
Logged
|