WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
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HID, LPS, and preheat fluorescents forever!!!!!!
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I do what you have said Tim, simply I really don't care about it. Most of the time my hobbies seems too weird or to interesting to be poked at, and well it's fun bringing it up at seemingly unrelated times. It also helped a hell of a lot with physics class, most of the EM wave stuff I already knew about.
Jamie I get the incandescent thing, Having seen the tail end of them and with them gone now I try and collect them but they seem to not be of great interest. I say that you continue to view the great incandescent lamps that you are interested in and comment on them, you and a few others have been a great help with identifying things in m tungsten collection. As Tim said, they lose out by not seeing your collection. 
I have also seen that incandescent lamps in the ‘Web Finds’ section often get overlooked too including 1890s and 1900s carbon filament lamps. |
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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.
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HPS_250
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Long live the HPS and SOX!
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| Not really, no one has seemed to mind me being interested in lighting (so far, anyway). My family isn’t bothered by it and my friends are basically indifferent. Being on this site and taking photos of lighting when I’m out has never been a problem, but I don’t think my family would approve if I really got into the collecting part. I used to collect lamps more often, but it ended up causing issues with space and clutter so I sold some but still have some as well.
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I’ve always been interested in all kinds of lighting, mainly incandescent and HID, and especially all kinds of sodium lamps (HPS/LPS). I’ll tolerate LED but I’m not a fan of it.
I’m not proud to say that my city has Devolved to LED.
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108CAM
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Diehard MV, HPS, SOX & Preheat Fluorescent Fanatic
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| I once had some silly person call the police on me because they thought I was loitering when I was actually looking at the lights on a building.
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Fluro starter pings combined with a 50hz ballast hum and blinking tubes is music to my ears.
Rest in Peace Electronic Lamp Manufacturers of Australia
1925-2002
Bring back the AJF Zodiacs!
Total incidents since joining LG: 18
Lamps accidently broken or smashed: 15
Ballast explosions/burnouts: 3
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Cavannus
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| I missed this topic, which is interesting because we share an uncommon interest and we have to deal with its poor social acceptance/understanding.
Short answer: no, I have never been ridiculed about my interest. I keep the technical details for myself and only show a very few antique or interesting items to my friends.
I may offend some of you, but I think that a significant amount of YouTube reviews don't help our hobby look socially acceptable: many reviews are very badly shot (shaking etc.) in rooms that aren't cleaned up (sometimes you see dirty socks and underwear on the ground etc.), with no aesthetic efforts, and they are very long.
Furthermore there are things that people judge as cool (cars, video games) and the rest is perceived as boring. Being interested in street lighting seems as boring/stupid as being interested in public garbage bins. They are everyday items that people don't care about – although there are A LOT of technical challenges about them! I'm sure that the conception of a garbage bin is thrilling: it must look nice, it must be robust, it must be racoon-proof, materials must age well under sunlight and all weather conditions, etc. But most people don't think about this, they just see "a bin". It's the same for lighting.
So if you look too passionate about "any random street light" with sparkling eyes and a large smile, you just look creepy.
If you briefly tell a friend "Hey wait, this light is unusual I must take a photo, you can't imagine how technical it is" then jump on another conversation, you look like any geek.
It's not a question of hiding your passion to your friends, it's just a question of adjusting the level of interest you express to the level of interest of the general public.
I've been an adult fan of Lego for 20 years, and started when fans "of the plastic toy" were quite rare. Now Lego is mainstream and it's well established as an adult brand, so I've had the chance to be able to share my interest more and more. I was able to see the difference of social acceptance over the years. But still, there are details I keep for other fans.
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« Last Edit: August 28, 2022, 02:47:28 AM by Cavannus »
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108CAM
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Diehard MV, HPS, SOX & Preheat Fluorescent Fanatic
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| I'm scared that I will get made fun of if I start uploading videos of my lights to my YouTube Channel because I manly upload stuff related to trains and I don't want to mess up the algorithm as my channel has started to grow rapidly and I don't want to risk it because I get upset very easily when I feel rejected or get a false sense of not being equal with everyone.
I often feel rejected and unlucky because I don't have a 4x40w fluorescent street light and I have wanted one ever since I started collecting but I just can't find any.
Thankfully forums are immune to the dreaded blue checkmark verification and use a rank system that's purely based off how active the person is.
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Fluro starter pings combined with a 50hz ballast hum and blinking tubes is music to my ears.
Rest in Peace Electronic Lamp Manufacturers of Australia
1925-2002
Bring back the AJF Zodiacs!
Total incidents since joining LG: 18
Lamps accidently broken or smashed: 15
Ballast explosions/burnouts: 3
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Cavannus
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I'm scared that I will get made fun of if I start uploading videos of my lights to my YouTube Channel because I manly upload stuff related to trains and I don't want to mess up the algorithm as my channel has started to grow rapidly and I don't want to risk it because I get upset very easily when I feel rejected or get a false sense of not being equal with everyone. I think you're right, keep your existing channel focused on its topic and create another channel (with another Google Account) about lighting. You don't have to feel rejected because of the algorithms, the quality of YouTube videos as well as Instagram or Facebook posts has never been related to their intrinsic quality. Cats who jump hit way more views than the documentaries that cover a deep analysis of a niche subject  I often feel rejected and unlucky because I don't have a 4x40w fluorescent street light and I have wanted one ever since I started collecting but I just can't find any.
Thankfully forums are immune to the dreaded blue checkmark verification and use a rank system that's purely based off how active the person is. I don't know how old you are. It's easy to build your personality and self-esteem around material goods, to boost or fill your ego with the goods your accumulate rather than your own self-improvements. It's bad because when you lose your material goods, all your ego and self-esteem fall apart. Do you really want to build the person you are on a 4x40W fluorescent street light? You should rather build the person you are on your own accomplishments, learnings, good actions, etc. Then you'll see that they are goods you buy because you truly enjoy them (e.g. the design and the nostalgia around a 4x40w fixture are pretty satisfying) and goods you'd own only to boost your ego. (BTW, people who own the fixture of your dream eithers were lucky or they worked hard to get one. And you build a collection over decades, not years and not months.) |
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Rommie
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I've said it once already at the start of this thread, but it bears repeating as it's grown a bit since then. Sammi and I couldn't care less what other people think. We collect lamps, that's it. Anyone doesn't like it, that's their problem. Simple. Not that we get many visitors, but those that we do get seem quite intrigued. One of our regular courier drivers who delivered a linear SLI/H lamp was amazed when we showed it to him lit   |
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« Last Edit: September 06, 2022, 05:20:38 PM by Rommie »
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fluorescent lover 40
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| 108CAM - I will say this again, enjoy what you have! Because if you don't then what's the point of even getting them? If I no longer find joy in something or have buyer's remorse, I try to find someone local who can take it off my hands and enjoy it, and that gives me happiness seeing that someone else will appreciate it and save it from being used without a second thought or just being recycled.
I used to be like this. But then I kept finding light after light, just things in almost every find made me want to keep them, even if they're not my dream lights, and want more. Heck, even though I still don't have the dream lights that I want, I have lights similar in at least one aspect and those make me happy. But even then, I don't really have the space for my dream lights right now lol.
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108CAM
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Diehard MV, HPS, SOX & Preheat Fluorescent Fanatic
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| All those replies make me feel better as I know that I'm not the only one who has or had these issues.
I've read stories of people who have been searching for over 50 years trying to find their dream lamp or fixture.
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Fluro starter pings combined with a 50hz ballast hum and blinking tubes is music to my ears.
Rest in Peace Electronic Lamp Manufacturers of Australia
1925-2002
Bring back the AJF Zodiacs!
Total incidents since joining LG: 18
Lamps accidently broken or smashed: 15
Ballast explosions/burnouts: 3
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Medved
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| Not only because interest in lighting, it uses to come with pretty much any interest. And practically only comes from people who have no other "capability" than spending their free time on alcohol or even worse.
So I could not be bothered less...
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No more selfballasted c***
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108CAM
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Diehard MV, HPS, SOX & Preheat Fluorescent Fanatic
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| Felt something similar to being ridiculed when someone was constantly asking me what preheat fluorescent lights are.
I explained the starters and blinky tubes but they still asked me what perheat was after I had already explained it.
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Fluro starter pings combined with a 50hz ballast hum and blinking tubes is music to my ears.
Rest in Peace Electronic Lamp Manufacturers of Australia
1925-2002
Bring back the AJF Zodiacs!
Total incidents since joining LG: 18
Lamps accidently broken or smashed: 15
Ballast explosions/burnouts: 3
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108CAM
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Diehard MV, HPS, SOX & Preheat Fluorescent Fanatic
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I felt ridiculed about lighting one time because I got mad at how someone supposedly "restored" an AJF Zodiac when they actually butchered it and replaced parts that were still good but it gets worse. This guy runs  in the Zodiac and it looks absolutely pathetic. They tried to fight back and say that they reused whatever they could whan they threw all the good stuff in the trash and replaced it! This person has caused controversy in the past when they restored a 2x20w Wyt-Ray and did more harm than good to the fixture. |
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Fluro starter pings combined with a 50hz ballast hum and blinking tubes is music to my ears.
Rest in Peace Electronic Lamp Manufacturers of Australia
1925-2002
Bring back the AJF Zodiacs!
Total incidents since joining LG: 18
Lamps accidently broken or smashed: 15
Ballast explosions/burnouts: 3
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bulb_tester2009
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Resolutely crack down on inferior LED lighting!!
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Except for some of my classmates, no one laughed at me for my interest in lighting. And the classmates who laugh me are usually the ones I hate the most  |
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I've been collecting light bulbs since I was 2 years old and I've been collecting them ever since.
One of the few Chinese users here
Note:
Bulb base in China:E12(CES) E14(SES) B22d(BC) E27(ES) E40(GES)
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Lcubed3
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MAXIMUM LUMENS!!!
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| Nope!
I only started being interested in it a couple years ago, so I have both perspectives! I know that most people only pay attention to
lights when they're either not working or they hit them with something like a ball. Pretty much nobody knows how to take care of a FL
or HID lamp, and failures go unnoticed until there is so little light that it is not useful anymore.
I have stated that I am interested in lights, and pretty much everyone says, "Why?". It happens so often that I decided to write a paragraph
or two about all my interests and hobbies. Now, I have a good reason about why I'm interested in lighting, old computers, etc.
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Portland General Electric: 120/240VAC @ 60Hz
Bringer of Light
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mefurd98
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| No, not really. It’s just a hobby for me and I really don’t feel the need to tell people if they don’t bring it up themselves. My family actually thinks it’s neat and they always call me to come and replace fixtures, bulbs, or give advice. My friends just find my hatred for LED lights funny though which is pretty much the only lighting related topic I’ll bring up. My closest friends who come to my house know about my collection and they don’t really seem phased by it. But if anyone would have a problem with it, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it because there’s a whole lot more in this world to worry about than some guy collecting old Mercury Vapor fixtures. But no, I’ve never been ridiculed for it.
And I hate that they felt that way about you because everyone has their own hobbies they enjoy and there’s no reason to degrade someone for collecting a few light fixtures if it makes them happy.
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