Author Topic: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps  (Read 3479 times)
jercar954
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Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « on: August 01, 2010, 01:49:54 PM » Author: jercar954
A few months ago, our local Walmart store was relamped from GE Starcoat Chroma 50 lamps to Philips Alto Energy Advantage lamps. These are the 32T8 lamps.

Yesterday, while in the store I noticed that a large number on these lamps were "swirling" like what happens when you first install a new lamp and very often this will happen at EOL. I've never seen such a large number of lamps swirling like this that have been in service for a few months operating 24/7. Any theory as to why this is?

Also, I've noticed that Philips have changed the wording on their etch from "Alto collection" to "Alto technology".
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dor123
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Re: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « Reply #1 on: August 02, 2010, 08:10:17 AM » Author: dor123
Swirling is not common in fluorescents in Israel but i saw this phenomenon in T12 and T8 fluorescents operated by a magnetic ballasts, as well as in several of my former fluorescent nightlight and even in one american GE CWA probestart Na-Sc MH lamp with a yttrium vanadate phosphor. Usually this is a problem with the lamp itself.
The reason for the US Philips to call "ALTO" a technology is to mislead the consumers to buy these lamps. (Samsung does similar consumers misleading when they calls their LCD screens with LED backlighting [Especially with the dynamic RGB LED backlighting] simply "LED TV" and even considers them a seperate type of screens).
Simply reducing the mercury dose can't be called a technology (Indeed the european lighting companies don't considers lowering the mercury dose a technology and even don't calls their low mercury fluorescent lamps, which contains greater mercury dose then ALTO as they still operate initially at full brightness and don't suffers from short life and half life, and mercury starving problems, with a special name).
« Last Edit: August 02, 2010, 08:46:21 AM by dor123 » Logged

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Medved
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Re: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « Reply #2 on: August 02, 2010, 05:18:08 PM » Author: Medved
@dor123: The reason, why US version use such low Hg dosing (and suffer related problems) is, then if the mercury content (to be exact the amount soluble by perscribed method) is below some threshold, used lamps are then in the US considered as "regular waste", so do not need special (and so expensive) disposal. And as disposal cost is quite significant in the US, customers try to avoid it and Philips help them in the "Alto-way"...

In contrast in the are all mercury containing products (so all fluorescent lamps), regardless of the Hg amount, classified as hazardous waste, so reducing the dose does not change it's classification, so here is no such crazy push for lowering the Hg dose "at any cost" (as it is in US), so manufacturers prefer the efficacy (the utmost priority for the EU market these days) and lifetime, both reducing the total amount of spent lamps, so the relamping related costs (the efficacy reduce amount of lamps in the installation, long lifetime reduce the relamping frequency).
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Re: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « Reply #3 on: August 02, 2010, 09:38:50 PM » Author: Foxtronix
From what I can see, it doesn't look to be a mercury related problem.

My theory is that the filaments could be too thick (due to a maladjustment in the machine that makes the filaments), so they would only heat enough not to run in cold-cathode mode, and not enough to create a spot on the cathode that definitely has less resistance. So the arc would actually search endlessly a place with more thermionic emission but doesn't happen to find one.

I can't see what else it could be, honestly.
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dor123
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Re: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « Reply #4 on: August 03, 2010, 05:26:50 AM » Author: dor123
Amalgam based fluorescent lamps are considered non hazardous waste, because the mercury hidden behind the amalgam and won't relase from the amalgam until it will reach 100'C (212'F). The amalgam itself isn't dangerous and don't pose a threat to the environment. But now it is a good option only in self ballasted CFL lamps, because, to make the lamp produce full brightness instantly the ballast should be able to act as a booster to get the mercury to vaporize in less the time that an incandescent lamp require to warm up. To get this with a linear, circline, U tube and PL lamps, they should be connected to an electronic ballast that uses a booster that may not be suitable to the liquid mercury containing lamps. Operation an amalgam lamp without a booster will result with a very dim light of the buffer gas in the first secs after the lamp turned on, and a run up time to full brightness of a minute.
Also amalgam fluorescent lamps are limited to 30%-100% brightness in a dimmable ballast.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2010, 05:28:46 AM by dor123 » Logged

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.

Medved
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Re: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « Reply #5 on: August 03, 2010, 06:04:11 PM » Author: Medved
From what I can see, it doesn't look to be a mercury related problem.
...
I can't see what else it could be, honestly.

On Philips F36T8 tubes run on regular 50Hz series choke ballast (so i could exclude the resonance) I observed, then the arc swirling happen not on the electrode (there appeared to be quite solid root), but rather closer the lamp center. And it seems to be more related to the lamp temperature and arc thickness:
Cold lamp had more constricted arc (and I guess the cause is lower Hg pressure in the atmosphere), what had quite lot of room around to move (thin discharge always tend to form spirals in a tube, if the current is concentrated to narrow filament, as electromagetic forces make it rather unstable).
While after warm-up the discharge thicken, so has not anymore any room left in the tube around itself to move, so the lamp then burn steadily.
Of course, the arc thinning might be result of other improper atmosphere composition (wrong Ar/Kr ratio, some impurities,...)
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Re: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « Reply #6 on: August 03, 2010, 11:18:51 PM » Author: Foxtronix
Mmmh... that makes sense! Maybe the gas pressure inside the lamps is too low? Like if they pumped too little gas (to save money?), which would cause the mercury pressure to never get high enough.
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Re: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « Reply #7 on: August 18, 2010, 01:24:20 AM » Author: Luminaire
Here's an article about striation.
http://www.p-2.com/cutsheet/blog/Fluorescent%20Lamps%20and%20Striation.pdf

Krypton filled Energy saving lamps are more likely to experience it. Some newer ballasts (GE UltraMax, Advance Philips Optanium II, etc) have striation reduction circuit to reduce them. 

Maybe they're pairing it with ballasts that doesn't have it?
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Re: Philips Energy Advantage Lamps « Reply #8 on: August 18, 2010, 02:40:10 PM » Author: Medved
So to conclude the article: All observed causes of striation have one common: The lamp is too cold (cold ambient, air breeze, low dimming setting, reduced wattage lamps - all mean the temperature is lower then "normal") and run on HF ballast (of the constant frequency type).
The low temperature cause the mercury pressure to be too low (more mercury condense; do not mix it with buffer gas pressure), so it form an atmosphere for rather unstable discharge.

Swirling is a bit different phenomenon then striation:
Striations is formation of dark and bright layers alternating along the tube length, while during "swirling" the arc has constant brightness across it's length, but it's path is not straight, but erratically bended in the tube volume.

But even then, both phenomenons have common thing: Too cold tube yielding to unstable discharge.
On HF ballasts this lead to resonance effects forming mainly striations, on low frequency (or steady DC) swirling.

The striation you might combat by spreading the frequency spectrum of the current (so there is no distinct peak, that might cause the resonance; mostly frequency modulation is used) of the ballast or by adding a DC (or low frequency) component of about 30% of the AC current to the arc current (mainly with dimmable ballasts at low power setting - usually by a resistor across the DC decoupling capacitor)
Ironically the first is unintentionally present in cheap selfoscillating circuits, where the ferrite ring dictate the frequency so, it just goes to the saturation, so keep constant current. As the DC bus supplying the inverter is filtered by finite tank capacitor, there is significant ripple (double of mains frequency) on it (or them, i case of doubler on 120V mains).
So when the inverter keep constant current at varying supply voltage, it has to vary the reactance - so the frequency. The result is, then the ballast frequency is modulated by the remaining AC ripple on the DC bus, so it spread the lamp current spectrum...

For swirling i do not know about any help beside ensuring correct operating temperature...
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