Laurens
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I've been running a Philips son 70w HPS lamp on a 80w mercury vapor ballast (choke style, 230v). It has a 80 and a 50w tap. It ignites flawlessly in one go, with a S10 starter parallel to the lamp. If i do the same with a 50w SON, the starter just keeps cycling, and it flashes but does not strike an arc. Why is that? Can i solve this? Both lamps are brand new and unused. The SON 70 ran for a while on the MV ballast ignited with a tesla coil, before i added the starter, maybe the 50w needs to 'burn in' ? E: i started it up on the 80w tap and the variac to turn down the power once it struck, which managed to fire it up after about 15 cycles. Then put the lukewarm lamp into the 50w ballast, and now it seems to work. Gonna let it cool and see if it keeps working  Total mains current is about 25mA higher than with a MV lamp, which is completely acceptable for the ballast. |
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« Last Edit: June 24, 2024, 04:04:25 PM by Laurens »
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RRK
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| Why do you think regular HPS *shall* ignite with a glow starter? It may, but no one promised. If I remember right, prescribed ignitor pulse voltage for HPS is somewhere in 2.5kV range, which is probably not reached by a glowbottle starter.
Ignition voltage will certainly drift as the lamp age. It depends on multiple factors as activator migrating on the electrodes, impurities in the gas fill, buffer gas migrating out of the burner etc... Impurities may get captured or instead released at burn-in period.
There is probably a tendency to increase buffer gas pressure to reduce sputtering in modern lamps, but it does increase ignition voltage a bit, as it does in MH lamps. So until HPS burners are especially tweaked by manufacturer to start reliable with built-in glow starter, regular lamps are not obliged to do this.
Also, proper ignitor outputs a quick series of HV pulses, while glow starter does only rare single ones. Depending on lamp / electrode condition single pulses may be not enough to heat-up massive arc lamp electrodes to facilitate glow discharge to arc transition. Remember how white SONs are especially reluctant!
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« Last Edit: June 24, 2024, 09:37:31 PM by RRK »
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RRK
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| Some more things to consider:
If HPS lamp stays completely dim, ignition voltage is just too low. If lamp's burner just flashes, but then starter recycles, then it fails to do glow-to-arc.
Lamp may be just designed to need a quick series of ignition pulses to start. If so it just won't work that way.
A starter is gas filled by itself. So when the contacts open, the discharge in the starter will compete with the lamp for ballast current, making glow-to-arc harder. More so with higher impedance of 50W ballast.
A discharge in the starter is quite intense, so it will re-heat bimetallic electrodes quickly and cause them to re-close in a short time again, not allowing the lamp to complete glow-to-arc. This is a complex process, as the lamp needs to drop its burning voltage rather quickly to overtake starter discharge. It is easy with a fluorescent tube with hot electrodes (just some milliseconds to complete breakdown) but not so with high pressure lamp.
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« Last Edit: June 25, 2024, 12:36:10 AM by RRK »
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dor123
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@RRK: A 70W HPS lamp can be started with a glow starter. There are even 70W HPS lamps with an internal glow starters: 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk5AWeiQYSA2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ5NFAz6CLgAlso: Old pulse ignitors and pulse ignitors like Eltam ES-50, have a very slow pulse rate.
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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.
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Laurens
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| Exactly - because there are SONs with internal bimetallic starter, i decided to try it with starterless SONs and an external starter. No clue if the discharge tubes are any differen't between the two.
The cold SON 50 does not start on the S10 starter at all, just bright flashes. I'll need to think up something different to ignite it. 50w gear is not really common here. Neither are the SONs with starter that easy to get. I had found some, but at a shop that does not update inventory online, so when i put in and paid an order of 4 different things, they canceled like 3 of them and shipped only one. So i don't feel like buying there, if they even have it.
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« Last Edit: June 25, 2024, 10:55:06 AM by Laurens »
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dor123
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| The arctube of external ignitor 70W HPS lamp, is the same as the internal ignitor.
And you need the correct ballast to start the lamp with the S10 starter. You may also use a 60W or 40W incandescent lamp in series to the starter, to reduces current to the starter and prevent the starter from staying closed.
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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.
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LightBulbFun
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| as RRK alludes to, theres a lot more going on then meets the eye, internal ignitor SON-I lamps do have specific arc tubes and specific glow bottles tuned to work with each other in harmony so to speak
especially on the glow bottle front there are many different type each tuned to work best in a specific application/set of applications, so I would advise trying a glow bottle rated for producing a higher peak voltage from the ballast, a Philips S12 S16 or Sun bed starter (Philips Clio etc) is what I would try over a regular S10, look at the glow bottle datasheets and notice the different peak voltage specs
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dor123
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| How george911751 managed to start 70-100W HPS lamps with an S10 starter?
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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.
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RRK
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| In fact, it will be much easier to find a proper 3-terminal superimposed ignitor, or just an electronic ballast. European superimposed ignitors work with both MH and HPS lamps, electronic ballasts too, though some may be a bit fussy with sodium. European 70 and 150 W lamps are homologated by electrical parameters between MH and HPS, don't remember about 50W ones, probably too?
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dor123
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| My Philips HID-PV C 70W/S CDM ballast in my tracklight, working with my Osram NAV-TS 70W Super 4Y without problems.
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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.
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Laurens
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I have a 70w medium frequency Philips ballast for my SON 70 and CDM-ts and it works fine on both. But it's built into a really nice floodlight which i don't really use in my bedroom. But 50w stuff - i found something that [might] work - what do you reckon? https://voorraad.dbl-verlichting.nl/products/hid-pv-c-50-c-cdm-220-240v-50-60hzMeant for CDM, but CDMs run on SON electronic ballasts so i think it should work in reverse too, right? |
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« Last Edit: June 27, 2024, 03:00:02 PM by Laurens »
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RRK
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| For 50W stuff it seems that HPS ballasts are listed for slightly higher current - 0.76A for HPS vs 0.59-0.68A for MH lamps, though strangely for the same voltage of 85-90V. But there can be some confusion of magnetic ballast ratings for sodium lamps and mostly electronic for 50W MH. I remember running somewhat aged 50W SDW-TG lamps from 50W Philips Primavision MH ballast, and yes, they were quite happy, even running-up to their proper whitish color.
So there is always a little risk of incompatibility when you use a ballast off-label, but in this case the most serious problem seems to be a slight underdrive. Also some electronic ballasts (Osram Powertronic notoriously) may be fussy with HPS because EOL shutdown algorithms designed for MH may misbehave even with new HPS lamps.
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Laurens
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| It seems that the tech who is all too happy to unload obsolete lighting stuff onto me, has a proper 50w ballast for me. So although the experiment with the MV ballasts didn't end up in anything, i do have a way to light the 50w SONs soon!
The SON light blends fairly nicely with the light from my Eye h50 clear mercury lamp. So well that i wonder why there were no combined SON/MV fixtures made. But the amount of SON light is a bit too high with the son 70.
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Michael
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@Laurens Do you need any ballasts and ignitors for SON 50/70W? I have tons of them as we are throwing them away because of LEDs.
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Laurens
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| I do!
Can you ship from the EU, or is it farther away?
As for the harder to ignite 50w lamps: i think it's because the 70w lamp is a PIA (Philips Integrated Antenna) lamp which is like a starter strip to make igniting easier. The 50w one does not appear to have that, or at the very least isn't specced like that. I suspect that's what makes the 50w harder to ignite with my experimental setup.
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