My hoarder neighbour gave this lightbulbs to me

Sadly I have no use for them (I only have gear to run 150W SON/MetalHalide and 250W SON (the ballast doesnt mention metalhalide so not sure) and nothing in this box is any of that) but I have no heart to trow them in the trash

400W SON (osram navilux if eching is right, its impossible to take a photo of the eching)
https://i.imgur.com/Bda8UzI.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/CxdELcx.jpeg

I have another one, but its not in souch a good condition (its quite black), also no box


2x 250W Mercury vapor??
This one says SHL, it looks like SON inside, not sure if it would work in my gear

https://i.imgur.com/OoZbHxy.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/uBreVjv.jpeg



OSRAM 400W Metal halide
https://i.imgur.com/H0QwhLf.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/BTkfjp7.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/frijG8w.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/UMXrLch.jpeg

Its coated, it looks metal halide inside arc tube, its coated, and it has big dimple, I thought metal halides are not coated

Can I run this one on my 250W core and choke ballast (not for long, just to admire it, like 10mins max and only couple of days a year), I dont want something exploding


125W Metal halide??
https://i.imgur.com/XL4LlR5.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/YzZlWWc.jpeg

This one is wierd, the box says HQL, but the bulb looks like SON
And it has some wire wrapped around the arc tube

Also, the screw is not E40, but E27
What kind of fixture does this go to?

Hope someone can help me identifying what I have, would realy like to use them, I would never throw them away

Oh that damn imgur... What the mess, and slow...

Okay, some thoughts...

250W Tesla lamp looks like just a regular HPS lamp. Who said mercury??

Some lamp in 400W Osram mercury package - the etch is gone, so no way to tell. May be mercury, may be MH, may be even 250W. Yes MH lamps may be coated as some versions of Osram HQI-E for example. A coating may be a phosphor, or may be just a neutral light diffusing one.

Last lamp is probably some retrofit HPS lamp intended to run on mercury circuit. That's why it has a large wound ignition aid electrode. Usually these are quite rare and collectible. 125 Mercury paper package has nothing to do with this lamp. Actual wattage unknown. May be 125W, may be not.

 

Hello,
First lamp standart HPS from Osram (Vialox), 250 or 400W, cant tell from the picture.
2nd lamp is a 250W high pressure sodium lamp mad by tesla in the 90s
3rd pictur 400W high pressure mercury lamp by Osram.
4th 110W sodium lamp intended as replacement for 125W Mercury lamp with neon starting gs made by tesla.

best regards,

Alex

Thanks

I did try the 250 tesla HPS lamp in my floodlight, you can see this in this video: https://youtu.be/bzYIYLFx6RA

And something very strange happened

At first the lamp was extremly dim and blue, and my ballast didnt hum like it usualy does when starting my other Osram Navilux 250W HPS lamp

Then at 06:34 there were bright flashes of light and my ballast started humming, I thought I broke something

The lamp works and starts as expected now, but this first start was very strange to me

At first I thought that the lamp has internal igniter, and I am breaking something, but the lamp had an E inside triangle, thats why I assumed I can use it with my floodlight with external igniter

PS: how much could I expect to get for my retrofit HPS lamp (I am in Slovenia, so shiping would be limited to Europe, dont even know how to safely ship this stuff, its packaging doesnt seam to be shipping resistent), I have no use for it, I have real HPS lamps, dont even have any Mercury Vapor fixtures to use it in

PPS: is there any physical or operational difference (like different ballast and ingiter required) between High presure mercury vapor and low presure mercury vapor?

If HQL means high presure, is low presure designated with LQL or something?

Also how can I even diferenciate between mercury vapor and metal halide bulbs, they look almost identical (identical arctube, both are green when broken (I think)?

The last question (sorry for so much questions): how can I test my 400W mercury vapor bulb? I do have 500W halogen floodlight (the box I got my 500W r7s halogen from, claims its 400W equvalent), can I just hook my halogen in series to act as a ballast? Do I need sn igniter also?

Your Tesla lamp is probably somewhat aged, so it was reluctant to ignite properly for the first time. It had a low-power glow discharge induced by the ignitor, which finally transited to the arc at sixth minute. With regular HPS lamps this happens almost immediately.


Shipping a lamp usually involves generously wrapping it with a bubble wrap film, some centimeters thick, and then loosely fitting in a box. Well made lamps can be surprisingly tough, I once dropped Philips white SON lamp onto an iron cast bath while washing it, it landed with loud bang, thought it will be a write-off, but the lamp completely survived! Fortunately was an aged lamp, not much value.

Low pressure mercury lamps are fluorescent tubes and some of their special application siblings like germicidal tubes. There are medium pressure pressure mercury lamps, MA family, obsolete for general lighting, and some modern medium presure lamps intended for UV generation. Low pressure lamps most often work with a starter, not ignitor. In 220/230W world, a ballast for most kinds of mercury lamps is a simple choke. Surprisingly, no much difference between high and low pressure lamps, for example a choke for 80W fluorescent tubes is about the same as a choke for 80W high pressure mercury lamps.

Metal halide lamps can be differentiated by the presence of whitish or yellowish halide salts inside the burner. Also by the number of electrodes, a lamp with two electrodes will most certainly be a metal halide, except some very old long obsolete general lighting types, and some special UV lamps. Also, mercury lamps are rarely made in tubular envelopes with E27/E40 bases and never in halogen-like RX7 ones. And typical for MH lamps are two bands of white or green heat-retaining coating on the external surface of the burner, near the ends.

Mercury lamps (general lighting) do not need an ignitor. You can run them with an incandescent lamp(s) as a ballast but 500W halogen will be a bit underdrive for 400W lamp. I used 3 of 150W (or 200W? - forgot) incandescents in parallel as a ballast for 250W lamp recently. 250W mercury lamp needs 2.15A current to run, 400W needs 3.25A, after run-up.