Hello everybody and happy holidays,
I just purchased a nice vintage Philips SOX lamp rated 55W at a bargain price but I'm a bit confused about how to run it correctly. I live in Europe and the lamp is rated for 220-240V. I have attached a picture of it.
I've found a Philips SX72 parallel ignitor (pic) rated for 55W SOX lamps and I will purchase also a B22 ceramic socket for the lamp. Do I need anything else?
Thank you in advance for any help!

Cheers from Italy,
Lorenzo

You will have to have a ballast/ choke of some kind rated for a 55 watt SOX lamp as well. You cannot run it directly off the mains.

The ignitor is one part that you need, the other part is the (electromagnetic) ballast. 55 W SOX lamps run at 0,59 A, and because they exhibit negative resistance (like any arc lamp), need a ballast that limits the amount of current that can flow. Do NOT connect it directly to mains (it likely won't strike and nothing happens, but in case it does, it will probably instantly ruin the lamp).

The best thing to do would be to look for a complete ballast. In case that is hard to find, you should be able improvise it using other ballasts that have a similar reactance (in this case about 343 Ohm). If you parallel a 36 W fluorescent lamp ballast with a 7/9/11 W PL-S lamp ballast, this should be about the same but I have not tried this in practice.

For €27,50 and a generous amount of shipping, you can support the Dutch economy by buying a brand new HLX55 ballast for your lamp! https://voorraad.dbl-verlichting.nl/products/bsx-355l-82-tbv-sox-35-en-55

There are also other ballasts available (those weird constant wattage transformer thingies) and some HF ballasts (idk if those work well with old sox lamps, rather than sox-e ones)

The ignitor is one part that you need, the other part is the (electromagnetic) ballast. 55 W SOX lamps run at 0,59 A, and because they exhibit negative resistance (like any arc lamp), need a ballast that limits the amount of current that can flow. Do NOT connect it directly to mains (it likely won't strike and nothing happens, but in case it does, it will probably instantly ruin the lamp).

The best thing to do would be to look for a complete ballast. In case that is hard to find, you should be able improvise it using other ballasts that have a similar reactance (in this case about 343 Ohm). If you parallel a 36 W fluorescent lamp ballast with a 7/9/11 W PL-S lamp ballast, this should be about the same but I have not tried this in practice.

I am extremely well experienced with using alternative ballasts to run discharge lamps that require ballasts that are normally hard to find. For example, here in North America, I have used 4 250W M58 probe start metal halide CWA ballasts in parallel to run a 1000W H34 mercury vapor lamp because the correct ballasts for these lamps are extremely hard to find and I was able to run the lamp at its proper specifications.