Hi there.

Just aquired 4 NOS in the box Regent CMD100B MV mini bucket light fixtures. I am quite happy as I have always wanted one of these fixtures.

I spent the better part of yesterday installing one of these on my shed and going by the box pictures, it would seem that its light output would be ideal for my size of backyard.

Well come dusk, it fires up and when fully run up, it's way to bright for my size of yard. Dont want to piss off the neighbours lol....

So sorry for the ramble but my question is, can I run this bulb and matching ballast with another electrical device (cap,resistor,dimmer switch) to limit the output of the lamp?

Sorta like underdriving the lamp but without the ballast being over worked with to much current draw?. I think I'm starting to gain more info about this HID lighting stuff feel free to correct me!

You can find ways to underdrive it. All options - choke, capacitor, resistor will work if the values are chosen right. But there are some things you have to take into account :

 - You can dim a HID lamp only so much. If you dim it too low, it will take too long to run up every time and that will shorten its life. If you go way too low, the lamp may never warm up properly at all even after long time of being powered on, and very shortened lamp life

 - Resistor dissipates power as heat, which means wasted energy and concerns of how to make the resistive ballast to dissipate this heat / where to locate it. Not really an option

 - Other types of extra ballasting components will require a box of their own. And in the capacitor case, you'd want to wire that in series with the lamp (between ballast and lamp) and not in series with the input, so if the bllast is in the lantern, you'd have to pull cable in for the ballast and out again for the other component in a box

 - And if it is really to stay, i wish you luck getting an inspection passed on a hack like that.....



In your place i would just convert the lamp type to something of lower power with the proper ballast for that (50W/70W any HID, or some Twin Tube fluorescent etc)

I agree with converting to a lower power lamp/ballast combo.

Maybe you could try a variac-a variable autotransformer.But as other members say-HID lights aren't good for dimming.If you use the variac-start the light at full voltage-then try to dim it after it has warmed up fully.Just a thought.

Lol...I have found the solution!  I'm now using a 100w Regent MV ballast to drive my fave bulb by far, the Westie BT-25 100w MV DX with the clear nubb that has a ton of hours on it.

Another Member was very kind and sent me a Sylvania 100w MV BT clear bander and another bulb just like it, except its made by one of the all time greats, Westinghouse!

They were both removed from service 10 or so years ago and remained in the fixtures since the late 60's or early 70's so they have a ton of hours on them (perfect in my case) and have blackened arc tubes.

It's amazing the difference in light output these high run time vintage lamps have compaired to the Regent 100/125w medium base DX MV lamp that came with my regent mini bucket light.

I would say the old MV lamps are about half as bright as the new ones maybe even less!

I need more of these old high hour Mercury lamps for my collection and future lighting projects.

At my house, we have an alleyway (All streets do) and these alleys are dark.  At times, we would have a bunch of kids hanging out behind our shed, and some even hopped the fence to our neighbor across the alley and broke into her shed.  So I called Ameren and had them come take the 100 Watt HPS that we had put up, and replace it with a GE 400 Watt PF-400,  I asked the technician if I could keep the 100 Watt (That particular 201SA Fixture was only 6 months old, as the one that was there before it went out).  So I put the 100W in the back of the alley and the PF-400 shines as far as the next street over.  Since then, that neighbor is very appreciative of me.  So I guess you could say I have a neighbor that likes the light.