Ok so it sounds like I should be ok then. I would hate to ruin my vintage Westie BT-25 100w MV lamp! I kinda like the look if a NEMA bucket fixture when the refractor has gone MIA lol.
I'm currently working on making a custom ballast/socket mount bracket that places the socket deeper in the fixture head itself so the exposed bulb dosen't stick out so much.
Will post pics when done.
I'll put it another way. Out of all the HID Mercs I've seen, as well as HPS that have been exposed to the elements (some dayburners even while it rains), I've yet to find one that caused damage to the bulb. Now, the Post-top luminaires are a different story. All it takes is for the ballast or ignitor (HPS Case for the ignitor) to drown, and it's burnt. In the town I grew up in, We had a Lineman come out in his truck, and spent 30 minutes replacing the ballast with another used ballast instead of replacing the whole fixture. Another case, the PE Control socket was damaged, and he didn't have any spares, so he started muttering that he was going to have to drive 15 miles back to the shop, and 15 miles back "for a damn socket", so I went 2 streets down to my house, and brought him a used hood that I found. Needless to say, he was grateful. Both cases were post-top lights, American Electric/T&B Contempo 245 models. This was a lineman who believed in repairing what was broken instead of just putting new fixtures everywhere, when the only problem was a ballast or ignitor gone bad. Now when it came to Mercs, he yanked the ballasts out, and put a 100W HPS kit in an old fixture. This was a man who spent time fixing a light as opposed to replacing. Before I moved, he gave me a present, a brand-new Contempo 245 100W HPS. I no longer have it, and wish I had kept it, but I needed money to keep my own lights on, so I had to sell it.
