One scary thing about some sort of lighting happened to me last year on a certain biennale festival in Portugal. I was responsible for the electric network of a part of the festival ground and this involved an art gallery. There was lighting sculpture from an American artist. He shipped his art piece in parts and I tried to figure out how to assemble it without any users manual. Finally I applied power to the scary high voltage transformer and I was not aware that some important insulation parts were missing I got zapped very hard while touching the sculpture as the high voltage arcs jumped to the lead-in wires and the structure somewhere.

Finally I disconnected the unit from power and made a phone call to the artist, he was quite upset about this situation but finally it was my responsibility to protect peoples and infrastructure from any electrical danger.

As well as scary lighting, I think it’s worth mentioning scarefest lighting!, me and my youngest daughter Carly spent all of Halloween this year at the Alton Towers scarefest.
For those not familiar with the name, Alton Towers is a roller coaster theme park near the village of Alton in Staffordshire near me, each Halloween they run the scarefest, so you get to ride the coasters during the day, and when it’s dark you have the pleasure of being chased around the park by zombies, chainsaw wielding mad men and the likes 

The lighting that’s set up in the park however is awesome to see at night, most is done with very high and very bright 6000K LED to resemble moonlight, this and the dry ice fog they pump about give a fantastic spooky atmosphere!, they also string miles of green fairy lights along the walkways, which, (with no other lighting), look great at night!

LED ‘pod’ lights are also laid in the tree branches to give a background illumination in the surrounding forests, this along with fire effects LED lamps in the parks gas light columns give the perfect atmosphere for Halloween night!
Here’s the two entrance islands as you walk in...

The only thing that truly scares me about lighting is that we are too far down the road of LED's and one day there will be nothing else in use anywhere. We are already at the stage where the knowledge of how to make certain types of lamp (SOX springs to mind now that Philips have closed the Hamilton factory) has gone, how long before other types share the same fate, if they haven't already..?

I genuinely hope I do not live to see that day come.

More fun than scary, but turning on/off the stadium lights when I used to work at the water park. Control circuit had an auto/hand switch that would throw a giant loud contactor. There were 56 lamps, most were 1500w MH. Occasionally you would see a shower of sparks shout from one of the ballasts that had been outside for 20 years, and the whole system would go dead.

One time when through shooting with an electrician, we started each phase separately and many hot-restruck. And kids looked around in excitement as different areas of the park flashed different shades of blue and white at different brightnesses.

I pushed for this system to be replaced with LED for safety. Even a brief power outage would send the entire park inside darkness for 10+ minutes, and it was not easy trying to safely get everyone out of the pools, I always feared this happening during one of my shifts! I pushed for the new LED system to have a big battery bank (generator not feasible here) to keep a few lights per pole on for a 5 minute power outage. But not sure it happened, as I left the job.

The only thing that truly scares me about lighting is that we are too far down the road of LED's and one day there will be nothing else in use anywhere. We are already at the stage where the knowledge of how to make certain types of lamp (SOX springs to mind now that Philips have closed the Hamilton factory) has gone, how long before other types share the same fate, if they haven't already..?

I genuinely hope I do not live to see that day come.

I hope so too, most ballast plans and making equipment for mercury vapor ballasts in the us have disappeared since the 2008 regulations. Now its a pain to find most merc ballast as their is still a small demand and prices have risen to a slightly inflated amount that will rise in the future. Im scared that in 2050 or whenever im forced by the government to dispose of all non led light sources due to the "because led" push for wayyyy stricter regulations.

I hope so too, most ballast plans and making equipment for mercury vapor ballasts in the us have disappeared since the 2008 regulations. Now its a pain to find most merc ballast as their is still a small demand and prices have risen to a slightly inflated amount that will rise in the future. Im scared that in 2050 or whenever im forced by the government to dispose of all non led light sources due to the "because led" push for wayyyy stricter regulations.

Yeah the only source for a mercury ballast now in North America is to either find a new old stock one on eBay or to adapt metal halide ballasts to run MV lamps but that has it's limits too as finding metal halide ballasts that run the lower wattage MV lamps is a bit difficult. The same goes for magnetic fluorescent ballasts for most lamps, they are basically impossible to find new now aside from new old stock.

I've heard persistent rumours that mercury containing lamps will be banned here in Canada by the mid-late 2020s which means sadly pretty much everything fluorescent and HID will fall under this ban. There are a few HPS lamps are mercury free but that's about it. Ironically incandescent lamps would still be legal under that. Granted they banned the general service ones so they only ones available new are 150w and greater and rough service lamps which tend to be less efficient and burn at a lower colour temperature.

For me as a kid it was when one of the fluorescent lights in our basement had a lamp at end-of-life so it would not stop flashing when the light was turned on. We also had one of those handheld work lights that had an incandescent bulb inside and a hook that hangs it up. Often times whoever was holding it did not keep it exactly steady so it caused shadows that were moving. Even in the present-day being sensitive to sudden loud noises or changes in light levels (think the power going out and every light in the room goes off) I am still paranoid that an incandescent lamp will go out with a blue flash this particular time I turn on the switch. I think that was one of the main reasons I upgraded our whole house to LEDs.

Well that's you, and I really do respect your viewpoint. I do realise that some people like L*D's, but I for one detest them and the thought that one day there will be nothing else anywhere  is what truly scares me. I sincerely hope I will not live long enough to see that day 

Well that's you, and I really do respect your viewpoint. I do realise that some people like L*D's, but I for one detest them and the thought that one day there will be nothing else anywhere  is what truly scares me. I sincerely hope I will not live long enough to see that day 

I don't have L*D at all. I like few L*D: The holophanes, color changing bulbs, indicators and few filament bulbs. Boring crappy white L*D can go to the h3ll. 

I can't recall seeing anything too scary (I probably have but can't remember.) Something I can remember was when I was in secondary school, the changing room had a bare pendant with a B22 lampholder, with a CFL hanging from it (I seem to remember it was a good quality one, as it had a square-ish profile like a Philips PL-C or maybe a Sylvania Lynx). Anyway, one day one of the slightly crazy kids decided to smash it using a cricket bat (he was a bit mad) and then turned it on, it was a bit scary, picture a pendant swinging around the room, with falling glass shards, mercury dust (or whatever), the cathodes glowing and smoke coming out of it!  The strange thing is, the school replaced the remains with an incandescent lamp! Fine by me, but I don't know why the school did that as LEDs were already around and affordable, they must have had an incandescent spare stash (this was before I liked lighting, otherwise I would have enquired by now)! 

When I was young, I had a fear of high wattage light bulbs thinking that higher wattage light bulbs would burn hotter than lower wattage bulbs. I also had fears of EOL rapid start and preheat fluorescent lighting and any flickering light bulb. As a child, I also enjoyed trying to make fluorescent lights flicker on dimmers as I got slightly older.

Yeah the only source for a mercury ballast now in North America is to either find a new old stock one on eBay or to adapt metal halide ballasts to run MV lamps but that has it's limits too as finding metal halide ballasts that run the lower wattage MV lamps is a bit difficult. The same goes for magnetic fluorescent ballasts for most lamps, they are basically impossible to find new now aside from new old stock.

I've heard persistent rumours that mercury containing lamps will be banned here in Canada by the mid-late 2020s which means sadly pretty much everything fluorescent and HID will fall under this ban. There are a few HPS lamps are mercury free but that's about it. Ironically incandescent lamps would still be legal under that. Granted they banned the general service ones so they only ones available new are 150w and greater and rough service lamps which tend to be less efficient and burn at a lower colour temperature.

It seems like this is evidence of being a signatory country to the Minanata convention

All MH.

All MH.

I like MH because of the good CRI and color temperature, but I don't like the fact that they don't last long and explode at EOL.

I like MH because of the good CRI and color temperature, but I don't like the fact that they don't last long and explode at EOL.

I think it's a rather sweeping statement to say that they explode at EOL. Certainly they can, but it's extremely rare and shouldn't really pose a problem if operated correctly and replaced before they have the chance to get anywhere near EOL. It's never a good idea for any discharge lamp to wait until it dies before replacing it, anyway.

Here is a document on the subject that you might find interesting.

As to life, that's subjective. What do you consider short life..? Some lamps can last 20,000 hours, which at 8 hours use per day comes out at just short of 7 years, which sounds reasonably long to me.