Yeah it is mercury vapor, it confused me because the etching says MH250/2/230V for some reason. Perhaps they reused the same glass or had the wrong etching, I know it is 250W tho, measured with the ammeter, starts at about 330 and slowly drops as the lamp warms up.

Wanted to take pics while on but I can't get it right, could use a setup to showcase stuff because taking pics of things in my desk or bed isn't cutting it ^^

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/32761452139.html

Ordered a pair of these SB "fluorescent" lamps. I wonder what i'll get when they arrive!

Tried to recreate that bygone mercury look by running a collection of LED filament lamps next to an actual 80 watt mercury lamp!
……it’s impossible!, mercury is its own unique colour that can’t be copied or even gotten close to!, it’s even more infuriating trying to capture similarities on camera!   

I beleive this color can be kinda reproduced with a combination of non-phosphor, narrowband LEDs at the right proportion. Probably some blue + yellow + a little bit of high-efiiciency orange-red. May be a bit of 405nm violet, too, to tune-up.

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/32761452139.html

Ordered a pair of these SB "fluorescent" lamps. I wonder what i'll get when they arrive!

heh that doesn't look fluorescent at all. are they doing this to circumvent customs restrictions?

I love the unhinged review "sent me bulbs that trip my house breaker" and "I will have to talk to aliexpress about getting my money back and shutting his shop down" LOL

I beleive this color can be kinda reproduced with a combination of non-phosphor, narrowband LEDs at the right proportion. Probably some blue + yellow + a little bit of high-efiiciency orange-red. May be a bit of 405nm violet, too, to tune-up.

Here’s an interesting theory?, I wonder if an LED filament lamp could be made with its filaments dipped in Yttrium Vanadate, in place of what they currently use?  , that would recreate it pretty well?

That would definitely be quite an interesting outcome!

heh that doesn't look fluorescent at all. are they doing this to circumvent customs restrictions?

I love the unhinged review "sent me bulbs that trip my house breaker" and "I will have to talk to aliexpress about getting my money back and shutting his shop down" LOL

With fluorescent, they likely mean the phosphor coating of the outer glass. China adheres to *some* regulations when it comes to producing and selling mercury containing lamps. Just look at how few CFLs you can find on Aliexpress. So they had to think up some description that didn't explicitely say 'Hiiii this is a mercury vapor lamp!'
The main thing i wonder about, is whether i'm getting actual self ballasted lamps, or just some 'standard' coated MV lamps. In the latter case, i'd be slightly annoyed. But so far, Aliexpress has been quite good with getting me my money back. Often they don't require you to bother with returning the stuff, in which case they'll be used as experiment subjects with weird ballasts like resistive ballasts.

EDIT: if the color temperature is 6000k like they claim, they may very well be just diffuse bulb, uncoated MV lamps which would actually make me very happy, self ballasted or not. I'll report back in 2 weeks or so... God i hope they arrive in one piece. But it's a true gamble. You really can't trust the specs posted on Aliexpress if it's anything more specific than the dimensions.

Here’s an interesting theory?, I wonder if an LED filament lamp could be made with its filaments dipped in Yttrium Vanadate, in place of what they currently use?  , that would recreate it pretty well?

This depends on the wavelength the phosphor is sensitive to. The stuff in modern coated MV lamps is not sensitive to blue or UVA light, it needs the shorter wavelengths to be energized. The phosphors used in LEDs on the other hand, run very well on visible blue or purple light.
My 1960s coated MV lamp responds to UVA light.

I think to replicate the exact color and color rendering, you need non-phosphor LEDs to directly generate the colors of the spectrum, because the lines of any MV lamp (except for those watercooled extremely high pressure ones) are very narrow.
You can get to the exact hue quite well with LEDs, but if you have wide spectrum LEDs you'll inevitably have much better color rendering than with a MV lamp.

Yeah that makes sense?, I’m not fully up on phosphor dynamics, but I suppose it wouldn’t be as easy as I think it is?

Osram L18W/19 above my pc table went EoL today. It had been doing some hotspot movement in cathode few days already so it was expected. Today one of the cathodes finally burned broken and it went out. Replaced it with Polish made Philips TL-D 90 De luxe 950.

Today I got the specially branded lamps of mysore palace! These are not sold retail and are the lamps used only on the mysore palace. 

Today i found out that low voltage (12/24v) CFLs exist: https://www.bailey.nl/nl/catalog/conventioneel/fluorescentielampen/spaarlampen/spaarlamp-laagvolt/groups/g+c+p+a+view

Found some of these in a german webshop but didn't buy yet.

Drove 400 miles/7 hours round trip to ATR lighting in Richland Missouri to pick up some goodies there. Went great and the accord handled everything well. Even got a free EYE lighting mouse pad. Some of the stuff bought is for Lumex120 and will be aptly given to him whenever I see him again.

Today I decided to make a fixture for 10w tubes. I wanted it to be unique, so I opted for a salesman style bare component fixture. Also, I coloured everything black.
Update- I put a switch on it.

Sorry for the double post but today, I got my mysore 160w sbmv working again. It would only work for 10 secs in upright position, but upside down at a 45° angle made it work properly.

Here’s an interesting theory?, I wonder if an LED filament lamp could be made with its filaments dipped in Yttrium Vanadate, in place of what they currently use?  , that would recreate it pretty well?

Unfortunately, that won't work as vanadate DX phosphor is completely insensitive to blue light (and even not very sensitive to UVA) BUT there is an easy to obtain LED phosphor called KSF (Mn4+ activated potassium fluorosilicate) that glows narrowband clear red and may well emulate that red band of DX mercury lamp. Just a little bit longer wavelength than DX phosphor (~ +20-30nm)