What's the best HPS made today? More specifically, what is the longest lasting HPS bulb made today? I have a plan to see how long a HPS bucket light (yardblaster) can last with the highest quality components.

From lamps we have over here, the days when Philips were made in Belgium and Osram in Germany are over, but those were great lamps. I'd say the Philips were the best ones

Osram made in Slovakia are ok so it seems. I see ~10 year old 100W/150W SON-T lamps still around and working

GE made in Hungary - 1 out of 1 lamps that i know its install date, was still in working condition when removed 13 years later. One does not make statistic tho... But its been long while since i seen any of the GE's available to buy

Philips and Osram make many "basic" lamps in China now. Dont bother with those if you want a lamp lasting anywhere near decent life. (oddly enough, the numbers of rated life are unchanged since the times when they were made in Philips/Osram's home countries)

Those are all European lamps. In the US you'll be able to run them on Pulse MH gear but not HPS gear



From what i see about Eye/Iwasaki in LG or elsewhere i'd expect good life out of those, but i never seen one in real life except a UHP Mercury one in a video projector

I have seen some Hungarian GE lamps at an Ace Hardware, so I should try those first.

I read here some not very liking posts about GE Hungary HPS, who knows... Give it a try, atleast we'll have yet another one, more up to date statistic about their quality

The lamp that lasted 13 years (is still ok, just out of service) is a 70W ignitorless HPS. There is no equivalent lamp in the US for what i know

It might be a while because this situation is just a dream right now.
I do have a 150 watt GE HPS, I think it's from Hungary, and it appears to be good quality. The one complaint I have about it is that the arc-tube assembly is a little off-center.
But here's a related question, what is the most reliable (X years before dayburning) PC available?

i have a 150W SON-E Lucalox here, it is working and installed in a huge lowbay (that i converted from 400W MH), but im too lazy to go peek at the lamp now to see all the details. The lamp was removed from a relamping in some place (replaced with new identical lamp) but as far as i tested it works fine..

We dont use the plug in PC's here so i cant answer that

for 150+ Watt=  I'm going with Sylvania.  My church uses a mixture of GE and Sylvania for our 150 watt parking lot lights, the Sylvania's seem to last the longest.  I've got a few test bulbs going, both Sylvania and GE in a few fixtures in one parking lot, controlled by a single photocell, new ballasts (starter & capacitor) so we'll see. 

IF your looking at endurance, just get a dual arc tube lamp, if you don't need instant re-strike they will run for about 40,000 hours...

The utility here used Sylvania standby (dual arc tube) in streetlights and they last a very long time - a decade, I'd say, easily. Of course any failed lamp now means the fixture is replaced with a new LED fixture.

I'm currently running 3 identical 35w HPS wall packs on a timer, dusk to dawn: The oldest lamp is Sylvania (USA, bought at Lowe's) installed 3/2005; then Philips (China, bought at Home Depot), installed 10/2012, and finally GE (Hungary, bought at Ace), installed 9/2014.

Previous lamps were Luma (China) which lasted 1-2 years; a defective GE (Hungary) that lasted about two weeks; Philips (USA) lasting 4-10 years and the original lamps (likely made by Caster in China) that lasted approx. 6 months to 4 years.

Best lamps to use: NOS made-in-USA Sylvania, GE or Philips.

Xcel Energy (the utility that maintains streetlights here) uses GE HPS lamps. They have a nicer color than other brands, and they have a very long life. (The one outside my house was last relamped in 2009). Of course, once it does go, I will either have to report it as EOL and it will get replaced with an LED, or just not report it and live with the cycling. I am hoping that when they do replace it I am going to be there. I almost had a score a few days ago, I was at a friend's house helping build a patio when a truck came by and a lineman replaced the cycling ITT model 13 that was there before. I explained that I am a collector and asked if I could have it and they said that was fine, but then I realized that I had no way to carry it home. (it was like a 5 mile bike ride) and so I had to leave it. Hopefully another situation like this will come up soon and I will be able to rescue one.

Best HPS?, no contest, Philips`s PIA master plus!

Philips North America, isn't the same company as Philips lighting Europe, and the thread opener is american, so our european HPS lamps aren't relevant to him. From things that american members said about Philips North America, their lamps are far worser than our Philips lighting Europe lamps in terms of reliability and quality. As most of our HPS lamps in lanterns and floodlights in Israel, are european, I can't judje about HPS lamps from american manufacturers, but EYE/Iwasaki produces HPS lamps also for the american market, and they should have superior quality and reliability for that market.

I agree with dor, if you want top performance and reliability, then look no further than a Japanese-made HPS.  But be prepared to pay a high price for that excellence.

If long life is the only important thing then indeed Sylvania Twinarcs are the best.  In practice these achieve about 55,000 hours life (due to how they strike up, their life is actually even longer than two separate single arc tube lamps).

For the rest it is difficult to say.  HPS lamps are mainly the result of empirical experimentation and no one manufacturer is the best across the entire range.  One brand might be the clear leader eg in 70W performance, but one of the worst for eg 400W.  This makes it difficult to draw conclusions because many people might assume that one manufacturer's entire range is good based only on experience with a single wattage, and such generalisations cannot be made.  In practice almost anything made in USA or Europe will give rather good performance.  China as well sometimes, but in general things change there very fast, and quality fluctuates both up as well as down from month to month.

What's the best HPS made today? More specifically, what is the longest lasting HPS bulb made today? I have a plan to see how long a HPS bucket light (yardblaster) can last with the highest quality components.

EYE Lighting.

Or you maybe lucky and get some NOS Sylvania's at Habitat for $0.50 each. 

From lamps we have over here, the days when Philips were made in Belgium and Osram in Germany are over, but those were great lamps. I'd say the Philips were the best ones

Osram made in Slovakia are ok so it seems. I see ~10 year old 100W/150W SON-T lamps still around and working

GE made in Hungary - 1 out of 1 lamps that i know its install date, was still in working condition when removed 13 years later. One does not make statistic tho... But its been long while since i seen any of the GE's available to buy

Philips and Osram make many "basic" lamps in China now. Dont bother with those if you want a lamp lasting anywhere near decent life. (oddly enough, the numbers of rated life are unchanged since the times when they were made in Philips/Osram's home countries)

Those are all European lamps. In the US you'll be able to run them on Pulse MH gear but not HPS gear



From what i see about Eye/Iwasaki in LG or elsewhere i'd expect good life out of those, but i never seen one in real life except a UHP Mercury one in a video projector

EYE is all my local utility uses.  As they age, they start looking more and more like Mercury Vapor when they start up.  They last an average of 7-8 years.  HPS anyway.