Ash, this has been done to death. It is a laudable idea, but it just isn't feasible. Give it a rest, PLEASE....

We have discussed it, and we heard all no-sayers too (which haven't had and won't have anything constructive to add to the discussion)

Now lets hear the others



Is there interest in just us, the lighting community, taking the equipment from Philips ?

 - This may cost DRAMATICALLY less than you might expect, if they have nothing to do with it. It might very potentially cost less than all the money some people here (in total) are willing to spend on just snatching the lamps off eBay

 - It would be very different situation, if the equipment is not gone to the smelter, but waiting at somebody's shed till we would be ready to run it once again (getting familiar with it, gathering knowledge, finding the needed supplies)

 - I have experience with buy-out of a closing production plant (not lamp making though) and will share any useful knowledge, experience and so on

Everyone aired their opinion and the topic was laid to rest. I don't think anyone is interested in acquiring the equipment, probably because of cost, time and other personal reasons. Just because these "no-sayers" don't agree with you, doesn't mean we don't have anything constructed to add. Anyway, I'm done with this.

Is Philips the only manufacturer?

Is Philips the only manufacturer?

Unfortunately, yes 

The problem is, the demand isn't there any more. It's just not cost effective to make them when the customers aren't there. Sad, but true 

Don't some areas of California use LPS exclusively?

GE, Thorn, Osram, GEC and Sylvania previously manufactured SOX lamps if I recall. Philips is the last one standing.

Not Sylvania, they use to get them from either Philips or GEC

Don't some areas of California use LPS exclusively?

I believe some areas around observatories and other astronomical installations favour LPS, as it's easy to filter the monochromatic light out of their telsecopes, but whether they still use them or not I don't know.

most do not use them anymore, LED filtered lights are what they are using now. 

The use i see for SOX is not in the original applications (remaining old SOX luminaires) but presented as a new light source in 2 forms :

 - "CFL"-like base with integrated ballast

 - SLI tubes in wattages up to around 58/65W, made in the form of T12 tube of the same length as Fluorescent of the same wattage, for direct retrofit in Fluorescent luminaires. (the arctube will be much shorter, so only about the center 1/3rd of the lamp will be actually illuminated, the rest is just outer tube with wire going inside)

 - SLI tubes in wider selection of wattages with internal electronic ballast, made in the form of T12 tube of the same length as Fluorescents



For private lighting with the minimum energy use possible, not attracting bugs etc. (in open sockets)

For wildlife-sensitive areas (in GLS or ex-HID luminaires)

For retrofitting into ex-HID and ex-FL luminaires that already were converted before for running LED corns / tubes (ballast bypassed), after the LED corns / tubes proved that they aren't adequate for the application and much more light is needed in the location

For safety lighting in high fog areas

For structural lighting

By using the new form factors there is no requirement for special luminaires, so the lamp alone can be presented as a choice for use in common luminaires

The use i see for SOX is not in the original applications (remaining old SOX luminaires) but presented as a new light source in 2 forms :

 - "CFL"-like base with integrated ballast

 - SLI tubes in wattages up to around 58/65W, made in the form of T12 tube of the same length as Fluorescent of the same wattage, for direct retrofit in Fluorescent luminaires. (the arctube will be much shorter, so only about the center 1/3rd of the lamp will be actually illuminated, the rest is just outer tube with wire going inside)

 - SLI tubes in wider selection of wattages with internal electronic ballast, made in the form of T12 tube of the same length as Fluorescents



For private lighting with the minimum energy use possible, not attracting bugs etc. (in open sockets)

For wildlife-sensitive areas (in GLS or ex-HID luminaires)

For retrofitting into ex-HID and ex-FL luminaires that already were converted before for running LED corns / tubes (ballast bypassed), after the LED corns / tubes proved that they aren't adequate for the application and much more light is needed in the location

For safety lighting in high fog areas

For structural lighting

By using the new form factors there is no requirement for special luminaires, so the lamp alone can be presented as a choice for use in common luminaires

Why would they use these over led? What makes these options so much more better that people would be willing to pay likely more higher price than alternative products?

Objective reasons :

 - Good grade LEDs in those output levels do cost. Even the poor quality ones that dont last long, cost more than a comparable output HID solution. They aren't as cheap as small home LED lamps

 - SOX light poses no distraction to wildlife and does not affect human sleep - It may be the best light to use in areas next to wildlife or where the light might inevitably reach into windows

 - SOX light is very different from all shades of White light between 2700K..6500K (as LED) and even from SON light. It is an alternative choice of color, which is still suitable as lighting to see with, unlike some other "color" lamps which are more for the appearance than for supplying high light output. The color may be preferred for the plain reason of lighting different areas with light of different color, a thing which is missing in LED-lit areas

 - SOX light is the best to see with under heavy fog

 - SOX lamp is less glary than LED lamp of comparable output



Subjective reasons :

 - SOX can be proposed as a retrofit lamp for correcting failed LED retrofits. LED retrofits might be preceived by the user as failed due to the LED light looking bad (in an area that was used to be lit with yellow light), being too dim (as result of exaggerated "equivalent lamp" figures by which the LED was chosen), poor lamp life and so on

 - SOX is an interesting lamp and can suit the "design" field, in a similar way to how the "carbon filament" style lamps fill it right now. For this field, even the warm up of SOX can be presented as advantage

 - SOX (in its new form factors) can be proposed as a high-output energy efficient lamp, aiming for an area not covered well by LED products. (which is in fact covered well by HID, but SOX have the advantage over HID of much simpler electronic ballast design requirements, which make it more suitable to build as a self ballasted lamp)

We have discussed it, and we heard all no-sayers too (which haven't had and won't have anything constructive to add to the discussion)
Now lets hear the others

Is there interest in just us, the lighting community, taking the equipment from Philips ?
 - This may cost DRAMATICALLY less than you might expect, if they have nothing to do with it. It might very potentially cost less than all the money some people here (in total) are willing to spend on just snatching the lamps off eBay
 - It would be very different situation, if the equipment is not gone to the smelter, but waiting at somebody's shed till we would be ready to run it once again (getting familiar with it, gathering knowledge, finding the needed supplies)
 - I have experience with buy-out of a closing production plant (not lamp making though) and will share any useful knowledge, experience and so on

If one was to acquire the manufacturing equipment (not me obviously since I could never afford, or have a place to put it...even if it wasn't located a million miles away).
But what would they do with it? Would it even be possible to manufacture lamps at a some-what reasonable?  (assuming they had a source of 'parts' to make lamps with (I guess that would mean also acquiring whatever additional equipment Philips used in making the individual parts?? ))
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For the sake of things, lets say someone did get -everything- as far as machinery, and also had a source for the materials to make glass/metal/sodium/etc that would become 'lamp components' -and- they were able to get it all up & running / actually produce lamps at a reasonable cost.....The big question is: would there even be enough of a market for them to make it worth the effort?
 . Sadly even as someone who loves SOX,  I have a feeling there wouldn't
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I guess the other option would be if someone wanted the manufacturing equipment "just to have it", not to use - I would guess for someone who had a large warehouse-type building (maybe even a large barn?), such machinery could be collectible just like anything else (heell, it could even be setup as a museum-type thing?? (which would be pretty cool!))

Being Philips, they face this situation :

 - The equipment where it is now, takes place in a "good" factory building. The administrative and maintenance costs for something like this are high. The money lost from not renting this building out or not selling it is part of the calculation

 - Being Philips they can't operate it out of a shed

 - Relocating the stuff (to China etc) would require training workers, which we know is a problem (according to James, workers at the original plant were trained by other workers over period of years)

The administrative costs dont depend on the number of lamps produced, but they divide by the number of lamps. When lamp demand goes down, the price of the lamp goes up to cover them

By taking extreme action of scaling down : from a "proper factory" to a "weekend Neon shop operating from a shed", without any strict timetable to follow (unless there appears significant demand for the lamps, but hey, we do want it), re-training from scratch, and so on, the administrative & maintenance costs come down to the cost of owning said shed alone

So it can be expected, that overall the cost of making lamps out of a shed might be lower than current cost of making SOX lamps by Philips

This may require some modification to the machines to adapt them for efficient small volume production - For example, changing a melting pot to melt smaller quantity of Glass at a time

The problem of having to train from scratch at a process that requires skills appears, but without stress to do it in limited time, it can be achieved



We can see the purpose of purchasing the equipment as :

 - Making lamps for a small range of specific applications. I do have some thoughts about this in the post above. I think it may be possible to find some small demand in there, which would be about right for a "weekend Neon shop"

 - Getting it just for ourselves (the lighting community). Still, not to store it still but to try to operate it, even if we won't succeed. It is a difference, between the SOX technology lost forever vs. having the tools to make it and exprimenting with them untill we get it right again

It's not one OR the other

It's first, that we save it for ourselves and try to operate it. Personally, i think that "XmasLightGuy's 5th attempt at making a SOX lamp, that lost vacuum after 5 minutes of power on" is FAR more valuable collection item than "brand new Philips SOX-PSG from Ebay". There will be 1000 failed attempts before the 1001st works as should

Then, once we really have SOX back, we will be able to keep it working and available to any small demands for the lamps that there are, including from within the community. I don't mean lamps for collection. Some of us work in the electrician and maintenance trades. We may want the lamps for use in lighting installations we make, and further spread the word through there



One of the points i bring up is, that once there is no more use for the equipment, there really is no more use for the equipment from the company's point of view. The company will be getting rid of it, into 2 destinations :

 - Some general purpose machines e.g. lathes, mills, etc will be sold off as general purpose machines for second hand prices

 - Specialised machines that are not usefull for anything else, press forms that are only for the specific part, etc will be sold for scrap metal at scrap metal prices

In the factory equipment i purchased there was some of both kinds of equipment. In the lamp equipment however, it tends to be the second kind. The scrap metal value of the entire set of equipment of a small factory is in the below $10000 range. This is then further split between several members who join hands for the project

(source for the number : A while back Roi Hartmann posted about a closing Incandescent lamp factory of Airam Finland. I contacted Airam to ask. The cost was something like 5000 Euros, which is about the same as $5000)

If this goes this way, the cost of the equipment stops being the show stopper