Blended Mercury vapor lamps...WHERE?!?

[Zelandeth]

Okay, this stupid quest has had me running around in circles on Google for the last two blasted hours!

I'm looking for one of those self-ballasted mercury vapor lamps, two reasons, one being that the old 200W incan in the uplighter in the corner just went BANG very loudly, secondly, ever since I spotted them on www.Lamptech.co.uk I've wanted one.

I know the things area available...but I can't find them! I'm looking for one around the 100W mark, with a clear outer bulb. Found a 125W one for a reasonable price, but it has an opal bulb.

Anyone got any ideas?

[brickbat]

I've seen them show up on eBay from time to time, but I've never seen one with a clear bulb. Generally, they are phosphor-coated, which makes the light output warmer, but sadly, makes it so you can't easily peer inside at the guts... Most common size is 160W.

Just checked - There are some listed now, but they're phosphor coated and 120V - What mains voltage do you have in Scotland?

[LED-FX]

Think MBTF are almost always phosphor coated or as a blacklight.

Main mercury line without some phosphor is going to be very high in unpleasnt UV.

I`ll look it up tomorrow, couple of places will have them if theyre made in a 240v flavour.

Adam

[phyhsuts]

Osram and Philips still make them. Here in Singapore I can get them (100 & 160W) at the local supermarket. 250 and 500W versions are harder to come by. No help to you though; sorry about that. Why not switch over to one of those high powered CFLs? The 100W version has an output of 1100 lm. A 23W CFL puts out 1500 lm. Seems a lot more efficient.

[Zelandeth]

Well, the primary attraction here is a combination of curiousity and the fact that it's something that I don't have...and that I have this inexplicable attraction to HID lights (which is the reason that there's a 250W HPS floodlight in here as well).

Plus it seems cheap enough to investigate without putting a really nasty dent in my wallet. I've got a 23W (or 25, I can't remember) compact flourescent in there just now.

I'm sure that there must be a UK supplier someplace, just a matter of FINDING them.

And an example of the fact that clear versions do also exist, here's one.

XingJi HMB Mercury Blended with Halogen Ballast at Lamptech.co.uk

[phyhsuts]

Zelandeth - Thanks for the update on blended light lamps. I was not aware that the Chinese are producing the halogen lamp ballasted blended light lamps.
Usually a phospher is used to increase the efficacy of the lamp. This is done by both Philips and Osram. I am surprised it is not done in the Chinese lamp shown in the link you posted. Guess they think that with the increased efficacy of the halogen lamp over that of the filament, they do not need the added cost and complication of the phospher coating. Wonder if it is done for lower rated lamps (100 & 160W)?

[Zelandeth]

Well, I just recieved an email from a very helpful person who had seen this post, which informed me that the blended lamps are sold by a company called International Lamps. They don't have a version without the phosphor, but they do have a 160W reflector version similar to this which would serve my purposes well. I haven't actually figured out yet whether they sell to indoviduals yet, or just companies...but I've only been on the site for about 2 minutes. Can't actually see a pricelist on the page in question either, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. They sure have a lot of lamps though, including a few oddball ones, the Mercury blended (What's the prefix code for a blended lamp??? MB is high pressure, so it ain't that...would just save me having to type it out each time, and it's annoying me) ones mentioned here.

Well, here's the website address, might well be of use to someone else here too.

International Lamps website.

[Zelandeth]

Well, found out that they have a £20 minimum order, either I can find £20 of stuff I don't need...but want...or would consider bundling together a few orders for people into one if anyone else wants something from there. Will post this in group buys soon...if I don't find £20 worth of things there I want myself of course!