Light Bulb Questions 4

[KnicksJets]

We are replacing our existing, short-life incandescent bulbs, with long-life(>5000 hrs) incandescent bulbs.
We didn't find any long-life incandescent bulbs with 1000 Watts. Anybody has info on this? I checked GE, PHILIPS, SYLVANIA, nobody has it.

Also, We cannot use mercury inside our containment buildings, so we have to use incandescent. I've also heard that sodium vapor, metal halides/halogen bulbs have mercury inside as the Fluorescent, that's the reason we cannot use these bulbs even if they have longer life expectancy than incandescent bulbs. Can anybody confirm this assertion that they actually have mercury inside it?

 

[Lewish]

Have you considered the new HID lamps? They contain only a xenon and other inert gases mixture. They also have very long life expectancy.

 

[busbar]

Have you reviewed the availability of quartz-halogen lamps?

 

[KnicksJets]

Thanks all,

HID lamps are available as sodium, mercury vapor, metal halide lamps, which according to an expert, contain traces of mercury inside. Can anybody confirm it?
I am doing some research on Quart-Halogen, but they look almost similar to Halogen.

Remember also that we don't want to change the fixtures. We want 100, 150, 250, 300 and 1000 W lamps(both Mogul and Medium base). All wattage are for incandescent lamps, we need a replacement of any kind without mercury inside.

 

[Lewish]

Hello Pdshah, I didn't know that HID had mercury in them. I know that High Pressure bulbs do.
HID would require changing the fixtures, but unlike High Pressure, you probably would never need to change the bulbs.

Can someone confirm for me that HID have mercury in them??

 

[peebee]

I have some old documentation (1971) from GE that verifies mercury was used in their sodium, multi-vapor, and lucalox lamps. I doubt much has changed since then in such "standard" lamps regarding the metal vapors used.

There may be newer HID technology that does not require mercury, but I am not familiar with it. Do you have some more information on those Xenon lamps, Lewish?

 

[busbar]

Pdshah — Because of their very poor energy efficiency, you may be hard pressed to find large, screw-based incandescents anywhere except maybe the surplus market, and finding "long life" versions may be next to impossible. Even 10-15 years past, so-called "long life" incandescents contained advisory information on sleeves warning against use of them, because of their poor energy efficiency compared to "750-hour" versions. Recommendations listed were to use them only were power was very cheap or the expense of replacement was very high. A long shot may be to contact a tower-lighting maintenance shop. They may have specialty lamp-manufacturer contact information. The motion-picture industry uses large lamps, but lifespan is very limited.

I remember awhile back the trade rags advertised ‘reduced-mercury’ fluorescent tubes, with no similar publicity on screw-based HID lamps. Maybe carbon-arc fixtures could solve the problem? ;&#8722

You must have a very good reason for using incandescents. I know there can be compatibility issues with other forms of lighting in linear-induction-accelerator rooms. It may involve unsatisfactorily reduced light output and color-temperature change, but what about installing buck transformers on the lighting circuits? Would it be possible to isolate lamps in enclosures behind transparent plastic/wired-glass barriers, like has been done in flammable-paint spray booths?

 

[KnicksJets]

If I have to replace my incandescent bulbs with Fluorescent ones, what are the equivalent wattage for the latter ones?
Like 100 W incandescent = 25 W Fluroscent.
What about:
150 W, 200 W, 300 W and 1000 W incandescent ?
What are the wattage equivalent for the above when fluroscent is used. Lets say I don't have lumen or kelvin information.

 

[peebee]

My understanding is that fluorescents produce 40-60 lumens per watt, and incandescents 8-18, so fluorescent lamps theoretically would only require 13% to 50% (figure about 20%) of the power of your current incandescents. I think the biggest fluorescent is about 80W, though, which would theoretically replace a 400W incandescent, so you would need more than one fluorescent to replace anything above 400W. Also, that 80W fluor is not a screw-base, it's a long tube. You'd need to swap out your fixtures.

so far as compact fluor's with screw-base goes, I think the biggest is about 32W, which would equate to a 160W incandescent.

These numbers are very rough. You should get a lamp catalog for more accuracy.

 

[IRstuff]

The compact screw-base fluorescents that I get at the store are rated 26W, but are supposed to be only equivalent to 100 W incandescents. The smaller ones I have are rated 13W, replacing 60W.

TTFN

 

[KnicksJets]

Peebee,
You're absolutely right. IRstuff, I also got the same thing. The maximum I found on compact fluorescent, with screw base was 26 W too.
We have decided to go with incandescent as we found a manufacturer with longer life expectancy, even for 1000 W incandescent. We couldn't find one(longer life incandescent, max was 3000 hrs) for 300 W however.
Thanks guys.

 

[Lightinguy]

Please keep in mind that the 5000 hour lamps you are changing to put out significantly less light than the ones you are replacing.

Have you tried using a 130V version of the 1000W lamp. Light output will decrease about 12%, but lamp life should increase at least 50%.

As for mercury. Halogen lamps should not contain mercury. Some of the high pressure sodium lamps from Osram Sylvania are mercury free. Check their Ecologic line.

Hope that helps.

 

[Lightinguy]

Now that I have read all the replies, let me make a few more comments.

All fluorescent lamps currently available contain mercury. Even compact fluorescents. This element is critical for operation.

HID stands for High Intensity Discharge. Included in this lamp family are Mercury Vapor lamps, Metal Halide lamps, and High Pressure Sodium lamps (HPS). The first two definitely contain mercury. In the last 3-5 years, mercury free HPS lamps have come to the market. Reference my previous post for more information.

If you do not want to change the luminaire, must stick with incandescent or halogen lamps.

Halogen, tungsten-halogen, and quartz halogen are three different names for the same lamp. It is basically an incandescent lamp with a halogen as the fill gas instead of nitrogen.

Your best solution would probably be to switch to 130V, instead of 120V lamps. Those 5000 hour lamps will really kill your lumen output.

Could you share with us why mercury, even contained within a lamp, cannot be used in your facility. Maybe I missed it in a prior post.

Lightguy

 

[KnicksJets]

Thanks all, including lighting,

We were also looking into High Pressure Sodium lamps right now, but since we don't want to change the fixtures; they are not the best option as they don't fit into the fixtures (for incandescents) that we already have (mostly screw in, medium or mogul).
As for why we can't have Mercury, it is one of the element, along with Alumunium, prohibited in our vacuum containment building.
If anybody produces bulbs with very low traces of mercury, that also might be considerable. I couldn't find the exact volumn of Hg in the metal halide, halogen bulbs to consider them negligible; thus I ruled them out.
If anybody has info on how much mercury are contained in metal halide, halogen bulbs, the information would be appreciated. Which ones (other than incandescent) have the least amount of Hg and what's the exact amount?

 

[Lightinguy]

Pdshah,

What do you consider a trace amount of Hg? 10mg. There are fluorescent lamps on the market that have very low Hg content, on the order of 20mg or less.

FYI, some incandescent lamps have aluminum bases.

 

[busbar]

Offhand, although I cannot provide a reference, HPS mogul [and likely medium-based] sockets are said to require greater-than-usual clearances between screwshell and center contact to handle the required several-kV ignitor-starting pulses for a small amount of xenon in the inner envelope.

 

[KnicksJets]

I found High Pressure sodium from Philips (Alto), Sylvania (Lumalux) and GE (Ecolux) with either HG free or reduce HG property. However, most of them are upto 400 W only and they give yellow lights (being HPS).
At this point I have two questions left:
1) Can I get a bulb, 1000 W, mercury free (or less than 10 mg) that can be screwed-in in a regular fixture? The life expectancy should be more than 10,000 hrs.

2) What amount of mercury is tolerated by stainless steel? Our containment building have stainless steel and thus we cannot use Hg.
Thanks for all the posts so far. They were very helpful.