Actually MV isn't the best for GE.....I got some lamps that just went out in 1 month of service for GE MV....but MH ones are the worst....the Sylvania MV are the best of the BIG 3 companies....so far.....a lineman in this website has reported that the Sylvania he has installed, he never had to go back to relamp again while other brands, he would need to relamp!

Yeah, I've always favored Sylvania for quality. After all, they have a plant in Central Falls, Rhode Island! I believe that's the plant that makes the outer envelopes. Not sure though. They could make entire light bulbs. i know at one point they made all kinds of lamps. The GE mercs here seem to do fine. Nice and bright...

OH the GE MV lamps are alright if they they are free from flaw, but I was told some of them has some premature failure from factory flaw, mostly bad arc tube sealing...they are no longer made in Hungary but China now.

I forgot to metion one more thing, I was given a China GE 175 watt MV lamp that had 1 year of service....Arc tube works but was EXTREMELY BLACK!

And Michael to answer your question, early like 1 month to 6 months...

Ahh. The ones here are fine then- i hope...

LOL, you gotta track down every fixture in your area to know....LOL even I can't track it down, so I never see or know what failed....only linemen and history records would know and help

Know what I am saying?

Actually, I keep a close eye on the lights in my neighboorhood. ESPECAILLY the mercs. That way, if one gets removed, I have a better chance of being there at the right time. Whenever I see a light in need of service, I fill out this form and they email me back with a response when they've sent a lineman out to fix it.

yeah gotcha, its easy to track down your neighboring area...I do that too, but to really get the accuracy, you would have to look at every merc of National Grid....LOL! I have never personally found a failed recently lamped MV, but I have been told and gotten lamps from elsewhere in this power territory and said it was worse than Philips or whatever.....if you know what I am saying here...

I know what you're sayin'... National Grid is a huge company though. They own distribution lines from NY all the way to NH! Not continuous, just areas between those states. They feed all of Rhode Island, although they're not the only utility. Pascoag Electric is the utility up in NW RI. They're fed by NGrid lines though. And Block Island's utility is Block Island electric, which is also fed by NGrid lines that run under water from Narragansett Bay to the island town. Pascoag Electric is the only area in RI where you'll find DuraStars and 115. They also install OVH and OVZ. Pascoag Electric is also the only area that has almost NO GE cobraheads or floodlights! There may be some that I don't know about though.... There are still 400w mercs in the system, but if I report them, i can almost garentee you that a 250w HPS M-250R2 or a 400w HPS M-400 will take its place. If I were to report a 100w merc or 175w merc, it would usually get relamped though.

PEPCO actually owns 3 companies....one in PEPCO in MD, one in Delaware/MD called Delmarva, and finally in New Jersey called Atlantic City Power!

For PEPCO the current newest fixtures are ALL FCO and some exception with drop lens, no floods used for private area lighting, only POWER BRACKETS Current fixtures are AE 115 FCO! Single guy line arms and rarely double guy arms are used....

For Delmarva, its SAG LENS currently using AE 115s, they do provide floods and newest arms are tapered elliptical!

For Atlantic City Power, seems to be the same as Delmarva. But for all above the older setups were all different......

Here National Grid is all about GE. They install drop lens M-250R2 in 50, 100, and 250w HPS ONLY. They install drop lens M-400 in 400w HPS ONLY. They also install GE PF-400 powerfloods in 250 and 400w HPS.

I've seen a OVZ with a clearMV that got too dim after years of service and got a coated MV, it failed a week later! Then was out for a month and they relampmed with a mother DX mercury and its working fine over an month

OVZ with a cleartop? Were OVZs even around long enough to have cleartops?!

I think he said it was a clear MV not a clear top.

I swear it said clear top. I sence someone pressed the edit button.

Can't be me I don't leave typos when I comment.

Who said it was you eh?

Yeah I said clear MV :p and didn't edit anything

@Joe THANK YOU! excactly fearfully ugly!

An OVZ could have a cleartop. xD Like if they had a NOS lamp and they put it in the fixture. Not impossible. xD

Lots of the MV in Bailey has failed a lot, I have seen many fixtures with burned out lamps, they keep replacing them, and the fixtures too with new Merc fixtures and they work again. Even with some older lights! They replace all the lamps with clear ones though, not coated.

@ Aaron; okay, I must just really want a cleartop lol.
NGrid uses coated GE ED-shaped MV lamps here. I'll have to check more closely at the M-250A2 FCO here to see if there are any BT mercs from when Narragansett Electric was still in the business. i've noticed a lot of the A2s have been going dayburner recently. I'm sure I've told you how they are at fixing dayburners.