yeah lol. It would be like putting a 7W nightlight lamp in a household light with a medium to candelebra adapter. Just a faintly glowing mass lol

For sure.

Try a 4w nightlight bulb in this!

Just for you, of course, check the video section tomorrow !I will as soon as I wake up with a face shield and plenty of room. if i can find a 4 watt bulb. ?

i think an incandescent lamp would run normal because MV ballasts have a 130V OCV don't they? so the lamp would be getting about the 120V it needs.

Just because the ballast is 1000W doesn't mean the lamp is powered at 1000W. If you stick a 100W MV lamp on it, the CWA ballast will try to run the lamp properly, which is why it overheats, failing to do so but with incandescents, they are a resistive load so they will run normal as long as the incandescent is rated equal to or less than the ballast. Since MV ballasts have 130 OCV they will run a 120v incandescent normall (well slightly overdrive it but it will just appear slightly brighter). And on a 150W or less 55V HPS ballast, an incandecent will be driven at about half-power but you won't damage the ballast as long as you don't stick a higher wattage lamp than what the ballast is rated for.

I'm 15 years old going on 16, I'm not an engineer. I don't even want to be an engineer so what gives? "Professional lighting engineer" is what Jace has the forum programmed to say when you get over 1000 forum posts. It's not something I chose; i have no control over what that says. I'm sorry to hear about your mother passing but don't take it out on me. I really am sorry for your mom though.

I'm pretty sure a 100W MV would explode running on a 1KW ballast! Ive pulled some 175W MH lamps out of 400Wfixtures and the arctube was really bulged

Dave DeSantis already tried a Philips 50 watt HPS on a 1000 watt ballast, it went on and warmed up very quickly then it became very bluish green color and then blew up

Yep Jace is correct, and I suspect the same will happen to this hapless lamp if you lit it. A 1kw mercury ballast has an OCV of around 425v and while this is usually not enough to light an ignitorless HPS lamp, it can easily be done with a BBQ ignitor which ionizes the gases in the arc tube.

In some rare cases I've had pulse start MH lamps start up without the ignitor

I thought all MV ballasts have an OCV of 130V?

Actually about 250V which is the same as a pulse start MH ballast without ignitor
The 55V HPS ballasts have 120-130 OCV though

IIRC the higher wattage ballasts (700-1000w) have a OCV of 450v. There are 1kW merc lamps designed for a 240v OCV ballast but I think they were more commonly used in Europe.

Another oddball merc ballast are the ones designed for the Lo-Volt merc lamp. I believe those can run off of standard 120v OCV HPS ballasts.

Fast question on 1000 watt MV lamps. What's the difference between the H-36 and H-34 lamps?

It seems the H-34 lamps are uncommon and are rated for 16000 life hours comapred to H-36 which is rated for 24000+ hours like other MV lamps. Both have the same lumen rating and are BT56. I don't know the electrical specs behind them but on a Sylvania spec sheet it said they're NOT interchangable. Perhaps one has a lower OCV like Joe said? The H-36 lamp is likely the 450 OCV lamp and the H-34 is the 240 OCV lamp.

Yeah, the main difference between the two is the voltage and current they operate on. I'll dig up the specs of both when I get home.

H 34 runs at 130V 8 amps H36 265V 4 amps in the UK we have both types but H34 is most common here but H36 is used in 400V 3 phase systems H34 in 240V singal phase systems H36 lamp on a H34 ballast will cycle like a EOL HPS lamp H34 on a H36 ballast wont do much it will just stay dim but if its a choke ballast then u could risk over heating the ballast hope this helps clarafy things

How is the voltage different? Longer arc tube/higherpressure?

Capacitors stacked on the ballast like that means that it's a later "step door' version. I wonder why GE did that when the HPS version doesn't have that?

Haha...I have a remote ballast 1000w fixture, the GE Form 402, which is essentially a Form 400 with the socket recessed into the lengthened slipfitter so it can accommodate a BT56 lamp...but I've reduced the wattage to 175w using a mogul socket extender....I had even had a 100w lamp without the extender in it at one time, and it still produced a decent light distribution. With the proper ballasts...of course!