How to kill HPS lamp

[elektro666tech]

Hello everyone
I'm new here, I'm from Poland, and I like lamps, and everything related with electrotechnic. Sorry for my mistakes, but my english is not very well.
In this topic I want to show you how to kill a HPS lamp 
You need E40 socket, a few ballasts (as bigger power it have then better), parallel ignitor for High Pressure lamps (parallel, it means that it has only two connectors), power supply wire, and of course a High Pressure Sodium lamp
Firstly, connect all your ballast in parallel, then connect them in series with HPS which you want to kill. Plug this into the AC power, and now take the ignitor, and connect it for a short time to the E40 socket connectors (be careful, firstly HV connector, then neutral connector, when disconnecting firstly disconnect neutral, then HV connector). After the lamp start immediately disconnect the ignitor, and now watch the horrible sodium lamp dying
Here is my video of this experiment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1BCi-AUMcs

I use for this experiment used Philips SON-T Pro 100W lamp.
If somebody want, I can post some pics of the lamp after killing, and if somebody does not know how to connect all of the equipment to kill the lamp I can post a circuit draving.

P.S. Be careful, lamp may explode !!

[Jace the Gull]

Hey welcome to GoL page! Your English is alright, in fact I know some members here who improved their English simply being in page with people who speaks English! No problem!

And I saw the video, wow! Great job on that! Did the arc tube explode or leak as I saw a blackening come on to the side very quickly.....

I could tell it was flashing 50 hz...am I right?

[A_lights]

very nice video, i am currently trying to kill a Lights of America (LOA)50W HPS lamp on a 100W MH ballast. It has worked fine. I think the sodium will just diffuse through the arc tube wall and deposit in the outer bulb which has no getter. and then it will be a high pressure mercury lamp, with a thin arctube.

[Medved]

@A_lights: Be aware not to kill the ballast - the US 50WHPS is about 0.8..1A lamp (i don't remember exactly and i do not want to search for exactly correct number now), the 100WMH is 1.2A ballast, so the lamp would not be overdriven as much, but the higher current due to low arc voltage (~50..60V) might overheat the ballast...

[A_lights]

@meved : The ballast was cool to the touch after several hours of running the lamp, though if i use a better quality 70W sylvania HPS then the ballast gets quite warm.

[Medved]

Then i guess you will not succeed to kill the lamp, at least not instantly... :-D

[Vince]

Welcome on GoL elektro666tech  I'm one of those who improved their english by talking on forums, so go ahead, you speak english very well already, actually better than me when I came on another lighting forum in 2007! LOL

I hope you use burnt out HPS lamps  It could be a funny way to have fun with burnt out lamps for a last time LOL. That is the kind of experiments I like to do in my free times.

[elektro666tech]

Of course, that it was burned out HPS lamp
The Arc Tube firstly leaked, and then exploded, I have photos of the arc tube, so I can post them here

@A_lights, you need more power Just give that HPS more power, and it will die I overpowered my HPS very much, ballast which are used to this experiment has summary power about 1,2 kiloWatts, and this power is enough to kill HPS very fast

Hey welcome to GoL page! Your English is alright, in fact I know some members here who improved their English simply being in page with people who speaks English! No problem!

And I saw the video, wow! Great job on that! Did the arc tube explode or leak as I saw a blackening come on to the side very quickly.....

I could tell it was flashing 50 hz...am I right?

GullWhis, the lamp didn't flashing 50Hz, it lights continunously before it die, this flashing on the video is caused by camera.

[gailgrove]

Wow I`ve never seen a HPS leak before, its cool 

[elektro666tech]

Now something more drastically.
Old, burned out HPS lamps killed on 1000W, 16A ballast
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hTNDAiquCM
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxBBbdJXvi8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NnKJ3fVtCo

Enjoy

[dor123]

One thing that i don't succeed to understand, is why severe overdriving a HPS lamp, causing the sodium inside the arctube to leak inside the outerbulb???
Also, why the arctube disconnected from the frame in several videos???

[Medved]

The arctube is designed to certain pressure and temperature. Overdriving increase both, so no wonder the material give up.
Note, then in normal HPS the tube wall is way closer to the arc core then e.g. in CMH, so if the arc load increase, it may easilly go above the material limit...

And why it disconnected? Because the high current does not overload only the arctube, but the thin interconnection elements as well. And as these are poorly cooled (there is hard vacuum in the outer) and are made from rather ordinary materials (and not the high melting point tungsten as main electrodes), they start to melt (or better say the electromigration cause them to crack)