Introducing Vince Electric on Gallery of Lights!

[Vince]

Some of you may know, I had a time back on LG where I was drawing a lot of etches. I was told that it could be better with my own company name. That's what I did, I created the Vince Electric Lighting Company. At first it was only to create etches, but it ended up going much farther. I created quite a lot of sticker for future products. I plan to make lamps, ballasts, fixtures.


Here's a dual-lamp F20 preheat ballast I plan to make one day.

[Medved]

I think such ballast would not reliably work, lamps you mentioned are designed for too different currents (0.22 to 0.37A is too wide spread for one common ballast)

[A_lights]

I really like the idea, can I be an employee? and this would be great, we could sell mercury vapor ballasts to the Lighting community, and the possibilities are endless, i would like to make some ballasts like the Motorola ones.

[Jace the Gull]

I think this is kinda pretty cute here...but I actually hope you actually start a company like that!

Now making MV will get us ARRESTED! 

[Vince]

I think...before getting arrested, we'll pay a BIG BIG fine, like 100,000 US$, say 10,000US$ 

You know, one day I'd sell some of my products, I'd produce ballasts and lamps in small quantities and sell them at a great price, just for the fun of it!

Also, I'm working hardly on a carbon arc fixture with a regulation system based on this . I currently take apart an old audio system's transformer and will convert it to a big current-limiting choke. After I should build the regulation system. I can't wait to show the finished fixture!!

[A_lights]

I think we could call the  MV ballasts:, "HID plus life ballasts" or something,"for use with the 50,000HRS+ HID system" "backed by the 10+ year warranty system"

[Medved]

I think we could call the  MV ballasts:, "HID plus life ballasts" or something,"for use with the 50,000HRS+ HID system" "backed by the 10+ year warranty system"

I would like to see high pressure merc having more then 70% of it's initial output after 50000hours... To not overrate merc's life - most of them are not usable after 3 years (12000 hours) due to lumen depression. The fact, then they still emit some light does not mean they are working light source. When the installation does not meet it's specification, it is NOT WORKING, regardless of cycling, fully dead or only dimmed out fixtures, all three are equally dangerous.

[A_lights]

I think we could call the  MV ballasts:, "HID plus life ballasts" or something,"for use with the 50,000HRS+ HID system" "backed by the 10+ year warranty system"

I would like to see high pressure merc having more then 70% of it's initial output after 50000hours... To not overrate merc's life - most of them are not usable after 3 years (12000 hours) due to lumen depression. The fact, then they still emit some light does not mean they are working light source. When the installation does not meet it's specification, it is NOT WORKING, regardless of cycling, fully dead or only dimmed out fixtures, all three are equally dangerous.

Lumen depreciation would not be a problem with the lifeguard features, until 60,000 Hrs or so. Then the ballast could be designed to shut off.

[Vince]

It's pretty hard to design a mercury ballast that would shut off at end of life because the voltage in a mercury lamp doesn't rise up too much throught its life.

[FGS]

A timer on it mebbe?

[Jace the Gull]

I have actually figured and thought of few ways to do EOL.....such as temperature detection, lumen sensor....when MV gets dimmer it actually gets hotter...so if there was a combo of lumen and temp sensor to see when its "ready" for EOL and "Resets the streetlight" until new lamp is installed

[Medved]

Lumen depreciation would not be a problem with the lifeguard features, until 60,000 Hrs or so. Then the ballast could be designed to shut off.

Lifeguard increased the life to the ~20000 hour level, otherwise it was about half - counting for limit 70% of initial lumens...

[Medved]

It's pretty hard to design a mercury ballast that would shut off at end of life because the voltage in a mercury lamp doesn't rise up too much throught its life.

More useful would be lumen feedback regulating lamp power for given light output - it is not necessary to spend full rated power, when the fresh lamp would give 40% more lumens then needed:
Assume you want to use 175W MV/DX. Let say such lamp has 10000lumens at full power when new, but 7000lumens at EOL, so lighting installation would be designed for 7000lumen/lamp. In such installation brighter lamp has no added value (but dimmer lamp mean "not working", as the required illumination would not be met)
So the ballast would be set to regulate 7000lumens/lamp. When the lamp is fresh, ~125W would suffice. As the lamp age, it will loosen it's efficacy, so the ballast would accordingly increase the power to keep the required 7000lm level. At the lamp EOL the ballast would reach 175W power level and at this point set a "Replace lamp immediatelly" flag (and in home yardblasters do not light next time to enforce the owner to replace the lamp). With such system the designed illumination level would be met exactly like with standard 175watter, but with ~15..20% energy usage reduction.
An improvement would be to control the illumination level by this system - as during e.g. full moon lumen requirements are lower, so the wattage might be reduced further - of course with some "minimum clamp"...

[Jace the Gull]

Lumen depreciation would not be a problem with the lifeguard features, until 60,000 Hrs or so. Then the ballast could be designed to shut off.

Lifeguard increased the life to the ~20000 hour level, otherwise it was about half - counting for limit 70% of initial lumens...

I have three MV lamps two /W and one /C Westies that was in service for ALMOST 40 years (38-39 years to be exact) and they are a lot brighter than my Philips MV from 1992 and many of my well used 1997 MV lamps!!!!