Vintage ARC discharge lamp demo

A few vintage arc lamps get powered up

[RandyDarkshade]

Interesting video. Thanks. :) I salvaged something similar when my town council moved location and they were clearing out their storage. Mine is a 70W fairly short, glows an orange sorta colour when heated up, common in street lights here in Britain until they started upgrading to LED. Interesting lamps.

[Bluethunderboom]

Mercury Vapor Lamp used to light up the streets though it don’t usually get a good lighting around the scenario, and by ideally it can be use as a outdoor lamps and indoor lamps for the parking lot, garage lamp, barn lamp, warehouse lamp, industrial and facility lamp, gymnasium lamp, and backyard lamp to shine down to the ground and floors to see the scenario. Speaking of the Mercury Vapor Lamp, it also they use for the Monochrome TV to get a video to see about the TV Shows, news, etc, and it was the early technology where they were stuck using the Monochrome TV between 1930’s and 2000’s, by the time when CRT is obsolete, they’re now using the LCD and LED TV.

High Pressure Sodium Lamp was a different story where they use both Mercury Vapor, and HPS together to combine into the Orange Light. Ideally it can be use as a street light at the interstate, parking lot, main roads, the tunnels, and for the underground to get a good lumens to see the scenario all around the area. GE along with Westing House made the HPS Lamp in probably in the 50’s where they’re trying to make the streetlight to go brighter and ever. HPS is one of the great lamps that you cannot walk away from that. And I’m not sure what type of ballast do they use to limit the current while supply the electricity to the lamp.

[wdavem]

Great video! I have one of those reptile lights, mine has a bi-metalic strip contact that shuts off the filament and you can see the arc get brighter right then. I've used it for video where the color doesn't matter but am wary of the UV. There's something about the mercury only look that I like, I want some of those but not for every day use. I want to see a video on those older xenon lights they had for car headlights, the ones with the super cold look. I used to work at a university and they were giving away the old mercury fixtures with then changed them and I'm kicking myself for not getting a few.

[olipito]

Really fascinating, and also thanks for the explanation!

[Crw]

A 400W metal halide is roughly equivalent to the old 1500W incandescent bulbs, I believe (around 33000 lumens?). I know that the 1500W metal halide bulbs (155000 lumens) have been the standard for sports field lighting for quite a while (since the early 80s at least).

[waynegram]

Can you make a video lesson about bi-metallic strip lamp bulbs? lamps #455 would have a bimetallic strip that when cold it would light and when hot is would open which would make the lamp flicker and have a time delay. Each company in the 60's GE, RCA, etc would have a different time delay of the bimetallic strip, so If you put in a different brand company using the same part number #455 they would all have a different time delay because each company brand would have a different bimetallic strip time delay. I'm not sure how it work but maybe you can explain it better?

[stingerbold]

i still using this same lamp 160w version

[kitz]

I've work a couple of metal halide lamp and the ballast we're sometimes called "igniter", don't know if it's right to call it igniter.

[Altamira-Arazz]

nice i have also low pressure sodium lamp

[tonycosgrove]

Nice lamps isn't Mercury lamps dangerous

[zxztv]

The 50 year old one makes everything we have now look like utter rubbish, modern lights really don't last very long.

I still think led lighting is crap for a long life, straight flourescent "Strip lamps" last quite a while unless you buy junk brands.
Our street lighting has been changed to led, the coverage is no where near as good.

[CliveChamberlain]

Wow! That thing can give you skin cancer at close range... Be careful. Do your eyes really need that much light? Maybe you should invest in a stereo-scope with a large working height (and top mount camera port).