I have three of these: https://www.tanpassion.com/maxlight-hp-400-600w-d-flex.html

What is the best way to power all three from a 230V 50Hz wall socket?

 

400W metal halide lamp ballast and ignitor x3, plus a few microfarads of power factor correction.

 

400W metal halide lamp ballast and ignitor x3, plus a few microfarads of power factor correction.

Do I really need 3 ignitors? What would happen if I used 1 ignitor to ignite all three?

 

Do I really need 3 ignitors? What would happen if I used 1 ignitor to ignite all three?

Yes.
The ignitor connects between the ballast and the lamp.

 

The temporary short-time solution is to switch in series the appropriate power heater or owen. In the case of more glance is needed - apply the CC SMPS and Danyk.cz circuitry is not the worst for this aim. More prost is stack of long luminiscent lamps ballast bricks, if ordinary it are 40 or 65W then some 10-15 pcs parallely and voila! However sad praxis is that long lamps have about 130-150 V on the lamp thus only 70-90V on the ballast coil, then UV lamps have about 70V on the bulb thus 150 V on the coil - thus the coils are overheating heavily. Ultimate solution is to stack TWO coils in series (I mean EACH two) and then those 10-15 such duplets stack in parallel.

 

Yes.
The ignitor connects between the ballast and the lamp.

Which ignitors would you recommend I use? It says in the datasheet that the minimum ignition voltage peak is 3000V.

 

Which ignitors would you recommend I use? It says in the datasheet that the minimum ignition voltage peak is 3000V.

The ones sold as metal halide igniters.

 

1) most of high pressure Hg lamps are readily self-starting from ordinary grid 220V without of any care about igniter however taking some 15 minutes for warming up to full braightness. For that aim they have inner resistor creating slight warm-up of right places at most of pear-shaped lamps. Some other (sausage form-factor) lamps have thin metal strip along all body what ought be connected to contrary pole of voltage. Only for very-very-very rare lamps indeed the some initializing spark is needed indeed, then may use 1) to keep near any beta radioactive piece like toriated tungsten electrodes from TIG welding shop 2) to keep near any other UV source 3) to keep near the coil with strong RF field like 50 MHz 10 A 3 kV 4) to activate the any piezoelectric lighter near the colb; 5) to add any CC stabilized DC HV source as an example 3 kV 1 mA; 6) add a short pulse HV source - for example via 20K resistor and diode lade up the 1 uF capacitor. Those capacitor is feeding to high voltage dinistor (110-220 V) which feeds straightly the impulse transformer. Transformer may be used from CRT TV or DIY wound on average-small size ferrite ring.
Examples of both kind of lamps
https://st32.stpulscen.ru/images/product/121/874/159_big.jpg
https://blotos.ru/wp-content/uploads/d/3/0/d30bc7eed50115214900b57bf7d0abd8.jpg

 

Find initial post (user348759273406) picture - sure it is the same model, second of what I spoke about. Century long that was exploited without any HV. However, I noted the wording: tan-passion. Must warn it obviously will kill You if used for tanning, and very rapid. It must be used exclusively in closed space where no humans may catch a ray as it is rather strong viracide lamp (killing the viruses, be apart from baktericide just killing the bacilluses instead of viruses). My experience with 1 kW UV sources - just 1 sec long eyesight to it from 10 meter distance means two days long eye burning like after 1/2 hour looking into welding flame without of safety black-glasses. Keep a safety high!

By the way, 2 kW source for sure is making very rapid degradation of most plastics, textiles, rubber, wood. Degradation means de-colouring, surface powdering, volume loss of strength, deep cracks etc.

 

This one is a high pressure lamp derived from a metal-halide, which needs an ignitor. It also to minimise UVB and UVC, but you wouldn’t catch me anywhere near one -malignant melanoma is an unpleasant way to die.
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D MHS Philips HPA400S.htm

 

I have no idea what the UV-C output of those lamps is but since there are no specifications or part numbers I would be extremely reluctant to use them for anything involving exposure to eyes or skin. The whole project seems very scary to me from the electrical power to the output of the lamps.

 

This one is a high pressure lamp derived from a metal-halide, which needs an ignitor. It also to minimise UVB and UVC, but you wouldn’t catch me anywhere near one -malignant melanoma is an unpleasant way to die.
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D MHS Philips HPA400S.htm

Thanks for tracking that down. It does assuage some concerns, but:

The pressure is controlled in this lamp such that its output spectrum is a rich source of longwave UV-A radiation, which will quickly provide the desired suntanning effect without producing excessive quantities of the more dangerous UV-B and UV-C radiations.

(emphasis mine) This implies safety concerns with exposure times, distance to the tubes, etc. Without an engineered solution, I just don’t see having any confidence in exposure to these tubes. It would be (somewhat) different in an engineered tanning bed, but randomly wired together?