If you ship UPS, be warned, they do a 'Drop Test' on every shipment!
Max.

A fellow I worked with had previously worked at a shipper. He said that packages marked "fragile" were thrown underhand.

 

Metal-halide and Na vapor lamps explode all the time! As do the execrable JVC & Sony '4K' series projection lamps!

HP So it's lots of light, high velocity debris, fire and long term contamination? - Sotra like an H-bomb? HP I say that makes smokey old open carbon arc seem nice!

 

My preference is reliability. I have found that running HPS bulbs 10% under rating results in a lifetime I can't measure yet. They have been up those 20 foot poles for 20 years and still haven't failed./

 

My preference is reliability. I have found that running HPS bulbs 10% under rating results in a lifetime I can't measure yet. They have been up those 20 foot poles for 20 years and still haven't failed./

#12 I say reliability is good! But I just can't take that Na spectra

 

#12 I say reliability is good! But I just can't take that Na spectra

A little imagination, please. You can run any color you want with higher reliability if you run it a few percent below its rating.

 

A little imagination, please. You can run any color you want with higher reliability if you run it a few percent below its rating.

#12 That's really interesting When I tried to run Hg HIDs under powered they flickered after warm up cuz of arc _dancing_ around on electrodes So does that mean I was below 90%? It's worth experimenting with cuz bulbs are harder to find every year

 

It's worth experimenting with cuz bulbs are harder to find every year

Agreed! If under-powering is workable for Hg-vapour 'twould be a good deal indeed considering their scarcity...

Optimistically
HP

 

It's worth experimenting with cuz bulbs are harder to find every year

Which bulbs are harder to find? What style, what wattage?

My #1 issue with HID lighting around here is the ballast capacitors going out.

 

Which bulbs are harder to find? What style, what wattage?

Thanks to (US) 'nanny state' regulations - it seems all Hg vapour HIDs are being phased out -- New ballasts haven't been available for years and it seems the bulbs are down to 'stock'

FWIW my preference are the clear (i.e. 'uncorrected') 175W, 400W and 1500W Hg vapour HID lamps...

Best regards
HP

 

Is there a special application you have for those bulbs in the clear design?

Over the years as the old MV bulbs go bad around here I just switch them over to Metal Halides. 200 watt MH's for the 175 MV's and 400's MH's for the old 400's MV's. 1000 watt MH is the biggest I work with here.

 

Is there a special application you have for those bulbs in the clear design?

Over the years as the old MV bulbs go bad around here I just switch them over to Metal Halides. 200 watt MH's for the 175 MV's and 400's MH's for the old 400's MV's. 1000 watt MH is the biggest I work with here.

Speaking for myself, it's merely personal preference -- I far prefer the comparatively 'narrow' short-wavelength Hg-Vapour spectra to that of any 'flavour' of metal halide lamp I've seen...

Very best regards
HP

 

So does that mean I was below 90%?

I can't know the answer to that. Hg and Na lamps work under the same principle...gas discharge.
I can't see a problem with that. Just lower the line voltage to 108 and you should be home free.
Or at least free of replacing bulbs for many a year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-vapor_lamp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-vapor_lamp

 

I can't know the answer to that. Hg and Na lamps work under the same principle...gas discharge.
I can't see a problem with that. Just lower the line voltage to 108 and you should be home free.
Or at least free of replacing bulbs for many a year.

Resizing your ballast capacitor does it better being many of those HID ballasts are designed to be constant wattage units which will not see an appreciable lamp wattage drop until the input voltage is reduced by 20% or more.

I've had the real pocketbook version of this for nearly 20 years now, even the notes section's full of my cheats, and it's well worth the read. (the whole booklet not just my cheats section)
http://media.hydroponics.net/productdocs/HID_Pocket_Guide.pdf

Personally I more apt to overdrive my HID bulbs 10% or more by up sizing my ballast capacitor. I like the nice bright white light a slightly overdriven 4200K MH give off!

 

many of those HID ballasts are designed to be constant wattage units

I've been working with small, cheap ballasts. 70 watts or less. A buck transformer takes my local over-voltage problem from 8.7% high to 10% low and makes a huge difference in lifespan, like 20 years instead of 3 years.
Way cool, if that's your goal.

 

I've been working with small, cheap ballasts. 70 watts or less. A buck transformer takes my local over-voltage problem from 8.7% high to 10% low and makes a huge difference in lifespan, like 20 years instead of 3 years.
Way cool, if that's your goal.

If it works for you andthe ballast yo uhave that good.

The problem I saw first hand some years ago with underdriving ballasts was at the Surplus store my buddies with the scrap yard had. They had the whole sotre done up in 400 watt MV lighting with 277 VAC rate ballasts running on 240 VAC feeds. The electrician who put them in 20 years before I got to know the guys had the claim that it would substantially increase the lamp life while reducing power consumption so that ws what was done.

At some point the ended up with about 400 good used 400 watt MH fixtures and being about the 1/3 of the 50 or so light in the store were permanently out they had me rebuild the fixtures and install them.

First day they weer all up and running the gals who worked there complained that they were too bright because the new clean white light showed every speck of dust everywhere.
The guys first thought was just how much more power that lighting conversion was going cost them due the obviously substantial improvement in light output. Surprising to all of use their monthly power bill dropped ~$400!

For about 5 years after that the grouchy ol' man asked me how that worked that it could make the store that much brighter yet cut the light bill by almost half. It just didn't make sense to him but he liked it!

Down side was it cost them about 4 - 5 bulbs and a ballast a year Vs 1 a year but they were high hour take out from some industrial plant they picked up for scrap price anyway.

Their the same units I use for ballast donors for rebuilding lights for here at home.

 

My #1 issue with HID lighting around here is the ballast capacitors going out.

Tcmtech my 175w hid ballasts don't use caps they're just autotransformer with magnetic shut for current limiting. I say there'd be more incentive for PFC if hydro charged for reactive power! I always wondered why they don't

 

Tcmtech my 175w hid ballasts don't use caps they're just autotransformer with magnetic shut for current limiting. I say there'd be more incentive for PFC if hydro charged for reactive power! I always wondered why they don't

Yea the cheap ones don't have capacitors on them. I've scrapped a few hundred in my life now.

On the better ones like I use they are not just for PF correction but part of a ferroresonant autotransformer circuit that keeps the lamp wattage input fairly stable over a wide input voltage range. By changing the capacitors value the ballasts output wattage can be varied hence my earlier comments on just change the capacitor to a smaller value one to reduce the lamp wattage opposed to trying to change it by reducing the line voltage which as I came to see with many of those constant wattage type ballasts reducing line voltage far enough to reduce lamp wattage does not proportionally reduce the actual ballasts input wattage.

On many, reducing the input voltage far enough to say reduce a 400 watt HID bulbs running wattage down to 350 watts may push the input amps plus resulting ballast I/R losses high enough that the ballast may be actually running at a higher input wattage than it used in its correct input voltage range so a 400 watt HID ballast that was using 425 watts and 450 VA may be running at 450 watts and 550+ VA while the lamp wattage is only 350 watts.

So sure your bulb lasts 5X longer but to do so in that run time you burned up way more money on wasted electricity than what you would have spent on just putting in a new bulb every few years.

So say you're being cheap on bulbs like #12 and you get 20 years of run time from a 400 watt yard light that averages 12 hours a day use over that time. In proper operating mode that 400 watt bulb and ballast burns ~37,230 KWH over 20 years.

In cheap bastard mode using the input voltage reduction method to reduce the lap output he burned 39,420 KWH costing him and extra 2190 KWH of electricity worth say 8 cents a KWH average over the 20 years worth $175 in order to keep from having to change out a $100 in light bulbs plus his yard was less well lit the whole time.

However had a constant wattage ballast and changed out the capacitor to get the bulb down to 350 watts his input watts and VA both would have proportionally went down, say 370 watts and 400 VA, thus in his 20 year run time saved himself 4818 KWH or around $385 in electricity plus the $100 bulbs as well!

In theory anyway.

As for charging by reactive power that's simple. With enough capacitance the reactive power can be pushed positive thus if a person loaded up their systems with enough capacitance their VAH meter Vs KWH meter would run backwards despite very little actual true wattage have been used.
So as a power supplier how would you factor my electric bill if I had a 200 watt baseload and 40 KVA of positive PF baseload running 24/7?

Methinks I would be getting a big check from you every month instead of a small bill.

 

So say you're being cheap on bulbs like #12 and you get 20 years of run time from a 400 watt yard light that averages 12 hours a day use over that time. In proper operating mode that 400 watt bulb and ballast burns ~37,230 KWH over 20 years.

In cheap bastard mode using the input voltage reduction method to reduce the lap output he burned 39,420 KWH costing him and extra 2190 KWH of electricity worth say 8 cents a KWH average over the 20 years worth $175 in order to keep from having to change out a $100 in light bulbs plus his yard was less well lit the whole time.

Sir, you are mistaken. The ballasts I have are simple inductors, nothing but a coil on an iron core. Two wires. No taps, no capacitors.
For instance, lamp is designed for 1.3 amps at 115 volts.
115V/1.3A = 88.46 ohms of Xl
L = 235 mH.
That's what I found in the box.
Just an inductor and an ignitor.
I am almost insulted that you might think I didn't measure/verify the current or I can't figure out that the Xl in these boxes is exactly right for the design current at the design voltage and frequency. There's nothing to it. A coil and a light bulb. I can actually figure that out.

 

See what happens when not enough info is presented?

I had no way of knowing what form of ballast you have so I went with the assumption that you have the ones like I have and went from there.

You know full well I, like you, make my guesses on what is most familiar and common to me when limited information is presented.

No insult intended.

 

If it works for you andthe ballast yo uhave that good.

The guys first thought was just how much more power that lighting conversion was going cost them due the obviously substantial improvement in light output. Surprising to all of use their monthly power bill dropped ~$400!

Saving 400$ a month was that in California, I lived there for a bit a and the power bills where crazy.