Re: standard current for FL/HID bulb


<phil-news-nospam@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e2eeh90247e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:05:21 -0400 Victor Roberts
<xxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
| On 20 Apr 2006 17:25:41 GMT, phil-news-nospam@xxxxxxxx
| wrote:
|
|>Since it seems that any ballast designed for a specific bulb type can
|>be used, there is a standard current level, and standard start voltage,
|>for each of the types. I'm looking for a table that would list the
|>various types (type class (e.g. FL, HPS, LPS, MH, MV, etc), type coding,
|>wattage, dimensions) and the current that type is supposed to operate
at.
|>If I were making my own ballast for a given bulb type, what would be the
|>electrical parameters to design for.
|
| We have discussed this a number of times. There are various
| lamp specification documents available at www.nema.org. many
| are free but some are not. For CFLs you want ANSI C78.4 and
| C78.901. For linear fluorescent lamps, ANSI 78.81. For HPS
| lamps, ANSI C78.42. There are separate specs for MH lamps
| of each power rating.

I'm sure in the work you do, you need those full standards that detail
everything. All that I'm looking for is a basic table of information.
I don't want ANSI specs. A summary of just the basics is all. For
example, what is the current of a 150 watt HPS lamp. And what is the
minimum voltage it can operate on. Same for other wattages of other
types of bulbs. I'm not interested in exotic bulbs, just the common
ones used for indoor and outdoor illumination.

I've looked at product offerings of bulbs and ballast for various HID
lamps. There appears to be basically one kind of ballast for any given
lamp technology and wattage. So it would seem the proper operating
current for a given technology/wattage is just one number. And there
are not that many different wattages. All this information for all HID
lights could apparently be put in one table on one page. Fluorescent
seems to be more complex due to a wider variety of bulb types and what
I call "sub technology" (e.g. bi-pin vs. mono-pin, instant start, etc).
But even so, it doesn't appear that there would be more than a page or
two for the major common fluorecent types one would see for general
illumination in a home or office.

If I bought _all_ the engineering standards documents that would provide
all the info (operating current, minimum voltage, maximum voltage of that
is a factor), how many total pages would I end up with, and how much would
that cost? I'm sure this basic information has been compiled somewhere.

--
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| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/
http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/
http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |

Well, you could ask the lamp manufacturer for the full lamp specification
sheet or the OEM package that the manufacturer put together when the lamp
was introduced so ballasts could be designed and manufacturered.

But, your comments indicate that you think a table of starting voltages and
operating currents are all that's needed to design a ballast. Not so. A
metal halide lamp, for example, won't start unless the starting waveform is
of a certain shape and those data can't be put in a table of peak or rms
values. HPS lamps are similar with respect to the required starting pulses.

But, the data that show up in the NEMA/ANSI and IEC publications are what
the industry agrees upon when a lamp is finally standarized, not what the
manufacturer necessarily publishes when the lamp is introduced.
Unfortunately, it is expensive; but I've seen what happens when a ballast
manufacturer doesn't have the whole package -- not a pretty sight.

Fluorescent lamps are just as complicated, by the way, particularly when it
comes to starting and the development of the so-called "starting scenario"
which is increasingly being used in electronic ballast designs.

All of this assumes that you want the lamps to perform properly, not just to
light up in some haphazard fashion.

Terry McGowan


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: standard current for FL/HID bulb
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