Mercury lamp ban?!
I.N. Galidakis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_vapor_lamp
states that:
"Mercury vapor lamps will be banned in the EU in 2015. In the USA, ballasts and
fixtures were banned in 2008".
What is this? Is anybody on the other side of the Atlantic aware of this ban?
What "exactly" was banned and how was this ban implemented? How can one ban
"ballasts and fixtures" without banning the lamps as well? Did you guys stop
seeing HPM lights already?
Many thanks,
--
Ioannis
TKM
"I.N. Galidakis" <morp...@olympus.mons> wrote in message
news:1261075316.306212@athprx04...
The U.S. federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 prohibited the manufacture or
import of mercury vapor lamp ballasts after January 1, 2008. There are no
restrictions on luminaires or lamps although there is now talk of regulating
mercury lamps at some point.
Mercury lighting systems are typically old and being replaced with something
more efficient anyway, so I haven't heard of any particular objections to
the ballast ban. From a practical standpoint, there are many mercury street
and area lights in use and these are starting to disappear -- usually
one-by-one. In this area, northern Ohio, the electric utilities seem to be
replacing mercury luminaires with HPS luminaires as the ballasts fail or the
luminaires are damaged.
What is puzzling, however, is that the prohibition does not seem to have
affected the electronic ballasts used for the small high pressure mercury
lamps used in computer/video projectors. I've read the legislative language
and it is very simple with no exceptions for any mercury lamp ballast types.
Perhaps someone knows of a later modification to the requirements.
Terry McGowan
Don Klipstein
>
>"I.N. Galidakis" <morp...@olympus.mons> wrote in message
>news:1261075316.306212@athprx04...
>> Wiki's article on Mercury Lamp:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_vapor_lamp
>>
>> states that:
>>
>> "Mercury vapor lamps will be banned in the EU in 2015. In the USA,
>> ballasts and
>> fixtures were banned in 2008".
>>
>> What is this? Is anybody on the other side of the Atlantic aware of this
>> ban?
>> What "exactly" was banned and how was this ban implemented? How can one
>> ban
>> "ballasts and fixtures" without banning the lamps as well? Did you guys
>> stop
>> seeing HPM lights already?
>>
>> Many thanks,
>
>import of mercury vapor lamp ballasts after January 1, 2008. There are no
>restrictions on luminaires or lamps although there is now talk of regulating
>mercury lamps at some point.
>
>Mercury lighting systems are typically old and being replaced with something
>more efficient anyway, so I haven't heard of any particular objections to
>the ballast ban. From a practical standpoint, there are many mercury street
>and area lights in use and these are starting to disappear -- usually
>one-by-one. In this area, northern Ohio, the electric utilities seem to be
>replacing mercury luminaires with HPS luminaires as the ballasts fail or the
>luminaires are damaged.
>
>What is puzzling, however, is that the prohibition does not seem to have
>affected the electronic ballasts used for the small high pressure mercury
>lamps used in computer/video projectors. I've read the legislative language
>and it is very simple with no exceptions for any mercury lamp ballast types.
>Perhaps someone knows of a later modification to the requirements.
One issue that comes to my mind is that there are MH ballasts that are
endorsed for running MV lamps, with exception of the H34 MV appearing to
me to not have any MH ballasts available to it.
Another is that I thought the lamps used in projectors were specialty
metal halide lamps. Many have fairly mercury-like color and mercury-like
spectrum as far as I can see with a prismatic region in the upper-left
corner of my lefteyeglass lens. However, the projection results appear to
me to do reds better than I though mercury alone can do.
I suspect that small lamps that are or are close to being truly short
arc have extreme power density (in watts per cubic millimeter or watts per
milligram of mercury vapor in the arc) as well as very high mercury vapor
pressure (and higher ratio of mercury to additives), and my guess is that
this combination gets the mercury to radiate very strongly even with
additives present.
- Don Klipstein (d...@misty.com)
I.N. Galidakis
[snip]
> One issue that comes to my mind is that there are MH ballasts that are
> endorsed for running MV lamps, with exception of the H34 MV appearing to
> me to not have any MH ballasts available to it.
>
> Another is that I thought the lamps used in projectors were specialty
> metal halide lamps. Many have fairly mercury-like color and mercury-like
> spectrum as far as I can see with a prismatic region in the upper-left
> corner of my lefteyeglass lens. However, the projection results appear to
> me to do reds better than I though mercury alone can do.
>
> I suspect that small lamps that are or are close to being truly short
> arc have extreme power density (in watts per cubic millimeter or watts per
> milligram of mercury vapor in the arc) as well as very high mercury vapor
> pressure (and higher ratio of mercury to additives), and my guess is that
> this combination gets the mercury to radiate very strongly even with
> additives present.
I've worked with large Bell & Howell projectors when I was at the U of I as a
student and some of the larger projectors used such bulbs.
They are indeed super-high pressure capillary MH lamps with an integrated
dichroic reflector. They had really short lifetimes and although their CCT for
new ones was in the vicinity of 5500-6000K, near end of life it degraded to
around 3000K.
Their ballasts were bulky and large, since the lamps operated on regulated DC,
similar to high pressure xenon lamps, so maybe the ban doesn't apply to these.
> - Don Klipstein (d...@misty.com)
--
Ioannis
TKM
"Don Klipstein" <d...@manx.misty.com> wrote in message
news:slrnhilpk...@manx.misty.com...
There may well be some metal halide lamps in video projectors, but I checked
one projector that I use frequently and which is less than two years old.
It uses a "UHP" lamp which is described as mercury arc lamp developed by
Philips in 1995 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHP_(lamp) . Another
article said the lamp operated at 200 atmospheres which explains the
impressive enclosure and protection hardware.
It gives plenty of light, but I'm not pleased with the color. It lacks red,
especially deep red. Slides that I've converted to digital images are dull
compared to the way they look on computer screens.
Terry McGowan
Victor Roberts
As Terry has pointed out, the most common projector lamp
used today is a very high pressure mercury lamp patented by
Philips and selling as their UHP lamp. The Philips patent
covers lamps that operate at 200 Bar or greater Hg pressure.
The lamps also contain very small amounts of halogens to
clean tungsten from the walls, but the light is all
generated by the Hg. See US 5,109,181.
Similar projection lamps made by other companies are either
made under license from Philips, or operate outside the
range of parameters claimed by the patent.
--
Vic Roberts
http://www.RobertsResearchInc.com
http://www.cflfacts.com
To reply via e-mail:
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site without written permission.
I.N. Galidakis
[snip]
> As Terry has pointed out, the most common projector lamp
> used today is a very high pressure mercury lamp patented by
> Philips and selling as their UHP lamp. The Philips patent
> covers lamps that operate at 200 Bar or greater Hg pressure.
> The lamps also contain very small amounts of halogens to
> clean tungsten from the walls, but the light is all
> generated by the Hg. See US 5,109,181.
The super-high pressure projector lamps on the Bell & Howell projectors I
mentioned on my other post, were actually MH lamps and their spectrum was not
that of mercury alone, as far as I can remember.
It was a spectrum typical of mercury and halides in very super-high pressure. If
I had to compare it to something, I'd say it was very close to that of the
sulfur lamp. But the halides definitely participated in the discharge for light
purposes.
[snip]
--
Ioannis
Victor Roberts
wrote:
Terry,
I think the reason why ballasts for high pressure mercury
projection lamps are exempt from the ban is that EPACT 2005
is a revision to EPACT 2003, and EPACT 2003 excludes from
regulation those lamps that meet the following definition:
"the lamp is designed for special applications and is
unlikely to be used in general purpose applications."
Victor Roberts
wrote:
Is it possible that your opinion about the lack of red is
based on observation of the wannabe UHP lamps instead of the
real thing? These must operate to lower pressure or power
loading and therefore would not produce as much red light?
TKM
"Victor Roberts" <x...@lighting-research.com> wrote in message
news:97dsi5ph1diujtkae...@4ax.com...
Good sleuthing, Vic! No doubt you are correct. There has to be an
exemption someplace since this is one law that, at least from the lighting
standpoint, is quite clear (and even brief).
The video projector that I have now replaced an older H-P model, but both
used a similar lamp. If it wasn't an UHP, it was a close relative and both
projectors rendered deep reds very poorly.
I've put an SPD of the UHP lamp compared to a xenon lamp at:
https://www.yousendit.com/download/MVNkanZqY1NZY1RIRGc9PQ The region from
625-700 nm. is the problem.
Terry McGowan
I.N. Galidakis
[snip]
> Good sleuthing, Vic! No doubt you are correct. There has to be an
> exemption someplace since this is one law that, at least from the lighting
> standpoint, is quite clear (and even brief).
>
> The video projector that I have now replaced an older H-P model, but both
> used a similar lamp. If it wasn't an UHP, it was a close relative and both
> projectors rendered deep reds very poorly.
>
> I've put an SPD of the UHP lamp compared to a xenon lamp at:
> https://www.yousendit.com/download/MVNkanZqY1NZY1RIRGc9PQ The region from
> 625-700 nm. is the problem.
Terry,
do you have the xenon spectrum data in binary form (i.e. in the form f(nm))? If
you do, I would like to have it to make some corrections to one of my documents.
Thanks,
> Terry McGowan
--
Ioannis
TKM
"I.N. Galidakis" <morp...@olympus.mons> wrote in message
Sorry Ioannis, I don't have the numerical data. I found the spectral
comparison on line in a presentation describing digital projector optical
systems.
Terry McGowan
Don Klipstein
Dog-gone it, now I gotta have my diffraction grating back in
every-day-carry use that I did a bit before, so as to see if I can
find an HID projector having a mercury-only lamp achieving "low but
usable" red spectral content, maybe due to 200 atmosphere mercury vapor
pressure?
As for how not affected by the ban, I speculate:
1. The ballasts may not be mercury-only, but also compatible with
available MH lamps along the lines of HMI, HTI, MSR, MXPL, maybe
even similar-wattage "general purpose" MH lamps, whatever.
2. The ban may have exemptions for various specified "specialty lamps" or
may be specific to "general purpose lamps" by some definition or another.
- Don Klipstein (d...@misty.com)
Don Klipstein
I had a look. All spikes appear to me to be from mercury, and the
greatest minor deviation that I see is how tall the roughly 405 nm spike
is - I would expect it to have less area under it that the 436 and 366 nm
ones. Overall, it appears to me to be mercury with some broadband content
that I cannot assign to any other element.
I consider the red content impressive for mercury, despite being "on the
low side".
- Don Klipstein (d...@misty.com)
TKM
Indeed, the red content from the UHP mercury lamp is impressive compared to
what we usually see in general lighting systems. My basis for comparison is
a Kodachrome slide projected onto a screen using a halogen light source and
I certainly admit that's a tough act to follow.
The broadband content that Don mentions is due, I believe, to spectral
broadening as a result of the high arc tube pressure.
Terry McGowan
Victor Roberts
wrote:
Not to be too nit picky, but the Philips patent for the UHP
claims that at 200 Bar (197 atmospheres) there is
considerable molecular continuum radiation in addition to
atomic line broadening.
Also, since the red contribution to the spectrum is created
as a result of the high pressure, and non-Philips lamps
cannot operate at the same pressure without infringing the
Philips patent, those non-Philips lamps may have less red
than the Philips UHP.
However, no discharge lamp will have as much red as a
tungsten lamp. It is my understanding that the UHP was
developed as a superior alternative to metal halide
projection lamps.
I.N. Galidakis
[snip]
> Indeed, the red content from the UHP mercury lamp is impressive compared to
> what we usually see in general lighting systems. My basis for comparison is
> a Kodachrome slide projected onto a screen using a halogen light source and
> I certainly admit that's a tough act to follow.
>
> The broadband content that Don mentions is due, I believe, to spectral
> broadening as a result of the high arc tube pressure.
J.D. Hooker seems to have this lamp online. The spectrum seems very similar to
that posted by Terry. Note significant pressure/thermal broadening.
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Spec%20Sheets/Philips%20UHP%20First.htm
> Terry McGowan
--
Ioannis