How bad is 91W gear for an expensive 135W lamp? Testing SOX 135W on 91W, 135W and 135/180W ballast

We need to grow 1024 clones of Brainiac75 and provide them with comparable upbringings. In this way, we can at least double the amount of excellent Brainiac75 content on YT! May this $5 constitute a humble first-step towards this noble goal.

You paid $300? Holy moly! I have more than 20 of the 91W in storage.

As a Lightbulb/lamp enthusiast, collector, and someone who has spent many years researching and studying lamps, I admit watched with some trepidation because I already knew that a 135W SOX lamp on a 91W SOX ballast is not a good idea :) first of all I want to say for your L4135 Leak Transformer ballast please check/replace the 20uF 300V capacitor, the power factor should not be that bad, it should be around 0.9, so to me that indicates a degraded capacitor, and because the capacitor is part of the ballast circuit (its not just across incoming mains) it is is critical that you do have a functioning capacitor in the circuit or you will cook the ballast the reason the arc voltage of the 135W Lamp was so high on the 91W SOX-E ballast is because, the arc voltage of SOX lamp is highest when it is cold and the neon-argon penning mixture is still the main active component of the discharge, and since the 135W SOX lamp never warms up fully, the buffer gas remains ionised, this is also quite bad for the lamp as the buffer gas can become absorbed into the glass of the arc tube (google SOX lamp argon cleanup and see the page on it from the most excellent lamptech website) if you probe the lamp voltage just after striking you will see its very high indeed (low pressure sodium lamps are interesting in this regard, since pretty much all other discharge lamps start out with a low arc voltage that then rises as it warms up) I would also recommend that in future tests you also measure the arc current of any discharge lamp under test, as often times the arc current is the most important value of a discharge lamp, it is what directly can damage the electrodes for example if it is wrong, this is another reason you want to avoid running a 135W SOX lamp on a 91W SOX-E ballast, since the 0.6A of a SOX-E 91W ballast, may lead to the cathodes of 0.9A 135W SOX lamp running cold and sputtering themsleves to an early death BTW on that note, the end blackening around the electrodes of your 135W SOX lamp is nothing to be concerned about, while it is true that over time the electrodes will sputter and darken the glass, Philips SOX lamps have blackened electrode ends from the factory, since they flash a getter from the electrodes to improve chemical purity of the arc tube atmosphere, its the same sort of getter thats also present in the outer bulb that helps maintain the insulating vacuum :) if you have any lightbulb related questions, feel free to ask, as per the start of my comment, I am a massive enthusiast of lightbulbs and have spent many years researching and studying them :)

Nothing like a million sodium lamps on the first snow of the year being reflected up into the clouds and back down again. I'll never forget that orange glow.

Oh good, they corrected their mistake by sending you the gear to make what you received into what you bought. That's wonderful.

No clue what this video was about really, but it perfectly filled the niche in my brain while I was feeling sad and needed my thoughts pre-made for a while

On that flicker with the 91w gear My bet is there's a region within the SOX lamp's warmup that requires a higher voltage to prevent the lamp self-extinguishing. If the ballast is incapable of supplying that voltage at the requested current it will cause the lamp to self-extinguish. As soon as this happens the igniter will try to start the lamp again, as the igniters monitor line voltage and look for the lamp extinguishing during startup or when running. Kind of like what happens with a spent high pressure sodium lamp but because SOX can be hot restruck, the igniter just kicks the lamp straight back on again. Definitely wouldn't recommend letting the lamp run like that because outside of the lower than required operating current and higher than recommended line voltage, the lamp will see additional stress from the reignition cycles. Both the excessive voltage with too little current and the regular reignition attempts will destroy the cathodes quite rapidly.

Everytime you drop a video it feels like chrismas

This video brought a tear to my eye! I recently had to move, and I had a bulb almost identical to that one, might have even been a 180, can't remember. It was sitting on a shelf, my gf moved it, several minutes later... It was in pieces on the floor...😭 I only paid $2 for it at a yard sale, but I had no way to run it... Then, I watch your video, and you said... They are expensive .. 😭😭 Oh well, at least now I know how to make them run! Thanks for the video. 👍

Another awesome vid!! Since Photonic is MIA again..........we need MOAR POWER till it pops!! 😳😆👍

Be aware that the lamp voltage is quite irrelevant. What is relevant, is the lamp current. If there's 3v less on the lamp, that might mean too high a current is flowing (they are negative resistance devices).

I miss photonicinduction.. Edit I forgot to type the rest 😂because he had all kinds of crazy lamps that he would test and pop. Great video as always

Thank you kindly for the flah lighting and beep warning, i really appreciate that as it would have been trouble for me so thank you, great video.

The light output is such a narrow band, but until they strike you get some lovely colours. 👍👍 fantastic video

nice video, very interesting ballast test.That sodium lamp is magnificent :3

2:20 My mum once ordered two red glass vases from eBay Kleinanzeigen and they arrived in a boc that was severely damaged right in the two spots where a "Brittle!" warning sticker had been placed. Luckily the seller anticipated that and packaged the vases so well they still didn't break on the way here. But I've never seen a package get treated soo badly that it opened on its own and had to be closed again by postal staff.

Awesome vid as usual :) Sox lamps are fantastic

My father had an electrical articles shop, I still have ballasts bigger than those, brand new

Hey, Brian!

Kinda funny how you and LTT both released a video about power supplies at the same time